Chapter 16: The Grey residence.

Anon:

I breathed in a haze of camomile fabric conditioner and pulled a soft duvet higher up to my face.

Cripes! Where the heck am I?!

I wrenched my eyes open and took an instant three sixty observation. Pale blue walls, neutral beige coloured carpet, the bed I was sleeping in was different and I was wearing pyjama bottoms and a big t-shirt that weren't mine either.

Grey's house. Amparo, Raven and Gawain.

Wait, I was meant to be flying to Sirius and Nyx on Big Blue. As if on cue my wings and back started killing me. I'd had worse. Even in the Clan we'd had little scraps when Wolfgang had to prise us apart. Nothing life threatening but Sirius did break my hand and all my fingers once so I broke his leg in two different places by jumping on him. After a day or two's bed rest we were fine and best of friends again. My little incident with a traitor was still fresh in my memory. Thank God Grey was understanding and didn't call the zoo asking if an inmate had escaped.

I saw my jeans, jacket and socks all clean and smelling of that camomile fabric conditioner too at the end of the bed. There was a pale blue tank top and a dark sweater that weren't mine. I guessed they were Grey's.

I got dressed totally silently, scarcely making the floorboards creak and left my room with the bed made along with the clothes I had slept in folded at the end. I padded down the stairs in my socks like a shadow. I can be pretty stealthy too when I want to.

"Shardae," said a familiar voice kindly. "I didn't hear you get up."

I turned my head towards the kitchen door where the voice was coming from. Amparo Grey was drying her hands on a tea towel in a bath robe and pyjamas and at the table Raven and Gawain were sitting at the table spinning the ketchup bottle in spirals and pretending to squirt each other with it.

"Would you like some breakfast?" Grey asked me pleasantly. "It's a Sunday so we usually do a cooked breakfast. You're not vegetarian or vegan are you?"

"Er, no, not me." I replied trying to calm down. Ok, if she tried anything I'd throw myself out the window three feet to the left of the table and I'd be free in seconds. I'd run if I couldn't fly. If she tried anything. "I eat just about anything. Not fussy."

"Good good." she smiled and turned over the sausages and bacon on the grill.

I was now half a millimetre from drooling. Publicly.

"Sit down, don't be nervous." Grey said.

This is what I wanted to say. Yeah, easier said than done I'm afraid. My hair trigger 'ready for fight or flight' hormones are up to my neck and I'm this close to freaking out. I know you know everything about me and I'm worried you're gonna hand me in to someone with a white coat and a huge injection with tranquilizer in it.

But I didn't. That wouldn't have been too cool.

"Thanks…" I managed to force out and I sat down the end of the table.

Awkward silence.

Grey gave her children a funny look. Raven turned around quickly and grinned a grin that had four front teeth missing. Two on the top, two on the bottom.

"I'm Raven Grey, I'm eight years old and my birthday is the next week. The twenty second!"

Wow child, breath. I guess she was just trying to be nice.

"I'm Gawain Grey," Gawain said smiling too. "I'm six and my birthday is the twenty fourth of May!"

I guess I should say something now, huh?

"I'm Shardae… um… Shardae Alloy…" I began. "I'm fourteen, I have no idea when my birthday is but I do know I have fourteen foot wings on my back."

Then Gawain laughed. Was it really that funny? I think I was missing out on the whole humour thing. Too much time spent with Nyx I think. I'd cut the kid some slack.

Have things ever been weird and different in a nice kind of way for you? I was having one of those moments now.

Eating at the kitchen table with cutlery, plates and cups of tea. Not like Clan breakfasts - cooked over campfires, usually cold though, out the tin, out the box, with no cutlery or manners now I think about it. Oh, and someone complaining that someone had not done their chores yesterday or that someone used all the hot water at ridiculous-o'clock-in-the-morning. I even helped wash dishes, letting the kids dry. This little house was… amazing. Normal. I couldn't believe that Gawain and Raven got this whole twenty four hour mum thing all the time. Unlike me. Fourteen years of unpredictable existence when you never knew what was going to happen next or if you could trust the person near you.

Grey and I were the only ones who could reach the cupboards so Raven and Gawain raced each other upstairs to play. We stacked plates in the cupboards neatly and I watched her slip on her wedding and engagement rings again.

