The Lost Sister

by Fheilimi

This story is about Cash, who was a member of the flock until she passed away. Please read and review. BE WARNED: This story is pretty sad.

This will be the only time I will ever talk about her. She was family and we lost her, forever. It will never be the same without her, maybe writing this will bring cloture for me. Goodness knows that I need it.
She was her own person, and had her own personality. We all loved her for that. Her name was Cash, because she always sang along to good 'ol Johnny Cash's songs. She loved everything old: books, movies, people. She didn't die old, though. She never got a chance.

"Hey Max, where's the TV?" Cash yelled from the living room.
"Ig and Fang took it outside to fix," I called back from the kitchen.
"Damn it!" Cash exclaimed.
"Hey! Watch the language!" I called, "we have young ears in here!"
Angel and Nudge giggled from their game at the kitchen table. Angel was only four years old at the time and Nudge was nine. It had been a few months since Jeb had disappeared and we were trying to get along like nothing had happened. That Jeb would come back eventually, but he didn't.
But this story isn't about Jeb, it's about Cash.
She stormed into the kitchen, her 12 year old face scowling.
"I thought they had it fixed yesterday!" Cash exclaimed, plopping down at the table ruffling Angel's hair.
"Well there was something that broke loose or something," I said, turning back to the fridge, looking for something that we could eat tonight.
"There's always something that breaks loose..." Cash muttered, "what're you guys playing?"
"Mouse Trap!" said Nudge, happily, "and Angel's winning!"
"Good job, Angel!" Cash said, "well I'm going outside, if anyone needs me."
Cash always used to like going outside to read, I usually saw her perched up on the roof with her nose in a book. Or other times I would see her staring off into the distance, letting her long, dark brown wings hang loose in the breeze. We couldn't really buy books or have her get a library card, for fear of our information getting out. So Cash and I would go and sneak into the library after hours and 'borrow' the books that she wanted. Don't worry, we would always make sure to return them, no matter how much Cash begged to keep them. She was working on ''Wuthering Heights" right now. She always loved to keep us updated with the scandalous things going on in her books.
I stared out the window, down at Fang and Iggy's hunched forms over the TV. Then I was startled by the flutter of wings at Gasman flew up by the window, Cash close behind him. I saw that Gazzy had stolen Cash's book.
"Give it back, Gaz!" yelled Cash, her long, skinny wings pumping up and down hard to catch up with him.
"You have to catch me first, Cash!" laughed Gazzy.
"How about after I kill you first!"
That was another thing about Cash. She was pretty mellow and quiet whenever she was in a content mood. Whenever something was bothering her you could tell, she wasn't ever very good at bottling things up inside. But when she was mad, boy, she had the hottest temper anyone could see! Especially when any body messed with her stuff! Gazzy loved to see how far he could push her.
He went too far, though.
Somehow or another Gazzy lost his grip on the book and dropped it, pages fluttering, into a large, brown puddle that was formed by a rainstorm that we had had last night.
Cash landed too quickly to be graceful and stumbled to her poor, drowned book. Gazzy landed next to her, looking sorry, as she picked up the waterlogged book.
I quickly made my way outside, 'cause I knew this wasn't going to be pretty.
"I can't believe you, Gaz," Cash muttered, examining the ruined book, its pages turning brown from the water.
"I- I'm sorry, Cash!" Gazzy stammered, his eyes wide, "I didn't mean to drop it! Honest!"
Fang and Iggy made their way over to the scene and I could see Nudge and Angel peeking through the window.
"But you know how this gets to me!" Cash yelled, "You know how much I hate it when you take my books and this is a library book! How am I going to return it like this?"
"Cash, take a deep breath," I said, "Gazzy's a little kid and he didn't mean to do it."
Oops.
Cash gave me a look that could melt metal, with her dark green eyes flashing.
"Oh really, Max," Cash said through clenched teeth, "just a little kid? That's no excuse for what he did! And I- I, don- do not care whether or no- not he's a little kid, he kno- ws what he's not supposed to do!"
When Cash got really, really angry she got into a stuttering fit. She used to stutter all the time, it was most likely caused by the trauma from all the experiments that the white coats made her go through. Then when Jeb saved us, he helped her get out of the habit.
"Take it easy, Cash," Fang said, in a quiet, soothing voice, "I'm sure it's not that bad. Maybe it just needs to dry out a little to get fixed."
