Hey guys! Sorry if it took a little longer than it has, but I think you may have to get used to it. Things are going to get busy soon, so I won't be able to update as often. Anyways. Um. Chapter 7! Hm… what else… um… Linkin Park and Three Days Grace kick ass? Oh! I DON'T OWN ANY PART OF THIS EXCEPT FOR EBONY! Yay for caps lock.
I could almost see steam blowing from Max's ears as she paused a moment then stormed after him. The rest of them took this as a cue to leave, and trailed out, markings of confusion on their faces. The shorter, pretty brown-skinned girl fell in next to me, and I glanced at her warily. She smiled up at me.
"Hi," she chattered. "My name's Nudge, an' I'm twelve. So you're Ebony, right?"
I nodded.
"I like that name. What is it? Does it mean something interesting? It's pretty and flowy and elegant. Sometimes I wish I had a name kind of like that, instead of Nudge, but I guess my name's okay. What do you think??"
I stared at her for a second. Over-talkative much? I wanted to walk away from her, because I wasn't really in a talking mood – not that I generally was – but something told me that a move like that would just give Max more reason to hate me. So I had to answer.
"Um, yeah. Your name is, uh, cool. And I think they told me that ebony was a kind of wood…"
"Really?" Her eyes went wide. "Wow! That's crazy, being named after wood. Crazy in a good way, I mean; it's awesome crazy, not loco crazy. So, hey, you know everyone else's names yet?" Before I could reply, she started pointing people out. "That's Fang, you know him. The blonde one is Max, the leader; you know her too. The tall guy's Iggy. He's great, unless you really bother him too much. Angel's the youngest, and that's her brother Gazzy. Short for Gasman. Trust me, you don't wanna know. And course, I'm Nudge," she finished with another bright smile.
"Um, okay… thanks…" I mumbled. Suddenly I realized I was wincing a bit, so I tried to cover it up with a small grin. Probably unsuccessfully.
She opened her mouth to say something else, but just then Gazzy called to her excitedly, pointing out a pair of mimes across the road. She raced off and I was walking alone again.
For about two point five seconds. All of a sudden, Angel was flouncing contentedly along beside me. I got really tense; she was the one member of the flock that I felt too uncomfortable with to want to be around. She was a telepath, a mind reader. She could casually peer into my head and see what I was thinking.
"Yep," she said in an unperturbed way, not even looking at me.
And that, right there, was exactly what bothered me. She knew everything, and I much preferred my privacy. There was also the tiny niggling fact that she would be mentally healthier, as a young kid, not knowing.
"I dunno about that," Angel mused, peering into a shop window.
Dang. This was the trouble with a – how old was she again?
"Six," came the reply.
I gritted my teeth. Thank you, six year old mind reader. The whole responding to my thoughts thing was definitely going to get old fast.
I waited for her to say something to that, but she never did. Instead, she skipped away to grab Max's hand.
After that, I found Fang meandering next to me. I waited for the questions to start, but they never came. He didn't say a word. Nudge had already more than made up for his lack of conversation, so I didn't try to talk. It was a little more relaxing, not having to constantly talk to someone. More stable ground for me.
Then Iggy slowed to a walk next to Fang. They put their heads together, muttering so that even I couldn't hear, especially after they fell behind me.
Nudge's POV
Iggy walked up next to me. When I thought about it, he probably didn't even know where Ebony was, because he hadn't memorized the sound of her footsteps. The sound could be some random businessman, or a homeless stalker.
Iggy inclined his head towards me. I did the same, knowing he wanted to talk to me.
"What's this girl look like?" he murmured.
I blinked and looked at a cloud. Of course. A new person would make him curious. I glanced at Ebony surreptitiously, feeling like a spy.
"Pretty enough, though I don't think she knows it," I began musingly. "Hm… face shape somewhere between oval and heart… ice blue eyes… taller than Max. What, six feet, almost? Dark blackish-brown hair, big smooth waves a little longer than her shoulders, with these cool rainbow colored splotches all over the place. You know, like a chocolate Funfetti cake? Ohmygosh, actually, I'd love one of those right now. They're so good… oh. Right. Side-swept bangs. Rainbow makeup, rainbow and black clothes… awesome outfit, really… and I'm gonna be poetic here: a little rose petal of a mouth, 'cause I can't think of another way to put it. Hmmm. Small, straight nose. Oh, no, wait, it slopes out a little. Or… hang on, does it? I can't really tell."
"Anything else?" Iggy prodded.
I screwed up my face. "No. An' if you want me to go into anything else – " she emphasized those words to indicate average boys' interest, " – you can go find out yourself."
He scowled at me and went back to talk with Fang.
bEbony's POV
My first moment of true relaxation – or as much as I would ever get – came from Angel, of all people. She had managed to smuggle a small black dog named Total out of the Institute, and Max had been too preoccupied with fuming over me to notice.
Now, we trooped to Battery Park. Gazzy hovered next to me, pointing out New York sights. I smiled at him; the kid was easy to be around. He was cute, and I could genuinely like him.
The group wound up in a disregarded old band shell. "Now explain the dog," Max told Angel.
She shrugged sweetly. So innocent, it was creepy. "He's my dog," was all she had to say.
I watched with veiled interest the continuation of this argument. Fang ended up letting Angel keep the dog, claiming that she had used Bambi eyes on him. Hm. Tuck that little fact away for future use.
Max's only response to that was a roll of the eyes. Then she decided it was getting late, and we should find a place to hole up. Preferably someplace outside the city, because there were likely to be Erasers crawling all over the place due to our recent breakout.
We lifted off, heading towards the islands. Max looked at me in surprise when she saw me flying with ease. I suppose she didn't expect me to know how, which just goes to show that our experiences 'in captivity' had been wildly different. I had been taught to fly at the Institute, and taught techniques, whereas from the look on her face, she had not.
Of course, I had always been told that I should appreciate all I was taught, from culture to reading to spelling to fighting to flying. The whitecoats had always reminded me that I was lucky I was getting those teachings. I think they had been planning to send me out to do something in the world at one point in time.
Anyway. So we were all flying southwest. I noticed that any time I got near the tall boy, Iggy, he started to look antsy, so I stayed away from him. I would have stuck near Gazzy, but he was always next to Iggy, so I flew with Fang instead. This was easy, because Max was obviously avoiding him, and staying all the way up front.
Eventually, Max spotted a place to settle down for the night, a small, clear spot on Staten Island near the water. She shot down, followed by five other figures. I was last out of the air, spiraling smoothly downwards and folding my wings halfway to land gently on a tree branch. I shook them a bit, realigning the feathers, and tucked them loosely through the newly made slits in my clothes, deciding not to pull them in completely. My noisy shifting made the branch creak.
Iggy tensed, snapping his head up in my direction. "I heard something. What's up there?"
Max glared at me and tapped his shoulder. "It's Ebony."
I took this as a suggestion to get out of the tree. I leapt off the limb and swung down, landing and walking over to sit at the very edge of the flock circle.
And, CUT. End scene. Or chapter. Whatever.
So, that's that. And that's most of what I had prewritten. So now it's gonna take a little longer for the chapters. Also, speaking of chapters, my other story may also have to wait a while for the next update, because I have to watch the episode again and write it up. My mom is kinda anti-computer right now, plus I have a volleyball tournament on Sunday, sooo… anyway. I'll try to get the first chapter (or fourth episode) up over the weekend.
Thanks for your reviews and support guys!
P.S. Nudge's font is Curlz MT.