Marriage. Can you really actually want to spend the rest of your life with someone else? Can you always get over fights? Like on TV when the bride comes out dressed in an amazing dress and everyone's looking at her for once. Her special day where everyone says "she looks stunning" and "I can't wait until I'm as lucky as her".

I wonder where Mr Grey was. Mrs Grey hadn't talked about him at the hospital but she still kept a photo of him in her purse. What had happened to him? Why was Grey alone with the children?

"Shardae," Grey said calmly. I tensed. Awkward question coming my way. I knew it. "Do you need to tell me anything?"

Actually I do.

You're the closest thing to a mum I've ever had.

I want to thank you for everything you've done for me.

I want to tell you about the Clan and what we're doing.

I want to ask if anyone has a grudge against you. Puppeteers for instance.

"Not really." I finally responded. Grey nodded her head and continued to water the plants on her windowsill.

"Do you mind if I ask a kind of personal question?" I asked slowly.

"I don't see why not."

"Can I ask what happened to your husband?" I asked carefully. "You showed me his picture in your purse but I haven't seen him properly."

Grey stopped moving. She put down her watering can.

"I'm sorry-" I said quickly realising my mistake that I'd hit a tender spot by accident. "Ignore it. Pretend I didn't ask-"

Darn my curiosity! I just don't know when to keep my mouth shut do I?

"No, it's perfectly reasonable that you ask."

Huh?

"My husband passed away before Gawain was born." Grey said slowly. "He had a blood clot in his leg that travelled to his brain. Nothing could be done. He was a good man."

"I'm sorry." I said slowly. I was. Why should someone like Grey had to lose someone that precious to her? I would say it isn't fair with total ignorance, because everyone knows that life isn't fair. I've learned that over my fourteen years. Bad things often happen to good people. Like Wolfgang.

"You would have liked him." Grey said nicely. "He would have loved everything about you."

"Even the wings?"

"Even the wings. He was a parachutist, Power trooper. He used to call his work 'not exactly flying but falling with style'. Can you actually fly? Properly?"

"Erm, yes. Properly."

Stop talking Anon.

"Could you show me when you heal? Before you leave?"

"I don't see why not…"

Anon! STOP TALKING!

"What's I like? Up there?"

"Kinda cold…"

ANON STOP TALKING NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!

"It's tiring. Takes loads of calories 'cause my wing muscles work really hard, they're quite big. My lungs are big and I have air sacs 'cause there's not much oxygen up there, up high at about twenty thousand feet. I'm… like a bird."

Wow that sounded cheesy.

Grey smiled and looked out the window for a while, up in the sky. I don't know what she was thinking about, but I was thinking about Sirius and Nyx waiting for me on Big Blue, and wondering how I explained this.

"I need to check your bandaging soon." Grey said taking off her apron. "Check how you're healing so I can get an idea of how long it'll be before you can get moving well again."

"I have a rapid healing process." I said to her. "I should be fine by tomorrow."

Grey and I went up the bathroom again and I sat in the tub as she removed my bandaging. Now the glass was gone and whatever Cerberus had put on those tacks I was healing as quickly as I normally did. Way faster than a normal human.

"I think you're right." Grey said changing my wound dressings. "Tomorrow, maybe the day after."

She sounded upset.

Did she really like have me around as much as I liked being around?

"Shardae, can I ask you a more personal question?" Grey asked.

Bad feeling.

"Who did this to you?" she asked softly.

I wanted to collapse in her arms, hug her tightly and cry my eyes out. I could remember everything they did to me. All those years of being in pain, scared, nauseated, unable to move, eat, sleep, think. Anything. Growing up had been the longest of many sick tests.

And do you know who stopped me going totally insane?

Prof Logan Wolfgang.

"I've always been like this."

That was all I wanted to say and Grey understood that.

Chapter 17: The Grey residence.

Anon:

"You can't fly yet," Grey insisted. "I understand this may be urgent but if you try to starting flying again you could risk doing yourself more damage. It would only make matters worse for you."

"I have to fly there." I persevered. "I have to meet my friends somewhere hidden."

