-Blind Faith-

-ElvenHope-

Chapter 8

How many times would he have to wake up feeling like this? His mouth was dry and his throat was sore. Head pounding he reached up and traced the door of his cage. Part of him was starting to accept this prison again; it wasn't all that hard to slip into the state of mind he had been in before they knew there was a world beyond the School. The others weren't coming for him and that was best.

It was hot in here; or maybe he had a temperature, that was more likely. He was almost certain that the School had air conditioning. His thoughts were becoming sporadic, jumping disjointedly and he realised a few times that he had fallen asleep again somewhere in between.

When he was finally lucid enough he sat up – as best he could in the dog-crate – and once again wished he could see. It was terrible to be sitting here trapped in the dark and in such a small space. He could barely move without bashing into something. He was bruised all over and he wished that he could just go back to sleep. Laying back down he bashed into the walls a few times before he got comfortable. Slipping back into darkness he was rudely awakened a few minutes later.

"Having fun?" A voice leered from somewhere close by. Iggy was having problems piecing together information at the moment.

He titled his head in the direction he thought the voice had come from. "W-what…?"

"Don't you get bored just sitting in there?" Ari asked inquisitively. "Maybe you'd like to run some mazes or something..."

"Don't you have anything better to do?" Iggy asked crossly trying desperately to recollect his scattered thoughts as he sat up.

"As a matter of fact I do," the other replied, "I just thought I'd come check up on you."

Not caring to talk right now Iggy simply ignored the Eraser. He lay there trying to put everything in place, trying to focus. He cursed Ari, cursed the hell-hounds that worked here. He hated this whole place!


Fang wondered if she was actually going to cry again. He hated seeing her like this; Max was always so confident and invincible. Now, well now he wasn't so sure what would happen, she hadn't been this out of control since Jeb left. And he had caused all of this! Why did he have to be so stupid, so pig-headed… He had single-handedly thrown them all into the path of the Erasers and the School once again.

Angel was crying already and Gazzy was holding onto her hand his own eyes shining though he seemed to be trying to keep himself together. He could be one tough little kid sometimes.

"You've got to look after all these girls now, Gaz," Fang grinned ruffling the boy's hair. "You think you can handle them? They're pretty weird sometimes you kno- Hey!" He rubbed his head where Max had swatted him. "What was that for?"

"For being an ass," Max replied giving him a watery smile. Oh god she wasn't going to break down again was she? He really didn't think that he could leave her in a state, but time was running out.

Amazingly she seemed to be keeping herself together as she pulled him in for a hug holding him tightly. "You'll be careful won't you?"

He pushed her away a little; she was squeezing him so hard he was almost certain that something would break if she didn't let go soon.

"I'll be fine alright, I can take care of myself you know," he smiled.

"I just feel like I should be going with you-"

"You are staying here doing what you always should," he replied looking over her shoulder at the younger ones. This was completely insane! What was he doing? He couldn't do anything when he got to the School it would all just be a waste of time. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I just hope that I can help somehow."

"Well just don't do anything stupid," Max replied lifting his back-pack from near his feet and handing it to him. "There's a map in there you want to fly South West for a while," they all had an inborn sense of direction, so she didn't know why she was telling him. She just wanted to feel like she was helping. She hated being left behind. "The walkie-talkie is in the side pocket, and I've put new batteries in there and set it to the right frequency – I wrote it down on a piece of paper as well so if you knock it off or something-"

"I'll be fine-"

"There's food too," Max cut him off. "And if you're gone longer than a week then-"

"Then don't even think about coming after me," Fang replied grasping her shoulders. "Just don't Max," he looked over at the others. "And that goes for you guys too."

He gave them each one last goodbye hug suddenly feeling like he was walking to his death as he headed for the door.

The first red fingers of sunrise were steadily creeping out over the horizon as they left the house. Fang stood for a moment letting the wind ruffle his hair trying to get all his thoughts together. Going back there, back to the School was a terrible thought. Just the name sent a shiver down his spine; but he had caused all this and he would be damned if he wasn't going to fix it.

Turning back to the others, squinting to see past the sun, he put on a brave face and waved goodbye. His wings shone ebony as he spread them – all fourteen foot of them – and took off.

Max watched, waving with the others and wishing him good luck. Fang was silhouetted in the sun for a moment as he kicked off and then he was sprinting away across the sky. Their raptor vision allowed them to watch until he was only the smallest shadows streaking across the pale purples and blues of early morning. They carried on shouting their goodbyes until he was finally out of site.

If Nudge had not tugged her hand then Max would have probably stood there all day. She couldn't quite believe that she had let him go just like that. Some part of her felt that he wasn't going to come back or that something terrible was going to happen. It made her shiver, the phantoms at the back of her mind twisting every possibility of what could happen into complete paranoia.

"How about I make breakfast?" Nudge asked feigning happiness as she tried to make the situation seem brighter.

