ANON ALLOY; PROJECT ABSTRACT.

These kids don't have to care about distance or boundaries.

Danger comes in my forms. Just like them.

The angels once landed, the angels I once found,

Beings who could ascend above with soft feathered sound

Never, like me, to be trapped upon this human ground.

I always knew I'd release their hands,

Let them take wing as their birthright demands,

With a bitter tear, watch their departure from these lands.

Be free like the birds that rule the sky,

Leave me behind and soar up high.

Fly my angel children, fly.

With eyes gazing down far below,

Never would my angel children know,

Would it be safe to ever come home.

"Fly my angel children, fly."

H

i; you in the front who picked up this jumble of words and just started reading. Hi. Just the fact that you're reading this means that you, yes you, have made it another step towards living to a decent old age and living your dreams. I'm going to ask you to do one thing. Don't, repeat: DON'T, put this book down. Seriously, no joke, as far from J as physically possible, I'm not pulling your leg or any other limb you may possess. Human or non-human.

In these pages is my story. My family's and my story, a story that could have been yours with no effort in the slightest. We may not be that different, you and I.

Now, right, I've never done this before and you've probably never had to do this either. I'm gonna tell you everything. Just try and keep up. I hope you like rapid pace. Please, just don't stop reading, that's all I ask. Someone has to know… and it's fallen down to you. Hard world isn't it? You have no idea.

I'm Anon. Hi. I'm fourteen, and my family consists of five people (including yours truly) who are not related to me in the slightest, probably the only blood bond is back in Eden or whatever you believe in. There used to be six of us, but that was a long time ago. Now there of five of us, a totally unrelated family. But they're my family, and I will always be by their sides.

Now I can have a little boast; I'll bet you're good at art or sport or drama or make-up or cards or whatever but I can tell you, my family and I are beyond amazing. We're nothing you've ever experienced. Building block number 1, we're pretty nice, smart, normal kids. Building block number 2. There are five us; Me (Anon, remember?), Sirius, Nyx, Leonidas and Artemis. Block number 3. We were made and designed on purpose by scientists in labs. We were one big experiment, a big test. In the end when they'd finished with us we were part human and part something else; animal. Crash. There goes the tower we were building with the blocks. Not so normal now.

We were "raised" in a lab/prison/cage/hell. It's quite amazing we've got such sense of humour in our family with so much stuff messing us up. But you'd be surprised what we can do. More than you can, believe it. Very few of us made it past infancy in the lab - the experiments killing children left right and centre. Not nice. From what I heard only one in ten of us survived, even then we're not exactly immortal. There's a whole host of other part animal mutants that we call the "Puppets" 'cause they're dull and emotionless, most of whom are loyal to the scientists we refer to as the "Puppeteers", pulling our strings, controlling our lives. Puppets are like us, kind of like a were-something; were-wolf, were-cat, were-owl, were-ladybird, whatever. Use your imagination. But there's not just wolves policing us, the nice kids. Reptiles, Amphibians, Birds, all of 'em. The whole shebang. And they all like to hunt the nice kids. Us. The moving targets with that invisible "rip-my-head-off" sign on our backs and stamped on our foreheads. What's more, they wanna make sure we never get discovered by the outside world. You. Come to think of it, people like you lock people like us up and experiment on us.

I guess you really are my last hope to get my story known. Or maybe I've finally lost it. My very last marble just went flying off into oblivion and I'm now out of screws and the like to be loose. Oh well. I've been crazy for the past fourteen years.

But I ain't giving the whole plot away just yet. I love stories, don't you? I'm gonna tell you one. A very important one. Mine. Ours. My family's.

I want you to think. This story could be about you - your children maybe. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. The tomorrow after that, there are a lot of those. So please, please, PLEASE, take this seriously. My butt is on the line doing this, so you can know. You. Feel special. Go on. Your little special happy time. 'Cause as soon as you read further, my family and I are the special ones. You need to know.

Keep reading. If someone tries to stop you… I dunno… use your imagination. James Bond leap out the window and run to a quieter place. Swim the nearest river and sit out of reach on the other side. Parachute using a bed sheet out of your top floor window and land in a totally isolated place.

Me, Anon. My family, Sirius, Nyx, Leonidas and Artemis.

Welcome to the nightmare you can't wake up from. You have to make it end yourself.

came into the world some time in June 1993. From that day, I was destined to lead an untold life. Until now.

