The earthy scent of the walls filled my nostrils, along with the musk of bodies packed close and old cooking spices—the smells of community.
I’d always thought of myself as so independent, but as I listened to Nuru’s and Azizi’s slow, steady breathing across the room, I realized just how terribly I’d missed my flock, and I finally felt some comfort.
In the moment before I drifted to sleep, the peaceful snoring stopped. Instead, I heard a ragged, nervous inhale, and my peripheral vision caught the arc of the blade swinging down behind my left shoulder.
My wings exploded outward, and I burst up through the mud roof before the knife could find its mark.
From twenty feet up in the air, still bewildered, I stared down through the wide, crumbling hole I’d torn in the hut. Nuru was on her feet, looking up at me, slack-jawed.
She was holding a machete.

- Maximum Ride Forever, Chapter 35