One side of his mouth moved: the Fang version of unbridled chortling.

He shrugged. “It’s a job.”

“Yep. So long as they don’t worry about pesky child labor laws,” I agreed. We’re an odd little band, my fellow flock members and I. Fang, Iggy, and I are all fourteen, give or take. So officially, technically, legally, we’re minors. But we’ve been living on our own for years, and regular child protection laws just don’t seem to apply to us. Come to think of it, many regular grown-up laws don’t seem to apply to us either.

Nudge is eleven, roughly. The Gasman is eightish. Angel is somewhere in the six range. I don’t know how old Total is, and frankly, what with the calculations of dog years into human years, I don’t care.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Angel dropped down onto me with all her forty-one pounds of feathery fun.

“Oof! What are you doing, goofball?” I exclaimed, dipping about a foot. Then I heard it: the high-pitched, all-too-familiar whine of a bullet streaking past my ear, close enough to knock some of my hair aside.

In the next second, Total yelped piercingly, spinning in midair, his small black wings flapping frantically. Angel’s quick instincts had saved my life. But Total had taken the hit.

2

IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE, I rolled a full 360, spinning in the air, swooping to catch Total and also performing evasive maneuvers that, sadly, I’ve had way too much practice doing.

“Scatter!” I shouted. “Get out of firing range!”

We all peeled away, our wings moving fast and powerfully, gaining altitude like rockets. I heard applause floating up to me – they thought this was part of the act. Then, I looked down at the limp black dog in my arms.

“Total!” I said, holding his chunky little body. “Total!”

He blinked and moaned. “I’m hit, Max. They got me. I guess I’m gonna live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse, huh?”

Okay. In my experience, if you’re really hit or seriously hurt, you don’t say much. Maybe a few bad words. Maybe grunting sounds. You don’t manage pithy quotes.

Quickly I shifted him this way and that, scanning for wounds. He had both ears, and his face was fine. I patted along his wings, which still looked too short to keep him aloft. Bright red blood stained my sleeve, but so far he seemed to be in one unperforated piece.

“Tell Akila,” Total gasped, eyelids fluttering, “tell her she’s always been the only one.” Akila is the Alaskan Malamute Total had fallen for back on the Wendy K., the boat where we lived with a bunch of scientists on our way to Antarctica.

“Shh,” I said. “I’m still looking for holes.”

“I don’t have many regrets,” Total rambled weakly. “True, I thought about a career in the theater, once our adventures waned. I know it’s just a crazy dream, but I always hoped for just one chance to play the Dane before I died.”

“Play the huh?” I said absently, feeling his ribs. Nothing broken. “Is that a game?”

Total moaned and closed his eyes.

Then I found it: the source of the blood, the place where he’d been shot.

“Total?” I said, and got a slight whimper. “You have a boo-boo on your tail.”

“What?” He opened his eyes and curled to peer at his short tail. He wagged it experimentally, outrage appearing on his face as he realized a tiny chunk of flesh was missing near the tip. “I’m hit! I’m bleeding! Those scoundrels will pay for this!”

“I think a Band-Aid is probably all you need.” I struggled to keep a straight face.

Fang swerved closer to me, big and supremely graceful, like a black panther with wings.

Oh, God. I’m so stupid. Forget I just said that.

“How’s he doing?” Fang asked, nodding at Total.

“He needs a Band-Aid,” I said. A look passed between me and Fang, full of suppressed humor, relief, understanding, love -

Forget I said that too. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

“Got your sniper,” Fang went on, pointing downward.

I shifted into battle mode. “One sniper or a whole flotilla of baddies?”

“Only see the one.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So, what, we’re not worth a whole flotilla anymore?” I looked down at Total. “Wings out, spud. You gotta fly on your own.”

Total gathered himself with dignity, extended his wings, and jumped awkwardly out of my arms. He flapped frantically, then with more confidence, and rose to keep up with us.

“What’s up?” Iggy had coasted on an updraft for a while, but now he and the others were forming a bird-kid sandwich around me.

“Total’s okay,” I reported. “One sniper below. Now we gotta go take him out.”

Angel’s pure-white wing brushed against me. She gave me a sweet smile that melted my heart, and I tried to remember that this kid had many layers, not all of them made of gumdrops and roses.

“Thanks, lamby,” I said, and she grinned.

“I felt something bad about to happen,” she explained. “Can we go get that guy now?”

“Let’s do it,” I said, and we angled ourselves downward. Among the many genetic enhancements we sport, the mad scientists who created us had thoughtfully included raptor vision. I raked the land below, almost a mile down, and traced the area where Fang pointed.

I saw him: a lone guy in the window of a building close to the air base. He was tracking us, and we began our evasive actions, dropping suddenly, swerving, angling different ways, trying to be as unpredictable as possible. We’re fairly good at being unpredictable.

“Mass zoom?” Fang asked, and I nodded.

“Ig, mass zoom, angle down about thirty-five degrees. Then aim for six o’clock,” I instructed. And why was I only giving Iggy instructions? Because Iggy’s the only blind one, that’s why.

We were moving fast, really fast, dropping at a trajectory that would smash us into the sniper’s window in about eight seconds. We’d practiced racing feet-first through open windows a thousand times, one right after the other, bam bam bam. So this was more of a fun challenge than a scary, death-defying act of desperation.

The two things often look very similar in our world.

Seven, six, five, I counted silently.

When I got to four, the window exploded outward, knocking me head over heels.

3

THREE DAYS LATER…

Here, in no particular order, is a massively incomplete list of things that make me twitchy:

1) Being indoors, almost anywhere

2) Places with no easy exits

3) People who promise me tons of “benefits” and assume that I don’t see right through the crapola to the stark truth that actually they want me to do a bunch of stuff for them

4) Being dressed up

So it won’t take a lot of imagination on your part to guess how I reacted to our appointment at a Hollywood talent agency.

“Come in, guys,” said the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen. She flashed glowing white teeth and tossed back her perfect, auburn hair as she ushered us through the heavy wooden door. “I’m Sharon. Welcome!”

I could see her trying to avoid looking at our various bruises, scrapes, and cuts. Well, if you’re six feet away from a building when it explodes at you, you’re gonna get a little banged up. Fact of life.

We were in a big office building in Hollywood. If you’ve been keeping up with our nutty, action-packed shenanigans, you’ll remember how many incredibly bad experiences we’ve had inside office buildings. They’re pretty much my least favorite place to be, right after dungeons and hospitals, but before dog crates and science labs. Call me quirky.

A member of the CSM had a friend who had a friend who had a cousin who was married to someone who knew someone at this huge, important Hollywood talent agency and volunteered us for an interview, without asking us. The CSM thought we spokesbirds were doing a bang-up job of getting their message out. Emphasis on bang, given the suicide sniper. But more on that later.