Some of my earliest memories of life are being totally alone. Then one miraculous day, I met someone who was ‘like me’. Sirius was a little older than me, but in a life like mine I knew, even at my delicate young age, that I had made a friend that would last forever. We became inseparable, never one without the other.

My caring mentor, a scientist called Prof Logan Wolfgang, took note of this and had us placed in the same facility together. Soon after that we met fifteen year old Nyx, a titan in the deepest circle of hell with a secret like no other. Hell being the lab known as the Stronghold and the secret being one only time can reveal. I can remember gazing up at Nyx, only level with his hip at the time, and he said to me six words that will stay forever with me.

"Don‘t be afraid of me. Please."

Those words stuck with me forever. Even a giant like Nyx had emotions. An experiment. A prisoner like us.

Soon after that we met Cerberus. Wolfgang told us that he was Sirius’s younger brother by two and a half years and it showed. They really were family, a real blood bond, but we had already decided what we were. No group ups, no parents, no teachers. Just the Clan.

As time passed we welcomed Leonidas into our Clan, then finally Artemis was thrust into my open arms as an infant, and our Clan was whole. Maybe we wouldn’t have accepted anyone else, but it was something about those two that had my heart on a string.

We grew up behind those pristine white walls, submitting to torture for the sake of science and saw things no children should ever have to see. No human being.

We grew strong in the years to come, but we grew brave, smart and daring too. We started to outgrow expectations, and passed our acting dumb we were scheming, taking in every route in and out, every window, every staircase to every floor. We were planning and calculating how to use every cell of our being to escape that place.

We knew if we had the chance, we would take it. Even though we knew that if we were caught, we would face a fate worse than any death you can possibly imagine.

It would take fourteen years before I actually snapped. Cracked, and broke the mould with such force that I would find it in my being to break into the light of the real world.

"

ey, Nyx," I said looking directly behind me into the darkness.

A pair of dark crimson eyes acknowledged me.

"You ready?"

"Born ready." he replied so quietly only I could hear him with my hyper enhanced hearing.

Across the room I saw three other shadowy figures almost entirely merged with the darkness surrounding us. The cool air of the ventilation shafts ran though our hair, almost soundless. Not to us. We had been waiting too long, and thirty feet in front of us was our ticket out of here.

The second we kicked out that vent cover and threw ourselves into the strange outdoors, we knew there was only one thing we could do now.

Run.

Facing death always brings out another side of you, and I knew that the second I touched the snow beneath my freezing toes. My revealed side is uber-insulting-bad-mouth-super-heavy-weight-pro. My bare feet are hitting the snow covered ground at a zillion frickin' miles per hour and my brain is like a broken record.

"Run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run! Keep running damnit Anon!" my conscience is yelling.

I see a corner and I skid to a half-halt and a left, one liquid movement curving around the sharp bend. I continued gulping down deep lung-fulls of icy cold air, while I'm running because there's no way in this universe I'm going to stop for anything. I'm like an arrow racing towards a target with nothing in the world able to stop me. My target is one thing: escape.

One problem. I have no idea where I'm going. I've never been outside before. I've never felt snow before. I've never ran cross country like this. I've never been this far away from the pristine white walls of the lab.

My arms have been scratched up and are bleeding plaits of blood because of the razor wire I cleared not too long ago. Oh well.

My bare feet are probably bleeding with all the tough terrain I've been clearing, rock, branches, thorns, bracken and man-made traps. Yeah, ok.

My brain fizzing with adrenaline and my blood burning as the desperate air from my lungs floods into them? I'll survive.

Never again will I let them hurt me. Run me ragged on treadmills. Pierce my skin with injections. Make me swallow chemicals and tiny cameras that made me sick, hallucinate and numb. Never, never again.

I don't give a monkey's how much I hurt, I just want to put as much distance between me and the Puppets as I possibly can. Puppets - that's what me and my family call the mutants loyal to the Puppeteers. I know from coming face to face with two of them - reeking breath and yellow carnivore's teeth up in my face - that one of them is a wolf-mutant and the other is a hyena. Not a pretty sight. Puppets aren't a single race of mutants, they're anything that decided to have a slice of the fun of torturing other mutants and making us hurt - inside and out. Not any more mingers. Even if you are chasing me, armed, bloodthirsty and with an urge to rip my throat out. Or worse, force me to go back to a lab, the most vicious and high security of them all, the Stronghold. Where my family and I just escaped from to be precise. They're not having us back. None of us. I won't let them. And as the female in the shared leadership of our family, I have to be strong, quick thinking and brave. Heh heh. I'm so modest, but I'm so worth it. Wink.