"Th- Th- That's n-n-ot," Cash struggled to get the words out right, but she gave up and just gave us a, "whatever", before she took off in the direction of our club house in the woods.
"Gasman, that was really bad thing you did to Cash," I told him, glaring at him.
"I'm sorry, Max..." Gazzy whispered, staring at the puddle."
"Just go to your room, okay?" I said, and turned to Fang and Iggy, "I'm going to check on Cash, can you hold down the fort for a little while?"
"Okay, Max," said Ig, a slight frown on his face.
I spread my wings out and jumped up into the air, taking off towards the cabin that we used as a club house.
I landed in front of the door and opened it up. I found Cash sitting at a small table, examining her book's pages. She looked up at me, her eyes were blotted with tears.
"What do you want?" she muttered, looking back down at her book.
"I came to see if you were alright," I said, walking over to her.
"No, I'm not," she said, scowling, "why would you think that I was alright?"
"Well, maybe Fang was right," I said, smiling, "I'm sure it's not that bad, just let the pages dry out and it should be readable again!"
"That's not the point, Max," Cash said, "you're always easy on the little kids, Gaz especially! But if I were to ruin or mess with your, Fang's, or Ig's things then I would be enemy number one! Normally I wouldn't be that mad, but Gaz nearly destroyed my only way out of here."
"What do you mean only way out of here?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.
Cash didn't say anything for a moment, then looked at me. She seemed really tired, almost worn out completely.
"Out of this life, out of our situation," she said, "with books... I can live in other situations, normal situations, and sometimes situations that are almost as bad as ours."
Cash held the soden "Wuthering Heights" in her hands.
"With this book, I could escape from the thoughts of the School, and the fact that we're mutant freaks who will live short lives of fear."
"It's not that bad," I said, forcing a smile on my face.
"Really? I know that we're running out of food, Max," Cash said, "we all know. And we lost Jeb, we're not in a very good situation right now."
I stared out the window, I should have known that soon the knowledge would get out about the food. But I was hoping that it wouldn't.
"Well, at least we have one another," I said, "as long as the flock stays together then we'll be okay."
Cash looked back at me and gave me a weak smile, "yeah, I guess you're right."
"Why don't you come back to us?" I asked, smiling.
"Okay," Cash said, getting up with her book, "I guess I can't really stay mad at you all for too long."
So together we flew back to the house, and we were whole again.

A few months passed since that day, and that's when things began to change. It started with breakfast.
The flock was scattered around the kitchen, eating a good sized breakfast since I found close to a thousand dollars in a box in Jeb's old room. I couldn't find Cash anywhere, I figured she had gone out for a fly. She usually liked to fly outside early in the morning and then she came back around breakfast time.
But she didn't come back.
"Max, where's Cash?" asked Nudge, finishing her breakfast.
"I'm sure that she'll come back any minute," I said, because I knew that sometimes Cash got caught up with flying and lost track of time.
I knew something was wrong, though, when noontime came around and Cash didn't return.
"Fang and Nudge, I want you guys to come with me to look for Cash," I said, after I gathered the flock together, "Ig, you're in charge, and I don't want you guys going anywhere in case Cash comes back."
Fang, Nudge and I took off and began soaring above the different parts of our secret home. We split up, Fang headed over to the strawberry fields, Nudge went towards the forested area, and I looked at the surrounding area around the house. In case Cash had fallen asleep outside.
At first I could find anything, then I heard a sound. It was Fang.
"Max! Get over here, quick!" I heard him yelling from the fields.
I picked up speed and flew as fast as I could over to his location. Nudge was already there and I saw Fang crouching over something in the middle of the strawberry fields, it was Cash.
As I landed, I yelled out, "Cash!"
"She's unconscious," Fang said, "but she's alive."
"We need to get her back to the house," I said.
Fang carried Cash and I flew ahead, looking towards the ground for anything unusual. What had caused Cash to pass out while flying? She was a really good at fly and strong. She had to be strong, because her wings were so thin.
I was sitting by Cash's bed for about half an hour when she finally came to.
"Hey, there," I said, quietly, "how are you feeling?"
"I'm okay," she said, sitting up a little bit, but laid back down quickly, "I feel really dizzy."
"What happened?"
"I don't know," Cash said, "I was flying alright, but I was starting to get really tired, so I started to head back to the house. Then I just... blacked out."