"I'd have to be certain that I've removed all the shrapnel and glass." Grey said picking up her purse. "I don't have the kit here though. But at work I do."

"Work?" I tested anxiously.

"I'm an Architect." she replied. "The tools we use can be used for other things besides building houses too you know. We can take the bus now the car's gone."

Great. Another moving enclosed space. I hadn't been too happy in the ambulance.

Luckily the bus was better. Slower and no one was injured. It didn't reek like a lab, all those antiseptic smells, white walls and blinding lights. I was still expecting to be attacked by Puppets at every given second. I was really ridged and glad to get off when we came to our stop.

Walking into the Outskirts Building Works Grey and I just strolled in casually. No one asked any questions, Grey just smiled and waved at people she knew and kept walking.

She was obviously quiet high up here.

We went into a room with no windows, just a grey door. It was a storage room, not just for building materials apparently because there was a mini fridge in the corner left of the door.

"Ok, take your sweater off and I'll scan your back and wings with this." she held up a palm sized devise with a red light on the end. "It's used to detect metal pipes and circuits in walls. I can tweak it so it shows your bones and the shrapnel."

"Cunning." I said trying to sound enthusiastic. I have to admit, I didn't really care how it worked I just wanted to know it worked and was going to tell me I was ok.

She pulled down the projecting screen and shone the light on the wall. I could see everything inside the wall, the wires and pipes and stuff. We would be able to see what's inside of me too.

Grey started scanning, watching the image on the screen.

"I think I did quite a good job actually." she said after fifteen minutes of scanning or so. "There are no traces of metal or glass. But, what's this here?"

She froze the image and pointed to a rectangular shape that showed up dark grey. It was 3D, a thin cuboid in shape and attached to my top vertebrae. It was hollow, like you cold slot something inside it. Something mechanical is my super fast functioning brain served me correctly. That hyper quick brain of mine told me something else too. That thing wasn't meant to be there.

She picked up a small magnet from the mini fridge and placed it on the back of my neck. The magnet stuck there.

"It's definitely metal, magnetic." Grey said to me. "I could use this again to trace an image of it like I did for your bones…"

On the projector a cuboid with no lid started to form, wall by wall. At the top of my neck where my head joined onto my spine.

"It's some kind of slot," Grey said. "Like what you put a computer chip in. It's in the base of your skull, with direct access to your brain and spinal column. It's been grafted into your bones."

Chapter 18: Outskirts Building Works.

Anon:

"Grey, take it out!" I demanded instantly. "Please. You don't understand how bad I need it out. I don't care how you do it - chop my head off temporarily - just get it out! I can't have some kind of mind control circuit in my head!"

"Shardae, I'm not qualified!" Grey answered distressed. "I physically couldn't do it! I'm not a surgeon. I'm not that well trained. I can't carry out surgery on someone's spine."

"Yes you can! I know you can!" I encouraged pulling at my neckline. I picked up a spanner and a saw, one in each hand. "That should do it. We'll just have to work without sedative."

Grey looked traumatized at my suggestion.

"If I try to take it out I could make a mistake and paralyse you forever." Grey retorted uneasily. "Then you'd never be able to help your friends or live your life to the full. I can't do it and if I fail I could never forgive myself. I'm an architect, my medical skills don't cover such feats."

My eyes were now burning with unshed tears. We had no idea what this thing really was, but on the bright side we thought it looked like something that could mess up my brain.

"So there's nothing we can do." I murmured.

"Nothing I can do." Grey confirmed quietly.

I dragged my hand down my face and tried to clear my head. Ok, I had a mechanic slot in the base of my skull. Stay calm. It could be worse. The rest of the Clan could have them.

I gulped hard.

Did they?

By now you would have thought my living nightmare was getting boring and running out of things to throw at me. Nope. It was still jabbing me with problems and new fates to defeat.

Someone knocked at the door. It was a weird knock. Polite, strong and with all the time in the world. Like no one in this business. Someone I knew long ago used to knock like that. Before he kicked open the door and wrestled us to the floor so Puppeteers could experiment on us and take us away. A mindless drone who's name I could not recall.

Grey gave me panicked look.

"Hide. Now." she said.