"Come on, Anon! You can outrun these dumb-bells! No one but Sirius can outrun you!"

Don't worry, Sirius is on my side. The Group's joint leader with yours truly, a Grafted wolf-mutant like the one behind me. But a special Grafted wolf-mutant, someone I'd trust my life with. He's like a brother to me, more. And what's a bonus is I'm his, how do I put this when there's no such thing as a Wolf-to-English dictionary, "Alpha Female" in the family; somehow he manages to be father and brother at the same time. Just like I'm mother and sister. Kids need leaders. Except me. I don't need a leader, I lead.

My arms were pumping back and forth by my sides like pistons and I scanned everything as it came, looking for a way out. Yeah, I could outrun them but they were so determined, like foxhounds on a scent of a fox that's lived too many days past it's welcome. One thing I can thank those crazy Puppeteers for is that fact that they made us faster than normal adult humans twice our age; stronger, quicker thinking and more daring too. Exactly what I need to lead with Sirius.

Suddenly I hear something huge rushing through the air in a leap and I throw myself sideways, dodging the pouncing Hyena-puppet that had launched itself at me with a running jump. I pulled my ankles away from it's snapping jaws and when I was content that they had locked onto air and not my foot, I planted an upper cut into his jaw. Blood spurted from his jaws as his teeth crushed hard together and his neck made a satisfying cracking sound, the snow beneath him splattered with red. Nothing better than making Puppets snap first thing in the morning. He hit the snowy floor, unconscious. You think I killed him, right? Well, I didn’t. Puppets are a lot tougher than that. They’ve been augmented, like us, to survive getting cracked about. He’ll be up in a few hours. Like I said: not dead. Clan rule: we don't kill. It makes us as cold as them.

In the space of a second I was up on my feet again and running, able to see the edge of the woods. I can tell you, as soon as I was bathed in the light of the great outdoors I snapped open my fourteen foot wingspan of tawny. Dappled pale silver, white and pale tan gold. Yeah, maybe I forgot to mention that little feature of me when I talked about me being special. Oopse. My bad. But anyways, I caught the wind, raised high and fast into the cold air and soared, my eagle-sharp silver blue eyes scanning the ground, not just for Puppets but for my family too. Where were they? Had they already got out of this Hellhole and escaped? No. I could see them now. Freedom was being barred from them by a twenty foot electric fence complete with razor wire. Down at the bottom was my family, tall, fair and reliable Sirius and massive, bronzed and unstoppable Nyx, along with two smaller and skinnier figures on Nyx's back riding piggyback. Leonidas and Artemis, my little ones. Leonidas is scarcely seven and Artemis nearly five. For a long time it had just been me, Sirius and Nyx, then came along our boys who we had to look after ourselves. I had a strange sort of bond with the two youngest, a motherly bond that I didn't have with the other two guys. They were dependent on me, and I always looked out for them.

I land as Sirius kicks a cloud of dust at the fence, a net of blue electricity racks through the dirt and scorches it black. One mean fence. He catches sight of me and suddenly yells

"Got any ideas, Anon?"

"Yeah. I do actually." I reply, "But it might sting a bit."

No. I'm not going to make them tackle the fence. Sure Nyx could barge down a metal fence but I'm not the kind of person who lets her Clan get electrocuted. Holding out my fist palm down I looked at them both hard. Neither of them looked happy with my idea. Getting electrocuted would probably hurt less.

"We have to clear the fence." I said gravely. Sirius and Nyx clapped their fists on top of mine one after the other.

"Hold on, you two. Tight." Nyx growled at Leonidas and Artemis on his back. The youngest members of the Clan gripped onto Nyx's sides and gulped. I wouldn't let the youngest do this, it would hurt too much and probably knock them out. I'd rather not have them endure that.

Suddenly Sirius nearly choked and Nyx's jaw set, muscles clamping shut like lockjaw. Wings erupted from their backs bones first, only about four feet in wingspan to begin with, but stretching out, becoming wider and longer, to larger than mine. But only by a little. Nyx and Sirius are bigger than me. With a run up and a great leap all three of us snapped open our wings and caught the air, soaring high above the Puppets and free in the skies, in the never ending blueness that was flooding into the sunrise.

Then the unimaginable happened. Several larger than life bangs of some kind of rifle and Nyx suddenly snarled in pain. His version of a screaming in agony. Almost before I could react myself Nyx had thrown Leonidas and Artemis to Sirius and I, then was plummeting to earth.

