For what I think was the first time in my life, I was pretty much speechless. So was Fang, but that was nothing new. I felt a wave of relief when there was a soft thud behind me as Nudge finally got down from her branch and her motormouth kicked into action.
"You're his sister! Did you know about her Fang? Oh my god this is so cool! That means you're my sister too! Wait, where did you come from?"
I finally came to my senses and blurted out a feeble agreement of Nudge's curiosity.
"Yeah, where did you come from?"
Megan sighed and gave a weak smile. "I knew I'd have to do this. You guys don't just accept people, do you?"
I answered with a steely glare and she continued.
"I was born 3 years after you, Fang. Mom was a teenager when she had you, but surprisingly settled down with the same man and had me. Our dad left her then, he didn't want kids. Mom broke down and gave me away, to an 'adoption agency', i.e. the School.
I was raised in a separate section of the School to you guys, but I heard about your flock. The scientists raised me to do evil work, killing and exterminating ... well anything they wanted really. I'm ashamed of it, but I didn't know any better. It's the way I was raised and never thought about it. I grew up with this boy, Ari Batchelder. We used to fight together and, well, kill together. He was an eraser; you know them wolf/human mutations?"
Oh yes, we knew erasers. I felt uneasy and slightly dizzy. Ari, who was my brother, had been buried just two weeks ago and the memory was still fresh in my mind. I glanced over at Fang, who was listening intently to Megan. He wasn't going to show much emotion, but I could tell he was ready to explode with a bit of information overload. Megan was glancing around uncertainly as her question was greeted with the answer of silence and varying expressions from the flock. She ploughed on though and continued with her story.
"Well... Um, Ari was an eraser and he was killed in battle only a few weeks ago. Somehow his death woke me up and I realised that the killing was wrong. I had never thought of the emotional side of killing but Ari dying... It opened my eyes, metaphorically speaking. Itex gave me an assassin mission the following day and I was sick of it all. I pretended to accept it but ran away as soon as I got out of Itex's range. I had brought my files with me and saw your name, Fang. Well your real name, not Fang, obviously." She smiled, as if it was a joke.
"Real name?"
Always a man of many words, that Fang.
"Yeah, the name that Mom called you! Sure she didn't call you Fang. Aaron. Aaron Samuels. You mean, you didn't know?"
Again she was answered by a wall of silence. All of us were too shocked to even register an emotion. Apart from shock. But that doesn't count.
"Here. I have our file."
She handed a file over to Fang, who reluctantly took it. He gave a glance over to me and I knew he was scared. Scared of what he could find in this file, scared of what Megan could do to change his life. I gave encouragement through our strange, special communication and he opened the file. I scooted over to look in the file too. Being a good friend and nosey at the same time. Go Max. There were pictures in it, passport photos. There was a woman, quite pretty, and a man who looked almost exactly like Fang.
If Fang was anyone except Fang, he would have been curled up in a corner, drowning in a flood of tears, on the verge of a mental breakdown. But since he had the emotional capacity of a rock, he was just sitting there, obviously upset but not showing anything. I was slowly beginning to regain my normal flow of consciousness.
Nudge, once again, broke the silence. "How did you find us?" Oh yeah... It had never crossed my mind that it seemed strange and a bit scary that she managed to find us. I mean, my chip is gone now and there's no way to trace me, right? And then she just turned up out of the blue. Hmm.
"Its one of my talents. If I just let myself walk, focusing purely on what I want to get to, I'll get there. Eventually. I'd never tried it on living things before, but eh. I had to try."
"So if you lost your teddy, you could just picture that teddy in your head and you'd find it?" Angel asked with a scarily innocent face on her.
"Yeah, something to that affect. But it's much harder for living things. Because of the…"
"How come I couldn't hear you? I can hear everything. And I never heard you coming!" Iggy burst in, interrupting her. This was obviously upsetting him; it made him feel uncomfortable when he wasn't able to hear things as it was practically his only way of knowing what was going on.
"That is another one of my talents. If I don't talk for a good while, I make absolutely no noise. I could jump and stamp my feet all I wanted and no one would hear me, as long as I don't talk or make some sort of verbal noise."
Wowza. She has Fang's vanishing talent, just different. Family resemblance or what? The flock was silent. Megan just stood there, looking awkward.
Suddenly Gazzy piped up. He seemed to have accepted the whole unexpected-new-sister thing pretty well. "Hey, Fang, you like girls with red hair, don't you?"
I hate red hair. I hate girls with red hair. I hate Fang being with girls with red hair. I hate this feeling of hating Fang being with girls with red hair. I shouldn't feel like this.
"He doesn't mean it like that Max," Angel 'helpfully' began to explain, "He said it cause the picture of Fang's mom has red hair! He's saying that maybe that's why he likes red haired girls!"
Fang looked slightly embarrassed and the rest of the flock responded with various different emotions, I was ready self-implode, Iggy looked like he was going to explode from laughter.
"Would you mind if I got some grub? I haven't eaten since I left Itex." Megan glanced cautiously at our expressions.
"Yeah, we would mind, br-"My snarky remark was cut off by Fang.
"Sure, go ahead. Help yourself… Megan…"
I knew Fang was confused and nervous about what was happening, but he was acting too un-Fanglike for me to be at all comfortable. Fang went and got some protein bars from our supply.
Gazzy yawned and let out the equivalent of seventeen stink bombs at the same time, a talent I and my nostrils wish he hadn't acquired. My leadership skills kicked into action.
"Go back to sleep, Gaz, the rest of ye guys too. I'll stay on watch. We have a long flight ahead of us tomorrow." We had to fly as far away from Megan as we could.
Gazzy, Angel and Nudge went back into the tree after we stacked fists. Fang and Iggy stayed down on the ground. Fang had now moved closer to Megan and was talking softly to her. I scooted over to Iggy.
"Max, can we trust her?" I knew Iggy didn't like her much; she confused him because he couldn't hear her a lot of the time.
"I don't know. I don't. I'm worried that Fang will trust her too soon. We don't trust anyone."
Iggy seemed to contemplate that for a while. "I don't like her either."
I hugged him; he was the only person who seemed to see my way of thinking. He then went to the tree, doubt he was going to be able to sleep, though.
I went over to lean against aforementioned tree, to start my watch. Fang and Megan may still be awake, but they're the very people I need to watch. Well, she is. And Fang isn't going to do it, not in his present emotional state.
Minutes past and I watched their black and red heads together, reading files, exchanging life stories. Probably start braiding each other's hair and making BFFL bracelets soon.
So, she's (possibly) Fang's sister. I knew she looked familiar.
Thanks for reading guys, hope you like it. Hope it isn't really bad. Review! Tell me how I did. Or inbox/PM me any suggestions/ideas you want for the story. I haven't finished the whole this yet so if there's this one thing you've aaaaalways wanted the flock to do, tell me and I shall work my magic :)
Review Replies
Iwashere - Thank you! :) Encouragement is encouraged. So is disencouragement, if needs be. But thank you. It is because of YOU (and the other reviewer) that this story is continuing. And Je Ne Sais Pas (Previous title when I didn't know what to call it) actually means (Quite fittingly) "I do not know" in French. Je ne Suis pas, as you said means i am not. thanks though :)
wings - thank you! you are half the reason I am sitting here, writing this. Actually you are the only reason i'm sitting here writing *this* but you know what I mean. The story. so kudos :)
