She's not anyone,
She's not anyone,
She's not anyone.
"Fang, it's OK. I can manage here without you for an hour or so. Go find her." Iggy's voice was commanding, and, I have to be honest, I feared that if I argued he and Gazzy might try to blow me up.
Hey, you'd be surprised what those two can achieve when they want.
I hesitated a moment, and was rewarded by a shove from Iggy. "Go!" he hissed.
"Alright, alright, I'm going," I replied as I unfurled my wings and took off into the night.
I guess I should probably explain. We've been in Nebraska lately, as Max's 'Voice' told us there would be something interesting for us here. Which, I suppose, is partly true. In the Omaha branch of Itex, we (I say 'we'; I mean Nudge) found some more information about our parents, where we had come from: Angel and Gazzy's parents had been severely strapped for cash, and gave them up to the school to give them a 'better life' (sure...); Nudge's had lost her shortly after her birth when she was taken to be treated for a (non-existent) disease; Iggy's Dad had died and his Mum had been forced to give him up, and mine had been too young to look after me, so instead of putting me up for adoption, like most people would have, she decided to let me get wings forced on me.
You notice whose name wasn't there? Exactly.
I knew that she wouldn't have ever told us how upset she was by this, but it had to hurt, right? Once we'd landed by a long deserted farm, she'd taken off, saying she'd be back by 5. It was 7 now, and, I'll admit it, I was worried. Especially after the time she tried to hack that chip out of her arm with a shell. To be perfectly honest, I had no idea where she could be, but figured if I headed towards a town, I might find her near McDonalds or something; it had been a while since we'd last eaten, although I had rather generously left Iggy and the others with the last of the tins and bars from by bag.
20 minutes, and nearly as many McDonalds later, I gave up looking for her in town, and decided to venture away from this part of Omaha to the river we'd flown along earlier. It was dark out now, and the water snaked below me as I skimmed its surface with my (sadly falling apart) Converses. A low rumble of thunder told me that the ominous clouds I'd seen earlier were making their appearance known. A streak of lightning that sliced through the inky black sky confirmed this.
Come on Max! Where are you?
If I'd been worried before, I wasn't sure what I was now. Another bolt of lightning with its accompanying thunder crash lit up the land around me, blurred by the rain that had begun to fall from the clouds. Fabulous.
"Max!" I called, "Max, it's Fang! Where are you?"
The sky was briefly illuminated once more, and I seized the opportunity to scan the area for her.
There! On the edge of the river I saw her rain soaked silhouette sat by a tree. I skidded to a halt and landed beside her.
I'm not going to lie to you, rain-soaked or not, she was still, you know, hot. In a kind of, unbelievable, 2% bird way.
"Hey. You alright?"
"What do you think?" she replied, and I was a little shocked to hear her voice (her regular voice, not her 'Voice' voice) was thick with tears.
Oh man. Max was upset, and it's not like there was anything I could do to help her. I mean, I wasn't the one who'd taken her away from her parents and given her wings.
Slowly, she leaned into me. I remembered a film that'd been on TV once years ago, where the heroine was upset and the hero put his arm around her until she stopped crying. Maybe this would work, although I hardly think Hollywood was designed with 2% bird kids in mind. Still, worth a try, I guess.
If anything, she started crying harder.
I tried to pull my arm away, but she held it tight. I decided this was probably a good sign, and we stayed there for a while, until she sat up and looked at me.
"You know what I'd like," she whispered.
"Erm..." I replied, sharp as ever, obviously.
"I'd like for us to be able to go back to how it was when...Jeb," she hesitated as she said his name, "was alive. I'd like us to have our home back, to have somewhere to sleep every night, not having to pick food out of bins, for Iggy to be able to see again, to not have to worry about our parents." Her voice shook on this last word and I pulled her closer to me again.
"But I know that can't happen, can it? It's just...if we did find parents, we'd lose someone, and I think how bad it was with...you know, and I couldn't bear for that to happen again. I don't think I could exist properly without any of you, especially you Fang, but you'd all be OK without me, because you've all got parents. What do I have? The School? I just...I wish we'd never found that information, I know it sounds evil, especially to the younger ones, but...but..."
"It's OK," I murmured, and she nodded her head into my chest. We both stood up and she took of first; flew away into the night. I followed and caught her up quickly.
"We should get back to the others," I said.
"Sure," Max replied. "I'll race you to the next bridge!"
She won, but only just I would like to point out.
I held out my hand. "Well done." We shook hands in a mock-Olympic style (if there was a 100 metre race for the Mutant Bird Kids, anyway), and I was a little annoyed to realise she wasn't even out of breath.
We kept our hands in each others', and as we began our descent towards the trees we were staying in, she turned to me.
"Thanks Fang. I don't honestly know what I'd do without you."
Gonna write a song so she can see
Give her all the love she gives to me
Talk of better days that have yet to come
Never felt this love from anyone.
She's not anyone.
AN-So...what did you think? The song lyrics are from 'Songbird' by Oasis (.com/watch?v=eGi59PYz4ig) , seriously amazing song XD