Chapter 38

Michael

I flew over to Angela. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “A little shaken, but not stirred.”

I smirked as I handed her white Star Stone to her. “Don’t drop this.”

She took it gratefully. “I won’t. It’s just… the pockets in girls’ pants are so tiny! It’s ridiculous! How do they expect us to fit the massive cell phones they keep making these days in them? I don’t get—”

“Angela!” I cut her off, gipping her shoulders. “Get your wings up! Now!”

A second later, we were surrounded by a force field of wings made of pure energy. Another second later, we heard a loud thud against the wings directly above us followed by a grunt of pain. The wings held, but we were bumped downward a tad.

“Great,” Angela said. “You brought the invisible Starling with you?”

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“Yeah,” I said. “Angela, it’s Zack.”

“Your cousin?”

I nodded. “And he’s got a personal vendetta against me. Wants to take away my powers, even if it means killing me if he has to. And I think someone from MARS is helping them too.”

An explosion sounded behind us, though it was muffled by the wings, causing us both to jump. Flames spread across the force field for a couple seconds and then died out. We could see Ray through the wings in the distance, summoning another fireball.

Angela pulled me close into an embrace. It may have been for comfort or to help her focus on the protective emotion she needed to have to summon her wings—either way, I wasn’t complaining. “Michael,” she said into my shoulder. “They do have someone helping them, a guy named Mark, but he’s not with MARS.” Another fireball hit the force field, knocking us back a bit. “He’s another Starling who lost his stone and he’s getting Ray and Zack to help him find it. And for some reason he wants to kill us. Especially me. He scares me, Michael.”

“Don’t worry, Angela.” I held her tighter as another fireball slammed into the wings. “We can beat these guys. We just gotta work together. And as for that other Starling… well, we can worry about him after we beat Ray and Zack. How long can your wings hold up?”

“Pretty much forever, I think. As long as I have my stone and keep up my concentration.”

Another fireball rocked us backwards.

“Okay,” I said. “What we need to do is get one of their stones away from them. Once you get it, throw it as far as you can. Should be enough to take his powers away.”

She nodded. “Probably easier to take Ray’s first. You know, since we can actually see him.”

“Agreed. And then we should be able to handle Zack with the two of us against him.”

“Yeah, so how are we going to take Ray’s stone away?”

“I’ve got an idea.”