I didn't need telling twice. I leapt up and stood on one of the shelves filled with bricks and building wooden planks, standing on the bottom shelf so my feet didn't show. I hoped my shadow wouldn't touch the floor.

The door opened. No one polite knocks and then just throws it open so it smashes off the wall.

"Hello Amparo." said a sickly sweet voice, commonly related to Puppets. I could hear footsteps and the door closed. I could count about four sets of footsteps.

"Lowell," replied Grey calmly. "What brings you here this fine day? Well, it was fine until you showed up."

Maybe she'd had her fair share of creeps in her life too. You go girl. Woman. Lady. Oh, you get it.

But that name, Lowell, rang a bell. He was a 'young' Puppet when we escaped, the top of his section. When I say top, I mean he was the fastest, the swiftest and the most cunning. A pain in the butt for we Clan folk. He was nearly two when we escaped. Now he would be five, quite an age for some Puppets. He had been a canine mutant, mix of different canines. Those with the DNA spliced into their own with no other compounding substances often aged very quickly. Like dog years, age seven for every one human year. Nearly. Lowell looked pretty much like a male model in his early to mid twenties.

The Clan didn't because of all our other animal DNA, we levelled out. He probably was half way through his life, maybe more. Lowell had always been an animal, even compared to the other Puppets. The Puppeteers seemed to stop making mutants with multiple spliced DNA. Too many of us died I guess. Splicing is never a pretty job, with single splices our survival rate is about one in ten. Even less with the more DNA. I had five in me.

Maybe Cerberus was giving him some competition now.

"I saw you coming in," Lowell said sweetly. "You weren't required to come in today after your accident. Why the sudden urge to go to work again?”

"Testing new equipment." Grey replied, once again totally calm. "You know how it is. You need to get it done sooner rather than later."

"Well, we were just checking up on you. As usual." Lowell said now refusing to sound sweet any more. "As usual."

"You can leave now." Grey said firmly. "As usual."

She was on a roll.

Lowell and his group obviously did. I heard the door close and Grey breath a sigh of relief.

"You can come down now."

I slid from my hiding place. Did she know that guy was a Puppet? And the psychos with him probably were too?

"Grey who was that?"

"Lowell…" Grey answered slowly, dabbing her eyes on her sleeve. "…Part of a big mistake I made long ago… I noticed you call me by my surname, Grey. Please, call me Amparo."

Amparo. Ok, Amparo, what do you know about the mentally twisted race known as Puppets and their high masters and mistresses called Puppeteers?

Hang on, was she crying?

"Amparo, who were those guys?" I asked again.

She really didn't want to answer.

"I think I know what they are too." I said to her carefully. "I need to know if we're thinking the same thing."

"I can't tell you, Shardae." she said, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. "If I told you I don't know what would happen."

I read her face, her tears. I was going to leave it there.

Leaving the building I saw one of the supervisors dive out of the way as a black jeep sped out of the grounds, Lowell in the passenger seat turning is his head and giving Amparo the "I'm watching you" hand gesture.

We walked out of grounds, Amparo had a brave smile on her face.

"If you see those guys coming this way again," I said to the supervisor, lagging behind for a few seconds. "Don't let them near Amparo Grey. Don't let them in here."

The supervisor nodded pale faced.

I'm so good with people.

Chapter 19: We are the waiting. Still.

Sirius:

"Hah!" I cried as I flipped the coin off my final finger and caught it midair. Boom. Score one to Sirius. Ding ding.

Nyx's jaw twitched slightly. It took all of my advanced vision to see that, his version of a smile.

What the heck has happened to Anon. I'm getting concerned. Where could she be she's been gone for a long time. Long than usual when she's on her own.

I lay back in my Sirius-sized space to think. Nothing could have happened to her that was too bad. This is Anon we're talking about. I'm this close to taking off into the night and scanning around for her. Nyx is a big guy, he can take care of himself for a few hours. He's asleep by the way.

In fact I'm not this close. I'm running up the edge of the cave, morphing my wings and about to leap into the cool night air.

The cold air hits my face as I take off and the wings rustles through my hair. Back to my totally uber eyesight, I can see all the mountains and I can even see the house. Just the outline. It's quite far away, even for me. If I know Artie and Leon as well as I know I do they're still cursing our existence.

