She watches in silence as he pops the tape into his audio device, as his face goes from pale to an unbecoming pallor of bone white all in a matter of minutes. His hands clench rapidly around the thing, a second passes, no more, before the ear buds are ripped with savagery out from his ears; the thing flies a good distance, almost to the trash can before hitting down. Crashing, just as its owner has.
"Goddammit, Fang!" He drives his fist into the table, not just once but repeatedly. Splinters are beginning to arise but either he doesn't notice or he doesn't care; tears trek down his cheeks and she's a feeling that it's not from the physical pain. Without a word she moves to the other side of the bench, an arm slipping around him as she does so. "Dammit."
His last word is broken up by sobs and his body wracks with them; she swallows back her words of wisdom, knowing from her experience with Dylan that they aren't words to offer as comfort. She will give him a couple of minutes, and then she will start in. Doubt clouds her mind as to whether or not this was the right way to tell him, really it should have been Ella's job, but she had pulled out, insisting that it was a flock thing. It's a flock thing yet there are only two flock members, the irony is not lost on her.
When he starts to quiet she wets her lips, not all that surprised to find them dry as dirt. "I don't- I don't know what- what happened." She chokes on a sob, finds herself unbelieving in the fact that sobs still exist within her, that her body can even still support them after yesterday. His arm goes around her but that's about it, a gentle squeeze on the shoulder is near the limits of his abilities, he's in shock. She's not got to look too far to remind herself what that felt like yesterday, what that feels like right now. She is barely here, just enough to get Iggy through this, just enough to get someone to lean on, a member of the original flock, someone who knew Fang the same way she did. There are only two of them left now, at least that's the best of her knowledge, two of six that she can actually locate, that she can actually be in communication with. One of those two is herself, the other is sitting beside her, head down and eyes squeezed shut. She could tell him that that doesn't work, that the tears fall out anyway.
She gets her breath back and starts again. "I don't know what happened to him, Iggy. He was a member of our flock and . . . and he's dead and I don't know what happened." She turns to look at him, tears glittering in her eyes. Her voice breaks and when it comes back she can hardly hear it. "Iggy, what if I could have saved him?"
"Don't do that to yourself." His answer is sharp, sharper than she would have figured possible in present circumstances. There is comfort to be found in that, she decides, not a lot, but some. "Don't go and blame yourself for something that you have no idea about, that we have no idea about. He's gone, I think we'll both be better off if we just leave it there."
"I don't think I can." Her voice is strained to the point of, had they decided to have this meeting outside, he wouldn't have been able to hear her. "It's- it's all I dreamed about last night, the exact same dream, over and over again. He was- he was standing right there, right in front of me but I couldn't grab him. I couldn't call out or- or anything. I just had to- had to watch as- as a White Coat came up from the space behind him. There wasn't anything there- he just- he just appeared. He just appeared and he- he ripped off his wings. Feather by feather he ripped off his wings, Iggy, all night."
"You think the White Coats had something to do with it?" He seems to jump onto the possibility as his face wrinkles up in thought, one that she hadn't considered until now. One that seems even more likely by the minute, more possible by the minute, more frightening by the minute; Iggy doesn't stop. "I heard up to the part about possibly being drug related . . . drug related because of needle marks dotting the arms!" It's like a light bulb has gone off, if I weren't so miserable I would feel proud; I don't get it. If I really think about it I'm not even sure if I read the entire article, I was a bit more concerned about how a ghost was taking the spot of my spouse beside me . . . my bad.
"Fang wasn't a drug addict; there would be no need, which leaves only one answer." He turns a triumphant face towards me, at least for a moment forgetting that his best friend is dead; that Fang was murdered. He notes my silence without comment and continues on, "They're collecting DNA."
"But why would they do that?" I know the answer as soon as the question slides from my lips, it is so simple, so heart-stoppingly simple that for a moment we just sit there, suspended in disbelief, or at least as much disbelief as can be retained from growing up in the School. "They're building a new breed of mutations."
He nods at me, as if congratulating me for my efforts.
A/N: Not at all how I expected this chapter would turn out, but this was the only way another chapter was going to be written, so I figured why not give it a shot? Tell me what you think and if you have an idea burning in your head that you want me to use let me know, I'm kind of trying to decide if I want to show the rest of them finding out the news or not; would you like that, you one or two people still reading this? Please let me know in your review.