These battlescars don't look like they're fading, don't look like they'll ever go away.
"Iggy!"
"Nudge, Nudge, calm down, I'm here. I'm here, nothing's going to happen to you."
"But you're not really here."
"It's just the fever, Nudge, I'm here."
"But you can't see me."
The furry beast is probably the ugliest thing she's ever layed eyes on. The muzzle currently staring her in the face is enough to make her gag, the filthy stench wafting from the rows of crooked, crushing jaws and up her nose, and suddenly she's choking. But maybe that's from the paw around her neck. The claws are digging into her upper back, and she can feel the blood running down her back. It's going to stain her shirt. That's not fair. She's only just shoplifted this one, too.
He's saying something - is this even a he? Do these monsters have genders? - but she can't understand because there's blood clogging her ears. Is that even blood? She brings up a mocha colored hand and touches it, but she can't tell what it is because she's seeing double now. That's when she starts crying. She wants Iggy right now. She doesn't want Max, her leader, or Fang, Max's second-in-command, or Gazzy, who can always make her feel better, or Angel, who is her best friend. She wants the boy who's been blind but can remember seeing once. She wants the boy- no, he's a man now- who has held her every other time there's been a need for tears. She wants the boy who puts up with her chatter and embraces it. She wants the person who understands her. Not this detestable creature looming over her petite figure.
Of course, she doesn't have the power to speak up and tell him to get off of her. Even if she could, her voice would be so strangled and feral that no one would have been able to interpret the language she was warbling. But Iggy would. Because Iggy understands her. At first, her brain doesn't even register that the beast lingering on her beaten body is moving. But her brain most definitely registers it when the gigantic weight is released from her body as he heaves himself off of her. He's yelling now, and she can still smell his acrid breath and feel his dirt embellished fur and see his shaky outline and taste her blood, but she can't hear a thing he's saying. Everything is muted, everything is silent. It reminds her of when Max catches Iggy watching something innapropriate on the television, and she presses the mute button on the remote and the people are still talking, but no one can hear them because they've been shut off.
Maybe she's been shut off, too. Or maybe it's the animal in front of her - thank goodness not on her anymore - maybe Max has clicked his button. The tears are flowing so much more freely, rivers running down her cheeks. She could be crying blood, for all she knows. She's all over the place and she's no where at the same time. No one is going to help her and no one will hurt her anymore and she's safe and she just wants to curl up. But she can't because she can't feel her legs. Time is either flying or fading or stopping altogether, and she watches as the fuzzy, dying outline leaves the room and she's alone.
All that is there is her and her blood and her tears and possibly her heart.
And then Iggy is there.
Life is a blur from then on out. She can't remember what's going on anymore and all she wants to feel and touch and hold and see is Iggy. But no matter how hard she tries, she can't hear him. As she lays on that white, pristine bed in that white, pristine room, her hands claw at her ears like knives, digging out the nonexistent clot of blood and the sweat and whatever is clogging her hearing. She can never be satisfied because it never makes her hear.
It's post traumatic stress. Max wrote that on a chalkboard and holds it up for Nudge to read, but Nudge is unresponsive because that's not it and she knows it. But she can't let Max down. Max is strong but she has a feeling even she will break if she's burdened anymore. She's already got a blind man- but that's Nudge's blind man. Her nights are spent tossing and turning and waiting for Iggy because Max has also promised that he'll be her eventually. That he's on a trip with Fang somewhere. That he loves her and he's coming.
She desperately wants to scream and shout and curse because Max is lying and Nudge can see right through her lazy shield. Does Max think Nudge is incapable? If she does, Nudge is going to leave. She can be independent, too. Max isn't the only big shot of the flock. Max isn't the only one who's capable of doing great things. She got Fang but Nudge got Iggy, and isn't that so much better? He's so much more sensual and loving and graceful and strangely boyish all the same, and everything about him is so beautiful it makes Nudge want to cry.
Nudge has been struggling for a week before Iggy arrives. He doesn't even try to say anything, because she can see just find now and those addicting, much missed lips of his aren't moving at all. He just crosses the room and holds onto her and suddenly there's wet stuff on her shoulder. And then she's crying with him. They break down in each other's arms. No one is watching and no one is laughing and no one is peeping. It is just them and this horribly clean room, so antiseptic and germ free it's sickening.
It takes them about an hour before Nudge can finally choke some words out.
"I'm deaf, Iggy."