B22C7 - Attacked

Up, up I went, my wings screaming from the effort.

But now David was all over me. Within five feet of the wires, I felt those wings shadow me.

<Aaaahhh!> Sharp pain, as steel-strong talons sank into the muscles of my back.

<Noooooo!> I screamed in frustration. I stopped moving forward. My wings beat uselessly. I wasn't going to reach the wires. I wasn't going to watch David fry on ten thousand volts.

Talons squeezed harder. . . harder. . . I lost control of the muscles in the back half of my body. One of the talons was sinking through my flesh, trying to reach my heart.

David began to use his wicked, curved beak on me, tearing at the back of my head.

I was losing. The realization terrified me. Not because it meant I would die. But because it meant David would win.

Tobias . . . Jake . . .

David was going to win. My mind began shutting down. I should demorph, I told myself. But no, I was too high up. And it was so hard to concentrate. So hard to focus.

David was actually carrying me higher, lifting me up. That way, if I did demorph, I'd fall to my death.

<Sorry, Rachel,> David said. <But after all, birds die all the time, don't they?>

And that's when it happened.

I saw it drop from out of nowhere. Out of the sky. Out of the clouds it dropped.

Wings back, talons raked forward.

It hit David in the back of his head! Eagle feathers flew. David screamed in pain.

And Tobias - yes, Tobias - said in private thought-speak, <Rachel, David is really getting to be a pain in the butt.>

David released me. My wings flapped again. I was hurt, but David couldn't know how badly. And he didn't want to fight two at once. He turned and flew away.

<Tobias?> I cried. <But you're supposed to be dead.>

<I am? Who, me?>