Free The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor Page B

a pack of cigarettes. “Holy shit,” he said, staring at me, dropping the cigarettes. He made the sign of the cross and fell to his knees.

C HAPTER 3
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    We stared at each other, the wind blowing a potato chip bag and a piece of paper up the filthy alley. Me, breathing heavily, standing there in a sweaty, bloody white dress. And the two men, one African and one Asian, standing near the open door both wearing jeans. I reached behind my shoulders and felt the hardness and softness that was attached to me. I looked over my shoulder. As I did so, whatever was on my back flexed, I could hear it unfolding and stretching. It sounded like the branches of a leafy tree in the wind. It felt like such relief.
    With my peripheral vision I saw brown. I turned my neck as far as I could. Feathers. Wet brown feathers. I had
wings
.
    The two men still said nothing as I backed away. They didn’t follow, they did not retreat. But one of them had his portable, and its top was slid open. He was glancing at it and then glancing at me.
    Running was difficult with the wings. My wingspan had to be over thirty feet. I was stressed and couldn’t help stretching them out, painfully smacking the alley wall. My head throbbed as I focused on my wings. I could see them extending out. Then it was like something clicked into place in the center of my forehead. It was all there. Maybe it hadn’t been there before I died but now that I was alive again, it was. My wings were mine. I knew them. They made sense. My feet kept trying to leave the ground.
    When I heard the sound of a helicopter and saw the searchlight coming toward me, I tried my wings, and it was easy. The feathers had dried and all I had to do was imagine that I had another set of powerful arms. Powerful arms whose every curve, fold, muscle I could control. I could flex them, retract them, move specific parts. I ran.
    Then I flew for my life.
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    The air reached down and took me. I reached up and took to the air. The wind hugged me. My feet left the ground. My remade body was made to fly.
    Eight days ago I had never left Tower 7. I had only seen the world through thick glass. I’d never smelled the breeze. My best friend and the man I loved had killed himself when he lost all hope. Seven days ago, I had died while urging the trees and plants around me to live. Just over two hours ago, I was reborn. And now I had wings, and I was flying.
    I was just above the lower buildings, gazing at what I had only seen from my window. People on the sidewalks, on apartment balconies, coming out of vehicles and homes, in parking lots, all looking up and pointing at me, the screens of whatever devices they carried glowing brightly enough for me to see from so high up. They were texting, calling, messaging, flashing, the whole world would see the new me soon.
    I heard it long before they saw me. But the helicopters were moving too fast for me to really escape. The searchlight soon found me again. I was flooded in white. The helicopter flew beside me, its blades hacking at the air and forcing me to work hard to keep from losing control.
    â€œLand on top of the nearest building,” the female voice said. “We will not hurt you.”
    That voice. The accent. I knew it. Bumi! The woman who’d cared for and instructed me since my earliest memory of life. The woman from Nigeria whom I now realized was most likely banking on the benefits of experimentation on me to earn her American citizenship. Gain from my pain. So she’d survived to pursue me another day. And yet again she was claiming that they would not hurt me. I still remembered what it felt like to have no face and to have bullets eat away at my legs, belly, arms, and chest.
    I flew faster. So they did, too.
    I saw Bumi order the soldiers in the helicopter to bring out their guns . . . again. I heard her shouting at them but could not make out her words. I looked straight ahead. I