I dipped a wing and circled around widely, still totally unable to see any signs of Anon-like life. I arched upwards and soared up high into the coldness. They higher up you go the colder it gets. And it was night time. Rather cold, I can tell you.

Suddenly something shot passed me faster than a bullet up through the low, fluffy clouds below me. I wheeled out of the way, caught by surprise and saw the large figure duck below the whiteness again.

That cheeky-

"Nyx, not funny!" I yelled into the dark and the clouds at my feet.

No reply.

"Seriously, Nyx, joke over." I said loudly stopping my voice from fluctuating.

Still no reply. Nyx would have got the idea by now.

I clenched my fists and continued to flap my wings calmly. I could see the clouds being disrupted. It was like watching paths raise up inside the cloud. It was moving and it was gong to attack from below.

Someone grabbed the top frame of my wing bones and my other arm, making us drop twelve feet into the clouds. Ever been inside a cloud? Probably not. They're wet, cold and you can't see anything at all. I saw some dark grey mottled feathers and a swift pair of hands grabbing me.

I kicked out in my blindness and I felt my foot connect with something. Someone had the air kicked out of them and dragged me further through the cloud. I couldn't breath. I was breathing in water vapour. I had to get out.

We suddenly sank through the clouds and back into the clear air below them. My attacker was definitely a bird Puppet. His wings were as big as mine but like a real bird's, feathered. He looked like a raptor, like Anon. This could be an interesting fight.

He snapped a kick into my ribs and whacked an elbow into my collar bone in a split second and I felt my breath be forced out of my lungs. I cracked my own right elbow into the small of his back and his wings stopped moving, just for a second but long enough for him to loose ten more feet of altitude. Great. Seventeen thousand nine hundred to go before he ate dirt. I blocked his punch to my nose but I couldn't avoid his kick to my stomach too.

He was fast. Too fast. As fast as Anon.

But I was angry now. Adrenaline helps you move.

Ruthlessly I swung knee into his ribs, masking it with a punch that he tried to block with his arms but I grabbed them and restrained his movement. I wheeled around him and locked my two fists together, bringing them crashing down onto his neck.

I had to do more. I had to make this guy fall. I had to take out this guy's wings.

I dodged and dodged, ducking and diving, trying to concentrate enough to morph myself. I couldn't focus. I need to be clear enough to think solely about changing my stem cells. I swallow dived to confuse him and angled upwards through the cloud again.

Concentrate, Sirius! Concentrate! You have to morph. You have to!

Yes! I could see my arms becoming more powerful and I felt my face become more wolf-like. It was elongating into an elongated muzzle and my teeth grew into fangs. My nails became claws. My hair became thicker like fur and it was growing on my arms. I never said it was pretty. I was morphing further than my Graft. I'm a werewolf, I guess. It still hurt like heck.

Sure enough grey-feather came after me and I was ready. He tried to uppercut me as he flew out of the clouds but I whirled around him and slashed straight through his wings. I actually drew blood.

The guy screamed and dropped like a rock tied to a lead balloon. I followed his descent, until I was convinced all he could do was soar downwards. He would have to land. He wouldn't be flying for some time.

I'm a Clan member. I don't kill others. No matter how evil or messed up they are.

Right now I had to get back to the cave on Big Blue. Had Nyx been attacked? He must have heard mine and grey-feather's fight up there. He must have heard him screaming as he fell.

I had to get there fast.

Sure enough, Nyx was being attacked too. I saw him smash two Puppets' heads together and saw them eat dirt as he was attacked by another. This one was nearly as big as Nyx. I hope nowhere near as strong. Yet again Nyx proved himself as the strongest creature I'd ever seen and he bent the Puppet's arm the wrong way. I heard something snap and something pop. A broken arm and a dislocated shoulder.

"Don't you ever give up?!" I heard him snarl, punching him in the ribs and then uppercut him in the face. He collapsed, knocked out and Nyx kicked the unconscious body to make sure it wouldn't get up for a while.

"We have to get back to the house!" I yelled. "If the boys have been attacked too they'll need our help!"

"Hey Artie, look at this."

