"Hang in there, Fang," I cooed. With each stroke of his wings, dried blood flaked off and he grimaced deeply. And our speed was pretty rapid; Angel had to pump her wings twice as fast just to keep up.
"Is he gonna be okay?" Nudge piped up from the back of our formation. For a split second, I rolled my eyes. Surprisingly, Fang was able to answer for himself. It was just a grunt, sure, but at least it was something.
Our house was about 150 yards away and approaching rapidly. Even in the midst of a medical emergency, it was still freaking awesome looking. And we got there not a moment too soon; Fang was fading fast, listing sideways and losing altitude steadily. The Eraser had really messed him up.
"Nudge. Iggy. Angel. Gazzy," I barked, adopting my "ass-kicking Max" voice. "Fly ahead and get the first aid kit ready." The four of them surged their wings and shot forward: the epitome of obedience.
Fang continued to regress beside me. His strokes were shallow and his limbs hung lamely from his body. I dipped down below him so that he could rely on my upstroke to carry him forward. I felt his muscles relax and he glided forward for a few yards.
After what seemed like forever (which was, in reality, just 10 seconds), I touched down on our front lawn. Fang, on the other hand, landed hard and stumbled, cursing under his breath.
He was leaning on me pretty heavily all the way up to the front door, which the Gasman opened for us. Right in the foyer, I helped a groaning Fang out of his shirt. Normally, this action would have been accompanied with a chorus of suggestive "Ooos" from the rest of the Flock.
Not today, though.
"We got whatever we could find," Nudge said as she ran out of the bathroom with her arms full of various medical supplies. Iggy took Fang's hand and led him to the dining room table while I tried to remember what Jeb had taught us about first aid. Clean the wound, was the first thing that came to mind.
"Um, Angel!" She jumped at the sound of her name and stared at me with round, terrified eyes.
"Can you go get a big bowl of water, sweetie? Nice big bowl, right from the sink." She immediately whipped around and dashed into the kitchen. Just as I was about to clarify that we needed cold water, she shouted back, "Cold! Got it!" Her freaky powers were helpful, that's for sure.
Our patient was splayed across the table as the Flock scurried around him. What can I say? Us bird kids don't have refined table manners.
Angel returned with a mixing bowl of water, complete with a dish towel, in a matter of seconds. Smart, smart girl.
"Fang, flip over onto your stomach," I pressed. He obeyed, reluctantly of course, which started the bleeding again. Damn. Thanking Angel, I dipped the rag in the cool water and squeezed it over his wing. Fang gnashed his teeth against the pain.
The wound itself was nasty. I could clearly make out the teeth prints in Fang's flesh from each of the Erasers' monstrous fangs. Fresh blood welled up steadily from each puncture. Around the bite, several of Fang's covert feathers were missing. There was a flap of skin hanging loosely from his wing where the Eraser had shaken him. Blood caked his pink, inflamed skin. That probably needs stitches. How the hell am I gonna do that?
Iggy ran his fingers gently over the wound. His extra sensitive fingers picked up on every cut and scrape. From his expression, I could tell that things were worse than they appeared. And considering how bad it looked, Fang was in pretty bad shape.
"Igs? How bad is it?" I honestly didn't even want him to answer. But I needed to be strong: for me, the Flock, and Fang.
"I think he might've broken a bone," he whispered so the younger kids couldn't hear. "His skin's pretty messed up, as you can see. And he's lost a crapton of blood."
Anger rose in my body, contracting each of my muscles and causing my heart to race. I wanted to slam my fists on the table. I wanted to scream. I wanted to kill the Eraser all over again, make him suffer the second time around. Being a leader might seem pretty cool, but on days like this, it sucks.
Nudge dug through the supplies she had scrounged up. Looking at all the medical stuff made all of us tense. I could smell the antiseptic Iggy was pouring on the rag, my heart flitting, mind racing, body twitching… The School had messed us up something fierce. In ways not as obvious as our wings.
Fang shrieked in agony, slamming his legs on the table, when the antiseptic rag touched his bite. His wing immediately curled up against the pain, which only worsened his suffering. I ushered the kids out of the room; this was something they sure as hell didn't need to see. I rushed over to Fang and held down his injured wing with one hand. With the other, I stroked his pitch black hair, which was damp with sweat. I was stunned to see tears pushing their way out of his eyes. My heart broke a little bit.
"How are you doing, Fang?" I whispered sweetly, my breath blowing Fang's bangs out of his face. In his eyes was untold suffering. Nevertheless, he stayed planted firmly in his place. His knuckles had turned white from his death grip on the edge of the table.
"That's. A. Dumb. Question," he hissed. Each syllable was more stressed than the rest as Nudge and Iggy continued working on his wing. Horror spread through me as spittle and blood dripped out of the corner of his mouth. I must have shown it on my face, because Fang immediately shook his head.
"Bit my tongue," he growled. I smiled at him, which he returned weakly with light pink teeth and a blood smeared face.
"Max?" Nudge called. She sounded really nervous, which reassured me and Fang tremendously. I gave our patient a quick pat on the head, my only way to express affection, and joined her next to the wing. It looked a little cleaner, with all the blood wiped off. Many damp, rust-stained paper towels littered the table on either side of him. And the bleeding had stopped, thank God.