"Well, maybe you just pushed yourself too hard today," I said, smiling, "why don't you stay in bed for the rest of the day, I'll go get you some food."
"Okay."
I stepped out of the room, deep in thought. It just didn't make since, this had never happened before.
A day after that Cash was well enough to get out of bed and join everyone for breakfast. But, even several days after the accident, she still didn't seem like herself, like I said before, she wasn't very good at hiding her feelings. Cash was very stiff and silent. She stayed inside her room all day, and didn't even look at a book.
I knocked on her door.
"Come in."
I opened the door up to find Cash sitting in her window, looking at the mountain view.
"Hey, the TV's working again," I said, cheerfully, "the flock's going to watch some show about dumb pageant girls, wanna come?"
"Uh, sure," Cash said, giving a small smile.
As the flock sat down, laughing at the crazy moms and bratty girls, I looked over at Cash. She wasn't really paying attention to the show, she had kind of a glazed look on her face and occasionally looked out the window.
That night I went to her room again, after the flock had went to bed.
Cash's door was open just a crack and I peeked through to see Cash laying on her side on her bed. The moon's white light falling on her. I walked in silently and sat lightly on the side of her bed, Cash's back facing me. Her long, brown hair was spread out. That's when I saw it.
It was on the back of her neck, and I had never seen it before. Slowly I reached out and brushed the remainder of the hair blocking it, and the breath was knocked out of me.
"So now you see?" Cash said, startling me.
"Is that... um...uh..."
"Yeah, it is."
A lump formed in my throat, I could feel my heart breaking inside of me.
"How long has it been there?" I said, in a rough voice, trying the force the tears down.
"Since that day when I passed out."
"Why didn't you tell us?" I asked, as a single tear dropped down my cheek, I was too numb to wipe it away.
"I didn't know how to tell you," Cash said, her voice getting choked up.
Slowly I got up, and turned the light on. I was nearly blinded, but I walked back to the bed and looked again at the back of Cash's neck.
It was a small, black barcode. There was a row of random numbers beneath it, but I couldn't decipher a date.
"I'll tell the others tomorrow," Cash said, "can you stay with me, Max? I don't want to be alone right now."
I fought hard to keep back the tears, but more spilled out, "su- sure, Cash."
Neither us slept that night, we just layed there and stared out the window, at the mountains and cliffs bathed in the white light of the moon.
Cash and I got up right as the sky began to pinken from the sun peeking over the hills and mountains.
Cash stayed in the kitchen while I got the rest of the flock up. It is usually hard to get Nudge and Gasman out of bed, but something on my face told them that today wasn't the day to stay in bed. My hand was in Angel's hand as I knocked on Fang and Iggy's doors.
"We're going to have an earlier start today," I said to both of them, Fang looked at me and nodded and Iggy grunted.
Angel already read the grief in my mind, but she was so young that she didn't really understand. She just kind of walked around with a confused look on her tired face.
Finally, when all of the flock was seated at the table, Cash cleared her throat.
"Um... I have something to tell you guys," she started, looking at each of the flock's faces.
"I know I've been acting really strange lately, and it's important to me that I tell you what's going on," she said, taking a deep breath, "I found an expiration date on the back of my neck, the evening of that day that I passed out."
The table was very, very quiet. It felt as if all of the air and noise was sucked out of the room, as if we were in outer space.
"That can't be right!" exclaimed Gasman, his young face twisted with confusion and anger.
"I'm sorry, Gaz," said Cash, quietly.
"Maybe it's wrong," said Nudge, "maybe it doesn't mean anything! Maybe it's just a- a flook."
"You and I both know that's not likely, Nudge," Cash said, smiling sadly at her.
"But it could be!" Nudge said, "it has to be..." A sob choked Nudge and tears began streaming down her cheeks.
"But we love you, Cash!" Gazzy cried, gasping and trying to fight tears.
Fang looked away, his frowning lips trembling and his cheeks stained with tears. Iggy's sightless eyes welled up with tears and spilled over. Angel looked around at everyone with wide eyes, and seeing them cry made her start crying, too.
I was the only one not crying, I had lost all my tears last night, I cried for most of the night.
"I'm really sorry, guys," Cash said, wiping her face with her hands, "there's nothing we can do, though. I just wanted to let you know, because you're my family and I love all of you, and you deserved to know."