Artemis and Leonidas were in the attic. Having broken into several locked chests with small amounts of explosives they were spreading sheets of paper older than them out on the floor with intrigue. They were more of Wolfgang's papers and files.

Of course they hadn't been up there the whole time. They'd started the tiger traps and made some spring mechanism traps where once you tripped the wire things hidden in the ground would spring up. They'd even measured spaces above the doors so when you opened them too far something came crashing down on you. Behind every door was a tin of nails, nuts, bolts and marbles that would scatter loudly when knocked. Only they could slip in and out of doors because only they were small enough.

The larger scale explosives weren't going so well. They were a little too unstable. Lock busting was as big as they got.

"What is it?" Artemis asked crawling passed all the piles of paper and slumping down next to Leonidas.

"It's a map collection." he said opening up the stapled together pages. "I think it's the Stronghold. And on these other pages there are these maps of Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, places like that. There are even maps of the underground railroads, pipes and wirework and stuff."

"What are these for?" Artemis asked pointing to the red circled in pencil on the yellowing pages.

"I dunno. I thought maybe you'd have an idea." Leonidas said to him. "You're good with all this mathematical connections and patterns thing."

Artemis looked at all the circled places. They were parks, blocks of flats, buildings, offices, all random places. Wolfgang may have gone ahead and got bored and started randomly circling things.

"It may take a while." Artemis said uncertainly. "Help me out, see if you can find any patterns. Get some of that paper and write down what you see."

Suddenly something smashed on the floor below. Nails scattered across the floor and a tin can bounced noisily. Someone hissed in pain and annoyance as something poured down on them. Maybe bleach or something that they had put in the containers above the doors.

"Was that-?" Artemis started. Leonidas shook his head in silence.

He stood up wordlessly and tiptoed towards the steps that lead up the attic.

He looked down the descending flight of stairs and they held their breath. Waiting for the slightest noise.

"Come out and play, kids…" said a female saccharine voice down the steps of the attic.

Artemis and Leonidas froze.

Only one girl knew about the house hidden here in the mountains and that was Anon. That voice was not Anon.

"You go that way, I'll go this way, we'll check upstairs in a minute when this floor is clear." said the female voice again. "There are only two little ones here. Just keep a look out for traps and stuff. Open the doors fully before you go in."

"Got it." said another voice, a deeper male one.

The voices began to fade but didn't vanish.

"We have to leave." Leonidas said as quietly as he could. He had no idea how good those Puppets' hearing was. "We have to get to Anon, Sirius and Nyx on Big Blue. Maybe they haven't left yet."

"What about the maps?"

"Grab the booklet Wolfgang put together. We'll take it to Anon and Sirius. They'll know what to do with them."

Creeping down the stairs of the attic, then down the stairs to the ground floor.

They had to reach the front door and get out. Darting across the hall with minimal noise they path was blocked by a massive, and they meant massive, Puppet standing in their way, eight feet from the door and freedom.

"Going somewhere, kids?"

Who ever this Puppet was, he wasn't a friend. The scar that split his face unevenly in two showed that he was one for fighting. He started morphing making both Artemis and Leonidas grimaced in slight nausea. The sleeves on his shirt started to rip under the strain as his muscles augmented. He started looking gradually more and more like a big, ferocious bear.

Who cared what kind of hybrid he was? He could be a human/goldfish hybrid and they wouldn't care! He was an enemy and he wanted to some them some damage then capture them. Maybe even take them back to the Stronghold. It was hard to decide which was worse.

Both boys screamed and turned around, running straight back up the hall and up the stairs again. Diving over traps Leonidas split off to hide in the bathroom, slamming the door, and Artemis ran further until he dived into Sirius and Nyx's room, closing the door behind him, clambering up the bunk bed and hiding among the sheets.

He listened to the floorboards creak and he knew that he'd been followed.

"Come out, come out, kiddie…" said that female Puppet again. "If you run you'll only get captured tired. Just give yourselves up and things don't get painful."

Artemis was shivering under the covers, able to see out through a tiny fold in the fabric.

The Puppet woman opened the wardrobe quickly and frowned when she didn't find him. She wrenched open the curtains in front of the glass sliding doors. They were closed and locked.

