When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [102]
She desperately wanted to fly now, but a couple of helicopters were thundering above, crisscrossing over the dense patch of woods. She could hear their thudding roar, and occasionally saw one hovering above in the purplish-black night sky.
The helicopter door was wide open and she saw two men with rifles inside. Everybody was looking for her. The awful creeps.
Kit had called the news helicopter they’d seen near Denver the “good guys,” but Max was sure he didn’t mean the ones fluttering through the woods now. The men up there wanted her dead. She could see their guns. They were hunters, and she already knew how horrible it was to be shot.
No, they sure weren’t the “good guys.” They were the worst scum of the earth. Such cowards. Such rotten, stinking bums.
She hadn’t been this afraid since the beginning, since she was running away from the School with Matthew, before she had flown for the first time. She didn’t like being out here all alone again.
She missed her brother, Matthew, and Oz, Ic, the twins. She missed Kit and Frannie, too. She had trusted them—with her life. When she thought about the two of them, she felt something she had never experienced before. The feeling made her heart beat faster. It made her choke up, as if she were going to cry. She absolutely, positively, refused to cry now.
Max’s heart skipped a beat. A soldier was coming. Some kind of mean, nasty slug. He was down below her hideout.
He was wearing funny-looking goggles, and she thought she knew what they were. Night glasses, so he could see in the dark. Like a vampire.
She was so angry now. She wasn’t going to die like this! No way was she going to cooperate with that lousy plan of theirs!
Max flapped her wings fast and real hard at the last possible second. The soldier or guard raised his head to look.
“Geronimo, asshole!” she yelled.
Max dropped from the tree. It was almost a free fall.
Fwap!
Fwap! Fwap! Fwap!
Fwapfwapfwapfwapfwap!
Max hit the man like a large, falling rock. His goggles flew off his face. The big, bad rifle spun away, too. He lay on the ground out cold.
Now that was dumb! What’s that supposed to prove? she was thinking. That you’re just like him?
But she knew the answer from somewhere deep inside.
She could fight back!
She raised her arms into the air—raised her wings high, and she whispered real loud—”Yesssss! I can fight Them! ”
But then she heard the roaring thunder of approaching helicopters. She looked up. There was more than one. Now she wasn’t so sure.
Chapter 110
KIT HAD CUTS and lacerations and purplish bruises all over his face. His upper lip was split and leaking blood. His nose was bleeding, and probably broken at the bridge bone. He had been beaten up, really knocked around. He had been somebody’s punching bag and they’d had quite a workout.
“What happened to you? What happened, Kit?”
“I didn’t talk,” he was able to say. He tried to smile with his fat lip, and partly succeeded.
I sat down beside him on the bed. I wished I had a first-aid kit. I gently touched one of the bruises and he winced.
“I’m all right. I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve taken a few punches before.”
He was pissed off about the beating. He was like an animal that had been caged and mistreated. He was going to get even, somehow, and I loved his spirit. He never seemed to give up. He told me about his visit with Uncle Thomas. Then I told him what I had learned upstairs with Gillian.
Kit slid his arm around me. He moaned as he did. I leaned my head against his shoulder and we were quiet for a couple of minutes.
“I’ll never forget the first time I saw you,” Kit said against my cheek. I thought that he was smiling. I could hear it in his voice.
“When I was screaming at you to get off my property? To pack up and clear out? You said, ‘a deal is a deal.’”
Kit nodded. “I believe that. And also that a handshake’s a handshake. You struck me as brave, wise, adventurous, obstreperous as hell. Not to mention extremely beautiful.”
“Right I remember how glamorous I looked. I had blood and guts from a deer smeared all over my smock.