“Nyx!" I yelled, holding onto Artemis tightly and totally shocked that I couldn't help him. Sirius and I dived straight down, desperately trying to catch up with the shot Nyx. We must have reached him at the same time, grabbing an arm and managing to slow his decent to earth. We skidded across the snowy ground and I scrambled over to him, Sirius with the boys in each arm checking they were ok from our crash landing. Nyx was motionless in the two inch snow. Blood was flooding from the holes in his scaled, dragon-like wings and his face was contorted in anguish. His eyes were clamped shut and his teeth were gritted. I touched his face to feel his temperature, get an idea of how bad it was. Suddenly his hand clamped around my wrist like a python on steroids. His dark red eyes opened slightly and he recognised me, letting my hand go and his arm thumping down onto the white ground.

"Nyx, come on! Get up!" I urged frantically. He struggled up to his feet and tried to spread his wings but they snapped back together instantly with a bone twisting cracking sound and his hissed through his teeth.

"Frickin' Hell…" he growled.

"Can you walk?" I asked "Run, dare I ask?"

"Think I'll have to…" he replied taking a stride forwards, his legs bruised and aching but not broken as far as he could tell. He turned his head abruptly and shot us all a troubled glance that could only mean one thing. "Puppets."

So we were running again, wings still out. I didn't know if Nyx could fly, even if Sirius and I carried the boys. His wings were torn up pretty bad. I could count four holes in his right wing, the one closest to me. A few degrees to any given direction could have ended up in his chest, taking everything out of him. If only we could find a ridge or cliff and glide, maybe he'd have a chance. We'd already had to leave someone behind. Sirius's younger brother by two and a half years… Cerberus. But there was nothing I could do, we'd seen him be dragged away and recaptured by the Puppeteers, screaming for us to keep running. Little hero. He was nine years old. Thinking about him and how he had been torn from us ripped my heart and brain to pieces every time. We'd been forced to leave someone very precious behind. Now here we were, the Southern end of the Blue Mountains, Australia, escaping from the Stronghold.

The sounds of snarls and engines filled the air, Puppeteers and Puppets alike coming after us. Now we knew that they were armed, vehicular and really, really angry. If we got caught now, we would have risked everything and we would be returned to the Stronghold to encounter a fate worse than death. The last thing I had heard Cerberus yelling was for us to be free. If we had to go back and see his face again when we had failed to escape it would be… a fate worse than a fate worse than death. If we went back with the Puppeteers, we would destroy his every hope of escaping himself. If we succeeded in escaping, it was not impossible for him to bask in freedom too. For Cerberus.

We had to make Leonidas and Artemis run on their own now, carrying them was slowing us down and I could practically smell the rancid breath of the predatory Puppets hunting us. They were catching up in their vehicles, ploughing over the white ground faster now the ground was clear of features. That was when my eyes fixed on the open space between the ground and the horizon. The ground came to an immediate halt, a cliff with it's floor fifty feet below ground level. I gripped onto Artemis's wrist tighter and I saw Sirius adjust his grip on Leonidas. Artemis looked up at me, his face a little paler than it should have been after running fifteen hundred metres being chased by rabid mutant killers and their even more rabid scientist bosses. I tried to assure him with my eyes. He could trust me with his life. He gripped tighter on my hand too.

"Anon, is this wise?" Sirius yelled as we ran. The cliff edge was getting closer and closer. Thirty feet. Twenty feet.

"No." I replied with a nervous laugh. Ten feet. "Just hold on to us. We won‘t let you fall."

"Oh God no." Nyx muttered. Zero feet. We launched ourselves off the cliff edge with our final stride and soared into the air, catching the breeze as best we could and gliding further and further away from that slice of Hell called the Stronghold. We'd done it. We were flying away. Not around a gym surrounded by walls of stone, this was freely in the air, feeling it rushing through our hair and the feeling of freedom surging through my blood with the adrenaline. Left far behind us was our living nightmare. The Puppeteers who created us. The Puppets who hunted us. The life we all had to suffer for as long as we could remember. All so very far behind us.

I swore right then that they would never hurt us again.

I

'd been awake earlier than the others, I always was. I was already showered and dressed, fresh jeans and grey t-shirt still smelling like laundry conditioner because I reminded Artemis to put on the machine last night, as usual. Right now, I was watching Anon sleep. She shifted a little and her wing muscles tensed. As a Grafted bird-mutant she could not make her wings disappear into caverns in our skeletal structure like all the other members of the Clan. Then again, she didn't have to go through the pain of transforming so they fitted back inside her, like the rest of us did when we returned to our Graft state. She frowned and twitched, her hands curled into fists. I wonder who she was arguing with. She was having a nightmare, I could tell, but so probably was the person she was fighting against. She relaxed all of a sudden, breathing deeply.