Angel got out of her chair and got on Cash's lap, hugging her tightly. Cash put her head on Angel and kissed her. Nudge lost it and put her head in her hands, sobbing. I put my arm around Nudge and Nudge reached out and took Cash's hand. Ig put his head on the table and Fang stared at the wall. Gasman got up and wrapped his arms around both Angel and Cash.
We stayed like this for I don't know how long, everyone was cried out and the room was silent again. Finally Iggy pulled his head up, his eyes red from crying and his forehead had a red mark on his head from laying it on the table. Cash looked at him and smiled.
"Heh, Iggy, it looks like a tomato left its butt imprint on your forehead."
Iggy rubbed his forehead and burst out laughing. Cash joined in and so did Angel, feeling the happiness in Cash's mind. Gazzy looked at Ig's forehead and joined in.
"Oh my god, she's right!" Nudge said, laughing.
Fang and I grinned. Even when she was dying, Cash still had her sense of humor. But the happiness didn't really last long, though. It was obvious that Cash was weakening and she couldn't really lift her wings anymore, much less fly. She and I were sitting on the couch in the living room one day, and she turned to me.
"Max, can you take me on the roof one last time?"
"Of course, Cash."
Fang and I helped fly Cash up onto the usual place that she used to sit and read. The rest of the flock joined us up there, just as the sun was beginning to set. The clouds were stained purple, orange and yellow. The sky was a pure blue behind it. It was the most beautiful sunset we had ever seen.
Cash breathed a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"It's perfect," sighed Nudge, her eyes dreamy and sad.
"It sure is," said Gazzy.
"Paint me a picture," said Iggy.
Cash smiled, "the sun's a deep red, and the clouds closest to it are yellow. The clouds behind the yellow clouds are orange on top and pink on the bottom. Then the clouds after that are pinkish purple, and then after that is purple and then a deep purple."
Iggy smiled, "wow, that's incredible. I wonder how it's possible."
After the sunset was gone and the sky darkened the flock went to bed. I had spent every night in Cash's room ever since that night I found out that she was dying.
"Max," Cash said in a tired voice.
"Yeah, Cash," I replied, wide awake.
"I want you guys to keep on living, after I die," she said, "it's okay for you to sad, it would be impossible not to be. But when you're done grieving, I want you to move on. You guys still have one another, and that's all you need."
"Okay, Cash," I whispered.
"I love you, Maximum."
"I love you, too, Cash. We will always love you."
Cash took a deep breath and eventually fell asleep. Somehow I fell asleep, too.
Somehow, when I woke up in the morning, I knew she was gone. I put my finger on her wrist and didn't find a pulse. She was very cold and her eyes were closed. She had a peaceful look on her pale face.
"Goodbye, Cash."
I let the flock get up on their own that day. When they were all in the kichen, I told them what happened and what Cash's final wish was.
Nudge and Gasman started to cry and Angel along with them. Fang bowed his head and Iggy didn't say a thing.
Cash was wrapped in a white sheet and we flew her out to the strawberry field and buried her where Fang found her.
Once it was done, we all stood silently looking at the grave, hoping that it wasn't real and that we would all wake up and that Cash would be alright again. But we knew that wasn't possible.
"Does anyone want to say anything?" I asked, "you don't have to, but if you need to, go ahead."
It was quiet for a moment, then Fang spoke up, "I thought you were pretty accurate in describing Ig's blotch from the table as a tomato butt imprint."
The flock smiled a little bit.
"Yeah, that was a good one, Cash," Nudge said.
"I liked it when you told us about your different books," said Iggy, "it was like watching a TV in my mind."
"You were pretty cool, Cash," said Gazzy, "you always forgave me after I stole your books... sorry about that by the way..."
"I wish you didn't leave, Cash," said Angel, clutching a little white flower, "I hope I see you again."
Angel placed the flower on the dirt mound and backed up and stood by me. I felt my heart breaking all over again. I took a deep, ragged, breath.
"I liked the way you used to perch up on the roof, like you were in your own little world," I said, looking at the little flower.
We all stood there for a moment longer, and slowly I unfolded and spread my wings. Iggy's sensitive ears heard it and did the same. Fang, Gazzy, Nudge and Angel did so, too.
I took off and the rest of the flock followed.

That's everything, and this is my final tribute to Cash. But she'll always be in my mind, and I don't think I will ever forget her. But I need to remember our mission, to stay out of the School and to stay alive. I need to make sure that the flock always stays together, but there will always be a scar where Cash used to be.