B21C27

I timed it carefully, then I scrabbled back out from beneath the far side of the bed and flapped my wings.
David stood there, maybe three feet tall, still covered in feathers. His face was an eagle’s face.
But there were human fingers beginning to emerge from the wing tips.
He reached over and clumsily grasped a jagged piece of wood about as long as a baseball bat.
<Come on, little birdie,> he said. <Try for the window, go ahead.>
I flapped hard, making a lot of noise with my wings. But I didn’t fly. I skimmed across the floor
on my talons, using my wings to get up speed.
David saw what I was doing and tried to bend over to slam the stick down. Just one problem: He was still more bird than human. And birds don’t have a waist.
WHAP! The stick missed me, and I was under his guard. Under his guard and now flying straight up, up at his face.
He staggered back. He batted at his face with his half-formed hands. But I was too close and he was too clumsy.
I raked his face with both talons.
“Aaaaahhhhh!” he cried with a mouth more human than bird. I dug one talon into his emerging nose and -