Gazzy actually seemed to brighten then. Max gave Nudge a grateful look as she led them all inside and started to make food. She did her very best to be just as chirpy as Nudge, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't quite manage it. She had just send Fang to his death… or worse.


The shunt in the back of his hand hurt; it hurt a lot. They had obviously decided that they couldn't trust him after what happened yesterday, and he had made every effort to be rebellious. Not that it really helped much. It hadn't prevented them from installing the shunt, and now taking blood was even easier for them. He cradled his hand to his chest whilst he slept squashed up at the back of his crate dreaming of water. His mouth was dry and the dehydration was making him tired and slow.

When anyone came in he simply ignored them. If they wanted blood they had to drag him out of the crate, he wasn't compliant, but neither did he fight back. He saw no point in fighting; he always seemed to end up worse for it.

Two white coats were in the room now; he was pretending to be asleep. He could tell it wouldn't really matter to them. They'd wake him up anyway, but maybe if they thought he was asleep they'd say something worth listening to.

Unfortunately for him all that seemed to be on their minds was tests. A moment later his crate door opened. He wished that he hadn't been pretending to be asleep when a jolt of electricity shot up his back. He jumped his head hitting the top of the crate with a large thwack.

"Good you're awake," at least these guys didn't refer to him as an 'it'. "Now just come over here and be good."

Iggy turned to glare at them, hoping he was giving off the right effect. Glaring was hard nowadays. "What do you want?"

"Just some blood," the man replied feigning kindness. Iggy simply glared harder, he felt like being rebellious for a moment before deciding against it. He had so many bruises already from the stupid tasers. Instead he stretched out his arm and let them have what they wanted. What else could he do?

He heard some liquid being poured into a cup then, he knew it was full when it changed pitch and waited. Wondering whether it was some disgusting stuff he was going to have to drink or maybe just water. It sounded like water, but he couldn't be sure.

To his amazement it was. Well he supposed they didn't want him keeling over on them or anything. He drained the cup quickly not caring that some of the precious liquid missed his mouth altogether and dribbled down his chin in his haste. He was too starved of both water and food to care – and if he was truly honest he was grateful that they'd decided to give him something to drink. He swiped at his chin when he was done letting the man take the cup from his hand.

His crate door was shut then and he moved to the back of it hoping to get some sleep. He was already feeling woozy from blood-loss and there was a strange buzzing in his ears like a bee was hovering there. He knew it wasn't though. That buzzing sound always accompanied the wave of tiredness and he drifted off into delirium soon after.


Fang had been flying for three hours, catching the occasional air current as he sped away from the Rockies he was making good time. It would take him another four hours to reach the School and he had decided to take a rest stop. Flying was hard work, but it was fun as hell too. He banked loosing altitude until he landed in a wooded clearing. He didn't like landing amongst trees, but he didn't want to get spotted either. Pulling in his wings he scanned the area quickly before flopping down on the grass.

For a moment he actually considered sleeping before sense hit him again and he hauled himself up. Unzipping his back-pack he pulled out the map and a drinks flask along with the walkie-talkie. He mares well try contacting the others to see if it worked. He just wanted to see if the thing would work. He was already nearly three hundred miles from the others so he had a hunch that it wouldn't.

Before that though, he was going to try and get his breath back and unfolded the map. Death Valley was nearly four hundred miles away. He grimaced, his wings ached. He wondered if he should take a rest stop before reaching the School. It might be dangerous to try and find a suitable place to sleep so close.

Squinting at the words on the map he wondered who on earth had named these places. Death Valley, Dante's Peak… Devil's Golf Course! Was someone actually paid to sit in a room somewhere and thing up all of these ridiculous names? The School would be near Devil's Golf Course it was more or less ten miles from Badwater Basin. He grinned; if this was where he was going to put a building full of sickos it would be right here. From Dante's view head down to the Badwater, follow that to the Devil's Golf Course, if you hit the River Styx then you've gone too far.

He sighed folding the map away and tentatively lifting the walkie-talkie. Half of him didn't want to try it, much preferring the illusion that it might work. He flicked the switch and it crackled into life. Uncertain as to whether that meant anything or not he held down the button and waited a second before speaking. He knew that it wasn't going to work. Most walkie-talkie's only had a one mile range maybe four if he was lucky. It was not going to work.

"Hello?" He let go of the button and heard the static. He sat there for a while not expecting a reply and was shocked when he did get one.

"Hello Fang, long time no talk."


A/N: Sorry for the late update. The insane thing is that I had it all ready and then I changed part of it and then... well something weird happened to the site for a day. So that's kinda why. This chapter's kinda weird because I wrote it all spaced apart and I can't remember whether it's well written or not. I know the part that I just wrote (which is in fact the beginning) isn't very good so yeah...

Anyway thanks for the reviews. Except the nasty one I got (I forgot about it actually). Well basically some rude person claimed that my plot was nicked from Elemental-Animal's story, but that was written over a month after this so just get your facts right before you flame.

-ElvenHope