Ch. 4: THANK YOU FlAmInGoGiRl8888!!
Sorry for the late update, but I wrote it and then my mom x'd it off and I had to start over. Well, here it is!!
Fang POV:
"I'll ask you one more time." Husked the same eraser. "Where is she."
Okay. Now I was really confused. Who was 'she'? I opened my mouth to ask when a girl stepped out of the trees.
"I'm right here." She said. She looked nervous, sad and scared, but held her head high.
"Max," breathed and eraser I thought I recognized from somewhere, but I didn't know where. "Don't you want to come home?"
"I'd rather die." She replied fiercely, putting up her fists.
The erasers walked slowly towards her. I was still frozen in shock. When the erasers reached the girl, she spun a roundhouse kick at the nearest one. I could tell she hadn't fought much before, but she wasn't bad for a beginner.
The eraser grabbed her leg and twisted. I heard it snap and she crumpled to the ground, whimpering. She grabbed at one of the erasers large feet, but he kicked her in the head.
That was when I snapped.
With a howl of rage, I ran at the small huddle and kicked one in the back. I heard a satisfying crack as his spine broke and he howled in pain, sinking to the ground. I heard several thumps as the rest of the flock landed and came to join the fight. There was another thunk as an eraser slammed his gun into the girl's head. With new energy driven into me by anger, I went on to the next one. Before they had time to use their guns, we had taken out all the erasers and focused our attention on the girl lying unconscious in front of us.
Her leg was twisted at an odd angle, obviously broken and she had two golf-ball sized knots on her head.
"We've got to get her back to the house." I said.
Iggy and I picked up the girl and dragged her into the shelter of our small house. There, we patched her up and lay her in a bed where we gathered around it to wait. Within fifteen minutes, she woke up and groggily said, "Where am I?" before catching sight of us and looking relieved.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
"You don't remember me? I'm Max. Long time no see!"
We stared at her, eyes wide, jaws hanging. There were several stutters as we examined the situation.
"Max?"
"You…"
"How…?"
"They didn't…"
"But…"
Apparently she wanted some full sentences so she said, "Okay. I need to know who's who. I remember you," she said to me. "And you were a toddler the last time I saw you!" she smiled, but the smile quickly vanished as she stiffened and said, "Where's Jeb?"
We all looked down. "Jeb's dead." Mumbled Nudge. There was an uncomfortable silence, broken by the growl of Max's stomach.
I mentally slapped myself. "You must be starving! Iggy, what's for dinner?"
"Sausages!" he yelled as he ran to the kitchen. As the rest of us got up (Max needed assistance) I could already hear the pan sizzling downstairs. We hobbled down the stairs at Max's pace, bringing us into the kitchen just as Iggy placed a mountain of sausages on the table.
We all sat down at the table. Max never took her eyes off the sausages and when they were passed to her, she took more than her share which she wolfed down in less than a minute.
"Someone was hungry!" I joked when she finished.
She smiled grimly. "The jerks at the school barely fed me and I haven't eaten in two days."
We murmured our sympathy while we finished our dinner. When we were all fed, there was an excited squeal from Nudge.
"Oh Max! Max!" squealed Nudge. "We're going to have so much fun while you're here! We can all fly together and play games and sign you're cast and…" she got a glazed look over her eyes. "I think I'll just be quiet now."
Max looked absolutely horrified as Angel smiled mischievously. "Oh…I forgot to tell you. Angel can read and control minds." I said, trying to suppress a grin. "And you might as well know the rest of our powers. As well as reading and controlling minds, Angel can breathe underwater, talk to fish, and shape-shift. Gazzy, well, his name says it all. Nudge can tell an objects' past by touching it and her fingers are like magnets. Iggy is blind but can build bombs, cook and do pretty much everything, as the saying goes, with his eyes closed. I can become invisible if I'm still enough. How about you?"
Max looked impressed, but then answered my question. "I can control fire with my eyes and hands."
I was not expecting that. I guess we all looked skeptical because Max said, "No, really! I'll show you…..we might want to go outside." We all followed her out the door and watched as she glared at the ground. It was kind of creepy, but then fire seemed to shoot from her eyes and hit the ground, staying there. She then put her hands out in front of her and a ball of fire erupted out of thin air into each one. Wow. She threw the fire-balls into the small fire blazing on the ground to make it grow. After seeing our stunned faces, she smiled, closed her eyes, and balled her hands into fists. The fire disappeared.
She turned to us, smugly. "Wicked," Iggy breathed. There was a moment of silence, then a high-pitched shriek from Nudge.
"Oh my gosh, Max! That was sooo cool! I wish I could do that! Well, not if it burns your eyes and hands. Does it? That would hurt. When did you get your power? Why is your power to control fire? Can you light things on fire? Oh wow! That would be so cool! Like, an eraser could come and you could light it on fire. Or we could go to the school and burn it down. Then all the stupid white-coats would die and we could be free and…mmpphh." We all looked gratefully at Iggy, who had somehow located Nudge's mouth and clamped a hand over it.
"Why didn't you light all those erasers on fire, Max?" I asked. "You wouldn't have needed our help."
"I can only use my power when I'm feeling really energized. When the erasers came, I had been flying for a full day and was half-starved. Now, I'm well-rested and well-fed." She explained. "After using my power, I always feel fatigued, and it's getting dark, so how about we all get some sleep?" I nodded as Max yawned, but as we entered the house, I knew that no one but Max would be sleeping tonight.