Artemis gulped. Only a matter of time before she checked here.

She looked at the bed, almost directly at him.

This is it.

"I'm not going to make it this time." a little voice said in his head.

Suddenly the massive Puppet who chased after Leonidas roared in pain and someone was thrown into a wall. Without a warning he was throwing through the door, smashing straight through it sending splinters of plywood showering everywhere, and was leapt on by an enraged and equally massive Nyx.

"It's Sirius and Nyx to the rescue!" I yelled bursting into the room I shared with Nyx and swinging a punching into that evil woman's ribs. She doubled over and swiped a clawed, morphed hand at me. I dodged passed it and locked her arm behind her. I planted my knee into her back and my eye was caught by a shiny metal chain around her neck. Grabbing it with one hand pulling it hard enough to snap the link, I give her enough leeway to break out of my hold.

"Sirius! The middle of the hall!" yelled Artemis suddenly.

I glance to the middle of the hall and saw with my uber-vision a thin, almost invisible wire.

The Puppet woman lunged at me and I grabbed her arms then tripped her over my leg, making her fall onto that wire. I threw myself backwards as a wooden plank, once destined for the wood burner, wired to the ceiling dropped, the tension added to the wire by her weight making it snap. Gathering herself up and shoving off the plank she ran towards the window and crashed through the double glazing.

"Come on! Let's go!" she yelled to her companion. Smashing out the bathroom window the massive guy lumbered after her, disappearing into the distance.

"Everyone ok here?" I asked as soon as I was satisfied with their retreat.

"Where's Anon?" Artemis asked anxiously.

"Anon hasn't got back yet." I found myself answering. "But she will be soon. You know Anon. She's fine."

I didn't look at them when I said it, I occupied myself with analysing the chain link dog-tags in my hand that I'd swiped from the Puppet, just wishing I was as sure as I sounded.

Chapter 20: Time to get moving.

Anon:

I was ready to throw myself into the night again and get back the Clan. I'd been gone longer than I'd expected. I was kind of getting used to the whole parent-figure again.

"Shardae, please," Amparo pleaded. "Stay one more night. I can't bear the thought of you flying out without healing properly."

I can't bear the thought of the many hellish horrors of the Puppeteers coming after me and my Clan because I'm being tracked by the thing in the back of my neck, but hey, we can't have everything can we?

I can't bear the thought of you getting torn up by Lowell either. Did she know what kind of monster he was? That he was a twisted wolf/human hybrid, one of the worst at that?

"One more night." I said stiffly.

"Thank you." Amparo said looking grateful. "I just don't want anything happening to you."

"Nothing will happen to me." I said encouragingly. Amparo seemed reluctant to believe me.

When we got back the kids persuaded me to come out into the back garden and play with them. Even as I pushed them on the swing, purposely lost races up the lawn and drank fruit squash out of tea sets I could feel Amparo's on me.

She really didn't want me to go.

And nor did I.

I tossed and turned that night. Maybe it's a mixture of guilt and regret. I had to go back to the Clan. I'd been gone too long. But I wanted to stay here with Amparo too. I couldn't just abandon the Clan and stay here 'cause it was the easy option. I still need to think of a really good excuse for staying so long, and 'Amparo is a really great person and I loved staying with her so I was convinced to stay longer than I should of' didn't seem too great. I'd have to be ready for a strangling from Sirius when I got back to them. I'd get the 'death stare' treatment from Nyx which was just annoying.

I checked clock at my bedside. The Clan would be asleep by now. I sure wasn't. I was thinking so much. I could never repay Amparo for all she'd done for me. Maybe my biggest debt to her was that she'd found that metal thing in my skull. Besides Wolfgang, Amparo Grey and her family were the only people who seemed to like my how I was. And I didn't meet many whole-human people.

She was the perfect person I would have chosen to spend the rest of my life with. She may have been strict about taking your shoes off indoors but she didn't call the police when a mutant bird kid practically fell out the sky into her care. She didn't nag for me to answer her more personal questions, she didn't lecture me and she believed what I said. Which made me feel bad about lying to her when I wasn't sure if I could trust her.

She accepted me like she accepted Raven and Gawain. She treated me like her own.

