CHAPTER 2

Fang POV

Wow. This was bad.

"I think we need to take her to a hospital" Angel said, and Iggy who was analyzing the damage agreed.

Max crash landed a few feet away and came running over.

"Oh my god, what happened? How is she?" She exclaimed, panic at the edge of her voice.

"Broken right wing, arm and two ribs, she was hit with a tranquilizer dart and landed hard on her right." Gazzy said while he ran his fingers over a deep gash on her left shoulder.

He glanced at the tree above us and added, "Looks like she also hit the tree on the way down"

Max looked shocked but immediately regained her composure.

"Iggy see what you can about the breaks, Fang go get a good stick set her arm against, Gazzy start tearing up some shirts for bandages, and Angel see if there is a hospital nearby." Her voice cracked at the end as her eyes darted back to nudge. I don't think anyone but me noticed.

Angel was already flying off, and I went over to the tree Nudge hit. In seconds I found a long strait branch and raced back to the rest. It was hard not to show emotion when I got back, seeing Nudge broken and bloody lying on the ground.

I've known her my entire life. She was sort of like a younger sister to me, a noisy younger sister, but still.

Iggy had grabbed the stick from me and was wrapping it to her arm with the remains of my only long sleeve shirt, Max had taken another pile of shapeless rags and was pressing it against the gash, and Gazzy was holding her feet up to keep the blood going to her head.

I went and got the backpacks to place under her feet so Gazzy could take a break. He backed off, looking like he was concentrating hard on something.

"Angel found a hospital and is heading back; she says we need to find a way to get Nudge there."

Just then Angel landed in front of us, skidding to a halt. She looked at Iggy with a slight smirk that he didn't see, just before he volunteered to carry Nudge there.

Max POV

We pulled to a break at the Forks hospital. Huh, so that's where we were.

We went running in and I put on some fake tears. Okay so maybe they weren't so fake but I could have held them back.

I went up to the front desk and started blubbering one of my famous on-the-spot lies.

"We-we were playing in the w-woods and she fell from this tree, and - and it's my fault! I dared her to climb it, and please miss you've got to help!" *Shudder* I hate playing the nervous wuss girl.

"Where are you parents?" The lady asked. Uh-oh hmm how 'bout eaten by sharks? They're astronauts and got lost on their way to the moon?

Angel saved the day with the typical "You don't care where they are and you don't need to know" mind-puppeting.

"Okay, actually I don't care where they are and I don't need to know, now are you guys family or friends?" she replied.

Angel answered again but I could tell she wasn't being controlling 'cus she was playing a more "innocent, scared, sad little six year old" role.

"This is my big sister and brother, Max and Jeff" she said gesturing to me and Iggy

"I'm Ariel and that's my other brother Zephyr" She said pointing to Gazzy and herself.

"And that's Jeff's girlfriend Tiffany-Krystal, and her half-brother Nick." At this she raised an eyebrow and smirked at Iggy before pointing to Nudge and Fang.

The desk-person gave us a weird look, but after a second said "Okay, follow me."

Carlisle POV

Many placed into my position would call this employment drudgery. Not only though, do I truly enjoy the position I work, but it defies the monster I would have been, had I not toiled so hard to mask it.

I entered the room and was surprised to see six children. I was quickly distracted from this by the girl that they must be here because of.

She had bruises and cuts covering her, as did all of them for that matter, but the most prominent of her injuries were the deep gashes on her shoulder. If blood still had an effect on me this would surely have revealed me.

The girl's blood was spread over all of the six children. She had lost quite a substantial amount. The youngest child lightly brushed her fingers over the girl's arm, and I noticed for the first time that her ulna was broken.

Then my eyes wondered to her broken ribs, then again to the blood. It reminded me too clearly of the night I found Rosalie; at the point the only thing that could save her was the venom that condemned her. Condemned her to the life of a monster, a vampire.

The small girl looked at me with an odd expression that she appeared to be attempting to conceal. Surprise, or determination possibly; only Jasper would know for sure.

"I-is she gonna be ok?" she asked. Could I bear to tell the child that her sister had very little chance of life? That with the amount of blood, and her injuries only a true miracle could save her from death? I kneeled down to her eye level.

"We can try, but she has lost a lot of blood." She looked down and then back at me,

"Can I talk to you alone please?" What would this girl need to speak to me about, outside the ears of her siblings?

This girl though, I felt sorry for her though. I could tell by her barely suppressed tears that she and the dying girl had been close.

"Sure" I replied to her and led her down the hall to an empty room.

"Can anyone hear us in here?" she asked. This was going a tad far; there was little that could be said by such a young person that would need to be blocked from all ears. However this room was secure so I nodded my head.

Suddenly the masked determination I had seen became prominent on her sweet features.

"I know you are a vampire, and as soon as you examine Tiffany you will see that we are not human either. If you don't tell on us, we won't tell on you. You really think she is going to die. If she really is going to, you have to change her like you did to Rosalie. You don't get what it will do to the flock for her to die. We have been tortured, miss-treated, tested on, abused, tricked and abandoned, but this will destroy us. None of will be the same as we were before. All of us will accept a monster as an alternative to death. Besides we have never been normal."

With this she shook out a pair of beautiful white wings, and jumped out the window.