Snippet #1696924

Pyrite perched on a dead snag overlooking the vast canyon where his Flock had taken shelter for the night. The sun beat almost painfully against the back of his white-and-gold wings, lightning them to blinding brilliance. He would have been worried about the flash, about someone seeing his wings, had they been anywhere but here. But where they were, in this tiny private canyon so far from any major cities, there was little danger of them being discovered. At least not for the night.

He shifted nervously on his branch, wings rustling behind him as he readjusted. It had been four days now since they had escaped from the School, and already Pyre was starting to feel like a failure as their leader. Freedom... was wonderful. It was great not to have men in white coats with medical masks leaning over him, poking him with sticks and needles, attaching probes to his head and his chest, running him through giant machines to see if they could find out how he worked. It was wonderful not to be forced to run or jump or fly or dodge around moving obstacles in a wind tunnel to see how agile, how strong, how fast he had become. But freedom was also overrated. When he had learned the legends of Maximum Ride, the bird-kid, now dead, who had told them to him had forgotten to mention amongst the glory and fighting that he had to find a way to feed his Flock, to clothe them and clean them and shelter them. The task seemed impossible...

And yet he had no choice. He had made the plan that brought them out of there, with the help of Mercy, of course. He had led them out on that first day. Now, they were his responsibility. Food, water, shelter. Those were the most important things right now. He simply had to focus on those three things and maybe, just maybe, they would survive the next week.