Chapter 3: Another Day in Paradise.

Anon:

I

put the fruit salad back in the fridge, then tossed a clean serving spoon back into the correct drawn and suddenly I felt like I was being watched. Every hair stood on end across my neck and my spine tingled icy cold as if a winter breeze had channelled its river of sub-zero cold down my back.

Chapter 4: Run.

Anon:

I

t had taken all my heart and soul to leave that place, our first safe haven; now nothing but shadows and memories. We'd packed our few necessary belongings, some money Wolfgang had left in a draw - for us? I don't know but it was in an envelope with our names on it; Anon, Sirius, Nyx, Artie and Leo, which was next to the metal computer chip and the folded piece of paper with the random words on it. We packed tinned and packaged food, a first aid kit for emergencies and climbed up to the highest point we could find. We had to do that now Nyx couldn't fly properly. His wings couldn't be fixed without surgery to his muscles and bones and I had a feeling the last place Nyx wanted to be was in surgery. He could glide though, use the winds and air currents to raise him up when he needed. He never flapped his massive, dragon-like dark green wings. He was swift, stealthy and silent, the air around him undisturbed. Even though he had a backpack full of food and stuff on his back he seemed not to notice the excess weight. He just flew gracefully.

Chapter 5: Back in the sky.

Sirius:

S

omeone shifted my arm.

"Sirius. Sirius." a familiar voice whispered.

I sat up and yawned, rubbing my eyes. There were the Clan, raiding through Nyx's backpack for breakfast. Or dinner. The sun was setting. Good. Travelling time. We'd slept through all the daylight hours as planned.

"So, what's grub?" I asked pulling my jacket back on.

Anon had a stern look on her face.

"We heard engines." she said to me quietly not to be over heard by the little ones. "Nyx and I. I don't know if the boys know but Artie may have read my mind by now."

"Ok," I said quickly glancing over to the Clan. Nyx was using his index claw as a tin opener on the cans of pasta shapes in tomato sauce and handing out food to Artemis and Leonidas. They seemed happy enough. Situation normal.

Anon held out a hand and I took it, heaving myself up. I rolled my shoulders to relieve some of the stiffness in them, another hard nights flight ahead of us.

We ate in total silence, which is unnatural for us. Leonidas didn't even say a word. I kept on trying to make eye contract but it wasn't working. Everyone was looking at the floor and looking as sad as I felt that we'd left our home. Our days of been safe seemed to have ended so fast, the years we had seemed too short. Maybe if we found another safe-house we could live safely again. On the other hand, Puppeteers knew we were moving and would be dying to get their antiseptic-y hands on us again. They weren't taking us back, so long as Anon, Nyx and I were still breathing.

We caught the wind between our vast array of feathers, Nyx swallow diving out of a tree and catching the convection currents, soaring upwards and catching us up in no time at all. I glanced up at Nyx, but his eyes were looking ahead. That was when I had a good look at the scars on his wings. Nothing scarred Nyx, but I could see patches on his wings where the skin was sort of disturbed, if you get my drift. It wasn't as smoothly scaled and stuff. Hard to describe.

Flying onwards the air felt different. It smelled faintly of city, car exhaust and stuff. You could sense the change when you lived in the pure air of the mountains for ages.

I looked back ahead at Anon leading the way. I pushed forwards a little faster to level with her.

"I smell Sidney." I said as cheerfully as possible.

"We're making very good time. If we keep going like this we should be ready to meet it face to face by tomorrow." she said. That meant clearing about 45km, so I'd guess off the top of my head about 24 miles, a day and the air currents were good, then sleep away some of the night so we can try and mingle in. Keep things at a steady pace, an easy pace. Sure, we could cover about six hundred miles in seven or eight hours if we really pumped our wings. Over a hundred miles an hour. But do you have any idea how many calories that would take? And that's how long it would take if we barely stopped for breath, let alone sleep. Nope, we're cruising this one. Maybe some pace later when we're all in one piece. I'm not making the Clan do that. I'm sure they would if I asked them but I'm not. Keeping a slow pace I'm pretty sure even Nyx'll make it. We'd have to find a good spot to land first and catch those well deserved Zs. Of course, all that would have to change if we suddenly started getting chanced. Enjoy the calm while we can.

