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Right on cue, Maya showed up, gang in tow. They were able to rip through the crowd, in part because at first the culties didn’t seem to understand that the gang was enhanced as well.
Kate grabbed armfuls of Doomsday kids, four or five at a time, and hurled them out the exits. When she’d cleared a pathway through the crowd for us, she picked up two huge, lumbering guards and swung them upside down by their feet, one in each hand, while Nudge boxed their noses, dodging the rush of blood. With space cleared, we could use our wings again and attack from above.
Meanwhile, Ratchet seemed to sense every attacker coming his way, and, on top of that, seemed to be kicking it at some old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat. He had teamed up with Iggy, who was a natural spinning, whirling dealer of pain as he punched, kicked, and chopped his way through an onslaught of guards. They both looked pretty happy.
And Star, the blond girl, had hit on the biggest jackpot of all, sort of by accident. She was using her hummingbird speed to flit in circles around the guards, who looked so dizzy and confused that it was almost kind of pathetic.
But the key thing was that when she was zipping around, she was making this high-pitched noise—a supersped-up “Aiiyah!”—that seemed to crack the Doomsday code of brainwashing. The kids were covering their ears, but that sound, and some common sense, was getting through. Star had done for these kids in ten seconds what it had taken Angel hours of mind-coaxing to accomplish: They were… snapping out of it. And running for the exits.
Huh. Wish we’d figured that out sooner!
With the mob no longer singing Killmas carols, maybe we could wrap up this little party and make sure Gazzy and Angel were safe. Though with Fang there, of course they were. He wouldn’t have left them—
/> Right then, Ratchet signaled to us, and Dylan spied something I couldn’t quite see off to the side of the stage. His face twisted with rage as he pushed me out of the way.
“Look—” he started to say, then suddenly his voice cut out, and I saw him spin like a top. Blood started flowing to the ground, spurting like drops of rain.
75
“DYLAN!” I SCREAMED. I knelt down beside him, feeling pukey and fuzzy and like the wind had been knocked out of me. He was holding his arm (sigh of relief) tight, grimacing. Blood leaked out through his fingers.
“It’s fine,” Dylan said tersely. “Bullet went right through—bone seems okay.”
I didn’t even have a second to give him my best I’m-really-glad-you-didn’t-just-die-because-I-kind-of-like-you-more-than-I-thought look though, because—
“Max, watch out!” Dylan shouted and shoved me. Stage right, an older man with wild hair and plastic-like skin was firing a gun at us.
“Mark, no!” shouted Beth, the Queen of the Cult. Big of her.
The guy pushed the girl aside and aimed, and I dodged a bullet that came close enough to nick my feathers. I tried to drag Dylan out of the way, but the guy was still popping off as many shots as he could.
“Max, go! Don’t protect me!” Dylan yelled. “Go!”
Then, Holden, the little Fang gang kid, came out of nowhere with an apparent death wish. He raced directly toward the maniac with the gun shrieking something that sounded like “I am Starfishhh!”
Holden looked like Swiss cheese for a second as Mark used up the last of his ammo, but the holes on the kid’s arms closed up in seconds flat. This little daredevil had some serious chops, and by now most of the flock and the gang were closing in. The gunman, looking more than a little freaked out, ran offstage like a five-year-old girl.
I was still leaning over Dylan—the bullet hole was already healing, and he had some color back in his face—when someone cut in.
“Need a hand?” Fang asked. Dylan looked at the hand wearily, but took it, pulling himself up.
I raised an eyebrow at Fang.
He shrugged. “What? I’m trying to learn to be a team player.” Dylan actually smiled and, get this, fist-bumped my ex.
I nodded, a little dazed, and moved to the other side of the stage to herd out more of the confused former One Lighters.
It was actually kind of amazing to see two of the guys I cared most about in the world, different in so many ways, fighting together side by side. Fang covered Dylan’s weak side, and together they were doing some serious damage. We’ve come a long way, baby, I was musing, when suddenly a heavy weight hit me in the back.
Then two viselike hands clamped around my neck.
76
“YOU COULD HAVE ruled your own country!” Mark, the cowardly shooter, yelled into my ear. Lesson number one: megalomaniacs never give up when they should.
I tried to rise up on my hands and knees, but the guy was on my back and weighed a ton.
“Whoa!” I coughed, struggling to breathe. “What’d you get enhanced with—ham?”