"I think he needs stitches or something," Nudge began in her trademark motor-mouth style. "Maybe blood, antibiotics, I dunno-"
"Nudge," I warned. This day was quickly making me lose patience, especially when I needed it most. "Calm down. He's here, he's alive, that's all we can process right now." Motioning with my hands, I instructed her to take a deep breath. She did, and for a fraction of a second, our hectic house was significantly quieter.
My mind was reeling with medical words that I knew but did not understand: suture, saline, peroxide. Words that I had picked up from my time at the School. I guess first aid is mostly common sense. No way in hell could I give Fang stitches though. Seriously, that would be painful for both of us.
"Well, we do heal extremely fast," Iggy noted. "But his wing feels really bad. Can we even heal bones?" That's a question I hadn't even thought of. I stopped breathing when I thought of a very real possibility: Fang may never fly again.
Stop thinking like that, Max, I thought. The best thing you can do for Fang right now is to help him. Which is what I set my mind to.
"Alright, we need to bandage him up. Right…?" Nudge and Iggy's confused silence really put my mind to rest. "GUYS!" They snapped to attention. "Bandages. Do we got any?" Nudge nodded furiously and materialized a large wad of bandaging from her pile of supplies.
"Perfect," I said. But really, I had no idea what I was doing. The dressing goes around the injury. I think. I gingerly wrapped the bandage around Fang's wing. He shifted so he could look back and watch me. His normally gorgeous, rich eyes were sunken and dull.
"You feeling okay?" I asked. He responded with a barely perceptible nod, then let his head drop heavily onto the table with a solid thud. He looked terribly pale, almost pure white. A significant, even dangerous amount of his blood had leaked out of his wing. Even with all the supplies Jeb had left us, I seriously doubt he left us the stuff to perform a bird-kid blood transfusion. Like we could even figure out how.
In times like this, Nudge and Iggy proved themselves invaluable. It took just a few minutes to wrap his wing with gauze and beige bandage. And it actually looked half decent when we were done with him. Once I had reassured myself that Fang was more than a few seconds from death, I escaped into the kitchen. Some juice would probably do him some good. Our fridge was pathetically empty, as it often was with the six ferociously hungry bird-kid mutants. I did, however, find some apple juice. I loitered for a moment in front of the fridge. The cold air felt absolutely divine across my flushed, sweaty skin. It was like I was flying.
Back at the table, I gave Fang the juice and a couple Advil. When he finished chugging the juice, he tried to sit up. He must've been hella dizzy though, because he started to fall off the table and almost knocked over Iggy.
"Can you move your wing?" I pried. If Fang couldn't fly, he was essentially Eraser food. In making us their specimens, the jerks at the School had given us the perfect tool to fight them. Fang succeeded in wiggling his wing a little bit, and us four breathed a collective sigh of relief.
"That's a really good sign!" Nudge squealed. "So he's gonna be okay!" I seriously doubted that, but I wasn't gonna be the one to say it.
"Can I go to bed?" Fang murmured. A smile spread across my face.
"Yes, baby," I said in a falsely maternal voice. "Do you want a sucker too?" He scowled at me as I helped him off the dining table. Laughter is the best medicine, is it not? Nudge, however, had gone to the kitchen and gotten Fang a cookie from the batch Iggy made a few days ago. Fang devoured it like he does everything else, complete with crumbs flying every which way. So at least he was acting himself.
Fang walked painfully slow to his room: with help from me, of course. The whole time, he had his bandaged wing stuck awkwardly out from his body. Fang's room was just as dark and mysterious as he was. Sure, stuck in the mountains, we didn't have access to all the latest teen décor. I flicked the switch. Fang flinched against the burst of light. I led him over to the bed, which he flumped down on. Again, he grimaced with the pain.
I wanted to laugh at the ridiculous way he'd gotten comfortable on the bed. He was leaning on his left side with his face against the wall, his injured wing sticking straight up and his "good" one propping him up. But he really was in pain. So, as gently as I could, I pulled the comforter up to his wings. As I did, he held his breath. I would have given anything in that moment to be Angel, just so I could read Fang's guarded mind. Was he afraid, disgusted, excited? My heart was certainly fluttering, but given, it beat at about 180 bpm regularly.
We were quiet for a few awkward seconds. I wiggled my toes, bit my lip, and finally summoned the courage to say, "Night, Fang." Not, "You're brave" or "Feel better soon." Even though I could not see his face, I felt his warm smile. I could even hear it in his voice as he whispered back, "Night, Max."
As I was walking out, just about to turn out the light, he mumbled something.
"What was that?" I asked. He wriggled around under his covers so he could face me. A shadow fell perfectly across his face, accenting his soft, sultry features. Damn, why is he so hard to read?! I swear, he looked like he was gonna cry again. His eyes darted from me to the corner of the room, then back to me.
"I was just saying, uh, thanks." It wasn't eloquent to say the least, but I could feel his sincerity. Fang was a guy of few words, but they carried meaning like a train carried freight. As you can tell, I don't have the linguistic talent he does. But I chuckled lightly. That really meant a lot to me. Our Flock was a family in the truest sense of the word: there for each other when we needed it the most.
I just shrugged and grinned. "We look out for one another." My words hung in the air for a moment. When I grew tired of the sappy sentimentality of the scene, which I did very quickly, I snuck out of the bedroom. Just for good measure, I left the door open a tiny crack.
"If you need anything, come get me," I whispered through the door.
Fang didn't respond, but I knew he had heard me.