THIS MEANS WAR
"This means war!" I heard Angel, Gazzy and Iggy yell in unison, just as I saw something pinkish start to fly in my direction.
"Oh my god no," I said, "Why couldn't we have a normal New Years Eve party?" I dived back behind the couch. I felt something squishy and smelling of the sea hit my head. "Ewww…." I muttered, "That is gross."
Iggy laughed like a rabid maniac and continued to throw shrimp at my head. I reached one hand up and grabbed something that felt like cloth and yanked it over my head. It came crashing down on my whole body. Hard.
"What the…" I muttered, just as I felt something liquid pour down my back. "Gazzy! You little bastard!!" I screamed, abandoning my cover and running out after Gazzy. "What was that?"
"Uh… Cider?" he asked, grinning like he was four years old.
I pushed him over and tried to make my way back to my cover behind the couch when I felt a hand on my sleeve. "MAX!" Nudge whined. "Max, I need help! Gazzy just went upstairs to get some eggs!"
"Oh great," I muttered. "You want something to cover with?"
She nodded and ducked down just as Angel threw some licorice our way. I looked around for a blanket or something, but I didn't see anything. I sighed and stripped off my ruined tee shirt, leaving me in jeans and black cami. "Take this," I told her, "and get out of here. I don't want to have to hear you complain for weeks."
I turned around and started to look for some cover when I felt something splat against my back. I didn't need to turn to figure out what it was. I don't think I need to tell you either. Go ahead. Guess.
I reached around just as I felt the gross egg ripping down to my butt. "You are so dead, Gazzy," I muttered. I started to run for the couch when I felt another egg break on top of my head. That was gonna take forever to get out. It was starting to drip down my face as I reached the couch. I wiped as much as I could onto my hand and then onto my jeans.
"They want a war, they're gonna get one," I breathed just as I felt some more shrimp hit my shoulder. Where was Fang? He was on my side, wasn't he? Well if he was around, he was as good as my enemy. I thought about texting him, but if he was hiding, I'd be getting him caught too. That would totally suck if he was on my side.
I stood up and sprinted off toward the back door. I stepped on some shrimp, some licorice and a little bit of eggs, all of which had probably stuck to the soles of my feet. I was going to be gross after this. I ripped the door open and slid it shut so fast that one of Gazzy's eggs hit the door.
I felt the mud sopping up my feet, which is totally gross. What's worse, the door didn't lock. I didn't have much time before somebody got outside. I rounded the corner of the house, kicking myself for fleeing into the night when it was almost midnight. The moon was behind the clouds, so I could barely see anything more than five feet in front of me. Not to mention it was raining, which made it get muddier and muddier as I ran.
I started to run faster, pounding my feet into the soil and trying to ignore the plants and thickets I was stepping on and praying that I didn't hit any trees before I got to the woods, my ultimate destination. They're impossible to navigate unless you've done it a million times before, and they're pretty secluded. They might even shield me from the rain.
I finally reached the edge of the forest, which was really, really good, considering I could barely stand. The rain was making me cold, especially my feet and my hands. My feet were covering in mud and leaves and egg crud, so I wasn't getting any traction at all when I was moving.
But there was a little problem. I couldn't see the trees in front of me. I knew the woods well but not that well. I could probably get the first few turns without hitting anything, but after that…
I put my arms out in front of my face, trying to get it so that I might feel the tree with my hands rather then my face. I felt the first tree, so I turned left. I felt a few little bitty saplings so I went right. But then I walked into something that wasn't a tree. It felt a lot like human shoulders.
"OH MY GOD!" I screamed. I was cold, gross and insane, but I still had some self defense left. I squeezed my hands on the person's shoulders, and kicked his as hard as I could below the belt. I heard him grunt, which I took as a signal that I'd done what I wanted to and took off.
But then I hit a tree. With my face.
I felt my nose started gushing blood the instant it touch the hardened bark of an old tree. I reached one hand up to try to stop it, but I didn't know what to do. I was pretty sure I was supposed to pinch it if it was bleeding, but if it was broken, pinching it was worse. And I couldn't say if it was broken or not on myself.
So I sat down against the tree and tried to hold it without actually holding it.
I was sort of conscious and sort of not when I felt a pair of strong arms pick me. "You've lost a lot of blood," a familiar voice said. It was voice I had forever embedded in my mind as a voice of a friend.
"Fang?" I asked. It came out a little distorted by my partial consciousness, so it sounded more like 'Faaaaaaaangguh?'
"What happened? You just kicked me and ran off," he said, still carrying me off somewhere.
"I thought you were a rapist or a pervert or something," I said. It came out like 'I tot you wers a rappist or perver or somethin'.
"Shh…" he said. "Its fine now." He stopped in a little clearing that had an opening in the trees. The rain had stopped and the moon was out above the clouds. In the clearing it was almost as bright as during the day.
He lay me down on the ground near the center of the area so that the light was directly on my face. I guess to see if my nose was broken. "I can't tell what you did," he said. "Too much blood. Is it still bleeding?"
"I don't think so," I said. It didn't come out as jumbled. I guess I was waking up more. I sat up.
"Do you know how much you scared me, Max? Nobody could tell me a damn thing except that you were outside. I thought you might've gone into the woods, but do you know how hard it is to find someone in here? It took me almost two hours to find you. I thought I was looking for a corpse out here, Max. I-"
"Two hours?" I asked, standing up completely.
"Yeah, just about. Why?"
"Happy New Year Fang," I whispered. Then I gently held his chin in my hand and proceeded to kiss him.