I rolled over and sighed. Wolfgang had told me that when making hard decisions it was better to think with your head not your heart. I couldn't think of a time when Wolfgang had been wrong. So I took my emotions and put them in a box, then locked it, hanging the key around my neck like a charm.

Stop. Then I thought of a time when Wolfgang had been wrong. When he said he'd come back. The time he disappeared and never returned.

I must have fallen asleep at some time. My dreams had been filled with Wolfgang, all the times we'd spent. It was the worst feeling in the world to wake up and know it wasn't real. That those times had passed.

I dressed in the clothes that were a mixture of mine and Amparo's. She'd cut slits in the tops for my wings. Still taking care of me the way she did so well.

Today was the day. I'd fly to Big Blue and meet the others, get killed by the boys, get stuck back together again when they simmered off and then we'd get that safe back. Seems a long way to go for a safe, huh?

I'd let down all the boys while I was here. On the other hand, if I hadn't stayed here I probably wouldn't have made it back in the first place.

Here goes nothing.

I tottered down the stairs once more - for the last time - and made my way into the Grey family's kitchen - for the last time.

Then my senses picked up something different.

I sniffed the air. What was that scent…?

"What are these?" I asked pointing down at the plate on the table breathing in the heavenly scent

"You've never had a Belgian waffle?"

"Never. But I'd like to."

So there we were, the kids at school and Amparo and I sat at the table drinking mugs of tea and eating soft, warm, sweet Belgian waffles with melted chocolate drizzled over them. Warm melted chocolate…

"Who needs to die to go to Heaven when I can just come here?" I thought letting the chocolate ooze on my tongue. I savoured the warm smoothness until I had to swallow and took another bite, starting cycle again.

Amazingly, I stayed for lunch too. Maybe it's a female weakness; chocolate. They invented it to use it against us! The people who invented it made it so women weren't allowed to eat it at first didn't they? If I had a time machine, I'd change that. And I'd bomb the Stronghold the second after we escaped.

We cooked together, she taught me how to work the waffle machine which made hot waffles in something like six minutes and we ate fresh loaf and butter to our heart's contents.

It seemed all too soon that I was stood on the front lawn with my wings out ready to fly.

"Here," said Amparo handing me a small hamper. "It's just a drink, some sandwiches and a few other bits and bobs. Just to keep you going for the day. My mobile number's in there too. And the house number."

"Thanks… Amparo." I said sheepishly. She really did look after me.

"I've loved having you here." Amparo said meaningfully. "The kids think of you almost like an older sister. They adore you. They have no cousins or other siblings, they love having you around."

Have you noticed when people say the nicest things it sometimes hurts the most? It's that guilt/regret mixture again.

"You can always come back." she continued kindly. "You always have a room here. You're always welcome."

"Thanks for all your help." I said in an awkwardly slow voice. I didn't know what more to say. I couldn't explain how much I owned her. "I couldn't have done anything without you. You have no idea how much I appreciate it."

"Good luck Shardae."

I gave her a kind of stiff hug, wondering if I would ever see the Grey family again.

I looked at her awkwardly. She'd been a parent figure to me and I didn't know how to repay her.

I rolled my wing muscles again now they were finally feeling good.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before." I said turning my head slightly but feeling that I couldn't look at Amparo properly in case I started crying or choked on my words. "I didn't know if I could trust you at first. My name's Anon. It's short for Anonymous Alloy. I want you to know that now. Thank you for everything."

Then I ran forward several steps in the calm breeze, snapped open my wings and pushed off the ground taking off into the air powerfully. Flapping down my muscles twinged a little. I had rushed my recovery a bit but it was time.

Amparo's face lit up with delight as I descended bright enough to light the whole of Sidney. She waved. I felt the huge joy of freedom again, speed and the cool air in my hair. I had to show off, and I did a twenty foot loop-the-loop a couple of thousand feet up displaying my fourteen foot wings and felt myself smile as the wind blew against my face.

I saw with my raptor vision - it couldn't be - could it be? - Amparo was crying and smiling at the same time? Happiness?

I didn't look down for too long. Partially because I knew we needed to find that safe but mainly because I could feel the hot bitter tears leaving burning trails down my cheeks.