By dawn we must have landed on someone's land. There was a man-made little forest of gum and eucalyptus trees we found we could settle in. After doing my head count I leant up against a tree, having bargained with Nyx to do the next four hours of watch after me. I'm so clever I even surprise myself sometimes. Of course, Anon tried to make me let her do a watch but I flatly refused and made her let me and Nyx. She needs to be up to full strength to lead, and when I told her this she huffed a bit and finally put her head down.

My watch had only ended about an hour ago when suddenly I felt Nyx nudging me urgently.

"Huh?"

"Listen." he grumbled deeply. I saw Anon and the boys hold her breath.

I tuned my ears and listened to every slight noise. I could hear engines.

Then, speak of the devil, roaring around the corner came two identical black jeeps, windows shaded and with passenger and driver dressed in that formidable, grey toned army print uniform I dreaded so much having grown up in the stuff surrounded by crazy scientists.

Puppets. The whole Clan was up and on our feet when suddenly something metallic and coloured gun metal green clinked off the floor.

"Get airborne!" I yelled but before we'd pushed up off the ground it was too late and all we could do was grab the person nearest us and throw ourselves to the floor.

The explosion shoot my brain as I covered my ears and clamped my eyes closed. The grenade raised a cloud of dust and as it began to settle I gave a headcount. Anon had Leonidas clutched into her chest protectively as she lay in a ball on the floor, Nyx was already getting up glancing around and I realised we were missing someone.

"Artie!" I yelled into the dust cloud that surrounded us on all sides.

Then I heard the rev of engines and a boy screaming and fighting a battle he could not win.

The Puppet who had thrown the grenade was wrestling Artemis into the back of a black jeep, Artemis clamped onto his wrist, blood seeping out from between his teeth - the Puppet’s blood. The Puppet smacked him one over the head and stuffed his small captive in the back of the vehicle.

Whoever was driving put their foot to the floor.

The jeep hurled down the dirt track at over seventy miles per hour, trailed closely by the other. There was no way those monsters were taking Artemis. I pumped my wing muscles harder, feeling the strain in my shoulders. Wolves weren't built to fly but I was.

Suddenly a shadow appeared above me, casting darkness on my face. It was Nyx, running like an Olympic athlete along the canyon ridges. He was catching up. Without a word he suddenly snapped his wings open and soared forwards, faster that ever and gaining speed with equal momentum to me.

"Yo, Nyx!" I yelled holding out an arm to him. "Need a boost?"

Nyx connected with my eyes, his face as void as ever. He took a hold of my arm with a vice-like grip and streamlined himself as much as he could.

I came to an abrupt, instant halt and slingshotted him forwards even faster, sending him straight into the back doors of the jeep.

Nyx ripped the door off with his claws and the jeep swerved. The jeep behind suddenly tried to ram into the other, trying to crush Nyx in the middle. Nyx put a size UK thirteen foot through the front window screen, then in perfect teamwork Sirius attacked the drivers side, taking a monumental punch in the eye but clinging on until he'd clawed the driver's face and the jeep skidded uncontrollably off track. A stripy head suddenly appeared over Nyx's shoulder. Artemis! I breathed a sigh of relief and Anon whooped beside me, punching the air in victory.

A small orange and black blur suddenly erupted from the doors as Nyx let go, free in the sky.

A Puppet leaned out the window with an elongated silver device. Guns. He fired off several shots in Artemis's direction, failed, then turned his attention to us.

I rolled in mid air, dodging where I traced the shots with my enhanced sight. I looked in the back of the jeep, searching frantically for Wolfgang's silver and black safe. I couldn't see it. Could it have been in the other jeep that crashed?

Angling my wings to slow me to a halt I yelled out the to Clan

"It's not in there! The safe's not in there!"

"You're sure?" Anon demanded.

"Positive." I replied. "They're running now. We've won this one."

We made our way to the wreckage that was once a jeep. The jeep Nyx had put a foot through. We searched inside the compartments but there was no Puppet and definitely no safe. The door hadn't been touched.

Suddenly a gunshot cracked through the air, indirect fire, and I snapped my head around.

"Get airborne!" I yelled loudly snapping my wings out and taking to the skies. Sorry Evens for crashing your 'normal' little lives, but we got a safe to recover and some Puppeteers to repay. All those Evens would have seen were five dark figures disappearing into the sky, leaving behind a smashed jeep and a grenade creator.