(If you take a look at the picture I put up on my profile you'll better understand the story I believe.)
(I FIXED THE LAST ENDING, I WAS GETTING COMMENTS ON HOW CONFUSING IT WAS!)
He couldn't see her but he knew she was there. His captor … His Mistress. Iggy couldn't remember how he had come to be in this situation. It seemed like so long ago, though it couldn't have been more than a week at most.
He was nearly twenty now. How he and the Flock had managed to live past their expiration dates was a long and painful story centering around one pivotal, nay crucial thing. A vaccine. A simple … BOOST, if you will, of the avian DNA. This BOOST, replenished the dying DNA in their systems and expanded their lives for another fifteen to sixteen years. And they need only BOOST again to start the clock back at one.
Iggy smiled to himself and shifted uncomfortably against the crate he was sitting on. The chains clanked and he felt little flakes of rust fall onto his shackled hands. His fingers slid under the collar Mistress had closed around his neck when he'd regained consciousness.
When he'd regained consciousness … Yes, that was how it had happened.
His hands slid down the front of his torn t-shirt and down the right leg of his jeans to the long tear splitting the fabric.
Yes … He could remember it now.
There had been a sudden storm … He had been blown off course. He'd heard them screaming for him … But he was caught in a wind … Blown away into the night. He'd been frantic, half crazed. Flying erratically, his hands out and searching, tears falling.
The sky he had once thought of as friendly, and welcoming had become the black nightmare of an endless directionless void.
Without Gazzy he'd had no direction … Without a Flock, he'd had no destination … no safety. He was a flying mutant bird-child who couldn't see.
That's when he'd hit the tree. If he hadn't been crying he would have been able to sense it, to smell its pine scent anyway … He would have known it was there. But he was choking on his own tears and his own horror and he had flown face first into it.
The needles scratched his cheeks and at first he'd thought it was an Eraser. Not one of the ones he'd fought when he was young. One of the NEW Erasers, lean, evil killing machines that had no soul … No thought save one … Kill.
He'd thrashed at the tree, kicking and punching. Then as he caught the scent of pine through his clogged nostrils he'd stopped and clung to the tree sobbing. He'd called for Max and listened as his voice echoed in the distance, forlorn, pained … Alone.
So he'd started climbing down the tree, feeling gingerly with the toe of his red Converse tennis shoe for a branch before stepping on it. Testing each branch's strength then climbing lower on the tree.
He couldn't have climbed lower than five feet because he'd only tested three branches when the forth broke and he fell. He gave a short, choked cry and dropped like a stone, his hands grabbing at passing limbs, the needles cutting his palms.
Then it had hit him.
A broken branch stabbed into his right thigh plunging past fabric and skin, deep into the muscle.
He'd screamed. He'd screamed and wrapped his arms around the tree wailing in pain and fury. He'd screamed until no more sound escaped his throat. Until he was to weak to sustain a sound louder than the gasping breaths he inhaled and the whimpers he exhaled.
He'd hugged the tree for what felt like an hour, thinking, Max is going to come get me any second. They're coming, they're coming. I'm going to be OK. I'm not going to die … They're coming!
But they didn't and he'd stayed there, his arms clamped around the tree trunk shivering. His whole body cold and wet with sweat and blood … Shock.
Then he'd felt the blood running down his leg and he'd been sick, praying all the while that he didn't slip and fall in it when he reached the ground.
He'd tried to move his leg, so he could continue to climb down but he'd felt the little broken branch moving around in his leg and he'd hugged the tree even tighter, terrified and in pain. He'd stayed there until the blood loss took its toll and he fainted, sliding lifelessly down the tree for quite a few feet before he snapped back into awareness long enough to grab a passing limb and haul himself astride it his right leg limp and throbbing.
Then he'd leaned back against the tree and he'd woken up here, sitting on a crate in some small, cold, concrete room. He'd been in agony. He had groped for his leg and felt the manacles around his wrists and the chains connecting him to the wall.
At first he'd thought of the School … He'd thought they had found him and taken him back … But then Mistress had leaned in and closed a metal, chained collar around his neck.
Then she'd stuffed a rag in his mouth and gone for his leg. After that all he could remember was pain … And the same darkness he always saw.
When he'd woken up Mistress had him stretched out on the ground and was bending over him. He could feel her breath on his face. Her hot fetid smelling breath and he'd thought she was one of them … An Eraser and he'd put up his hands to fight. Even in his weakened condition he was ready to fight.
Then she'd taken his hands in hers … Her cool, furless hands and pressed them to her throat. Running his fingers over a large jagged scar across her windpipe and he'd known…
She had no voice, he had no sight…
Then she'd put his left hand on her back on her shoulder and he'd nearly screamed in terror at what he'd found there.
Wings.
Not feathered avian like wings like his, but thin leathery wings … Like a bat's.
And she'd touched his wing lightly … almost tenderly and pressed his hand to her chest, over her heart and applied pressure.
He'd nodded, telling her he understood and unconsciousness had claimed him again.
Iggy had awoken a few days later to Mistress wiping his face with a wet cloth. She had lifted his hand to her cheek and nuzzled his palm her lips pressing into the pad of his thumb. He had smiled involuntarily and told her he had to leave, he had to find his Flock.
And she had thrown his hand back to his chest and stormed away slamming a door near him so hard he could feel it in the floor. He'd lain there for a long time staring blindly in the direction of the ceiling calling to Angel in his mind.
Angel, help me … Oh, GOD, ANGEL!
But they didn't come. So, he'd lain there for days alone, his mind drifting farther and farther into insanity.
They're coming … They are going to find me … They are going to save me!
He was so hungry. And he was starting to worry himself sick … What if they never found him? What if he was chained to the concrete wall forever? What if Mistress let him die?
Oh, GOD ANGEL, MAX … ANYBODY! HELP ME!
He gathered up enough courage to sit up one day after the countless days he'd lain there. He'd waved his hands around, searching for a wall, for something to lean back on so his leg wouldn't hurt so much and he'd found the crate.
So now he sat there, leaning against the wall on his crate his hands folded under his chin as if he were praying. Which, in fact, he was, he was praying Max would find him, praying that his Flock was all right and was looking for him.
They're coming, they're coming and they are going to find me. They are going to find me!
He heard her walking toward the door. Heard her pause and turn the knob, the rusted components screeching as the knob turned and the door opened. He heard her bare feet pad across the floor and pause feet from him.
She smelled … She smelled like death. Like something long dead and rotting.
OH, GOD HELP ME!
She touched his face, caressing his cheek and running a hand through his red hair. He leaned into her hand, eager, after so long by himself for any contact … For any sensation to let him know that he was alive.
"Help me," He whispered, on the verge of tears.
And she'd crawled up onto the crate with him, pulling him into her arms, running her bony fingers through his hair, kissing the top of his head. And then he'd heard her voice in his head, a small, sweet Angel like voice.
"I'm here, Iggy … I'm here."
He choked on a sob and pressed his face into her shoulder, "Let me go … Please, let me go!"
She grew silent, his head tucked lovingly under her chin. "You'll leave me … Like the others did … You'll leave me all alone to die!"
"No … No, I won't … I'll take you with me, just please, let me go!"
He heard her sigh and felt her shift and her cool hand ran down his arm, pausing briefly on the bruised swollen areas around the restraints. And the heavy metal fetters on his hands, slithering like a chain serpent to the floor, soon followed by the collar.
He sat there stunned and panting for a moment before he felt her chilled hands on his face, turning him to ward her. "Take me with you."
She stood, pulling him with her, draping his arm around her shoulders so he need not put weight on his injured leg. Together they hobbled out into the sunlight.