Fang.
If you must know how we decided to go about finding you, well, it's simple.
Basically, Angel got us into an airport, played eeny-meeny-miney-mo with a flight schedule display, and manipulated her way to six tickets on the first plane to Europe.
And as much as I love, love, love flying, I loathe airplanes. Talk about claustrophobia. It's almost as bad as that submarine we were on. Egh. Overly perky flight attendants, screaming babies, and turbulence jerking you around in your seatbelt – not what I call a pleasant experience. Not to mention the guy sitting behind Iggy and I who smelled like B.O. and kept kicking my seat. (I wanted to wring his neck.)
Plus, it just seems wrong to "fly" like that. We have wings. We should be out there using them instead of zipping them up in our windbreakers and strapping ourselves into the same seats that the humans do.
But, I digress.
We landed in Wales at about six o' clock. And then…
We sat down and stared at the wall. Because we have no idea where to go from here.
I feel kind of stupid for not having a battle plan beforehand. But you gave me no leads. So I'm guessing here. And it's not like the others are giving me any clues, either. That notorious gut instinct of mine is going into overdrive here.
I wonder if the Voice can give me any suggestions. Even something vague would help. Hint, hint. But he never talks when I want him to.
We're hitting dead-end after dead-end. And hopelessness is rampant. Not just in me, but everybody else, too.
You're really stupid, in case I haven't reminded you enough. You remember how pissed and angry and hurt we were when Iggy left, and he had a reason. We were pissed and angry and hurt but also happy for him. We were happy that at least one of us had a family, someone to go home to.
You? We have nothing to be happy for. We're just dealing with the "pissed and angry and hurt" part, with the addition of the ever familiar "Gee, hope he's not dead" sensation. Along with, of course, the hopelessness.
Angel keeps bothering me, because she thinks I'm giving up on you too easily. Not hardly. But maybe I'm giving up on myself.
I'm starting to realize, however, that, try as I might, there are some things I just can't prevent. The wings, for example. Iggy's blindness. Angel trying to kill me. Your leaving. The fact that I can't find you.
But, even though I know that there's little, if anything I can do, I can't help but kill myself trying to change things. And if I can't, I'll kill myself with the emotions that result from what feels like a failure on my part.
Nudge is curling against my shoulder, pretending to be sleepy, but I know she's just trying to read what I'm writing. They've caught onto the letter thing. And they've pilfered pieces of paper out of my notebook so they can write letters of their own to you. What I've learned from this? Gazzy and Nudge still can't spell their ways out of paper bags, and Angel's handwriting is atrocious. Iggy isn't bothering, thankfully. But he did dictate something for me to tell you. Something along the lines of:
"You suck, you asshole. Go eat dirt."
Sorry bout that. But that's a shared emotion among us. You had to see it coming.
Dylan doesn't have anything to say. I asked. He just shrugged. Which might come as a relief to you. I don't think his feelings about you have changed yet, even though I'm pretty sure my reaction to your leaving, and my continuing attempts to hunt you down should be some indication that I'm still pretty much infatuated with you. And if he hasn't picked up on it yet, he's even stupider than I thought he was in the first place, because everyone else knows.
Nudge just gasped, which means she was reading over my shoulder. Little gnat. But she's taken to Dylan, and she actually likes him. While he'll never be what you are to me, he might be moving in on your position as role model slash big brother figure to the younger ones. And I can't stop that.
It's a major sense of déjà vu to be out here. It feels like we're rescuing Angel from the School in California all over again, with the bunkering down in odd places and struggling to find enough food to eat. Thank God Nudge can filch money out of ATMs so we don't have to steal or Dumpster-dive anymore. But the main thing is, I'm not worrying about saving the world anymore. I'm worried about saving you. Just like with Angel.
Ya see, I can't function if you guys aren't around. I can't separate myself and concentrate on anything else except how to go about regrouping. Once I have you all under my wing (ha), I can go back to being a spokesgirl for global warming and being environmentally friendly and all of that. Yeah, it's important to conserve energy and love the planet, sure, but it's even more important to me to be with you.
I swear to God, Nudge, get off of my shoulder and stop "aww"-ing at me. This is supposed to be personal.
We're at a bus stop right now. A freaking bus stop. It's just one method of torture to the next. Airplane to crappy little bus shelter to crappy little bus. I want to fly. I want to just get up in the air and go into hyperdrive and track you down and tackle you and drag you back with me and try to make everything okay again. But no. I have an obligation to my flock, our flock, and for them, I'm going to board this stupid public transit that's supposed to be here in five minutes, and I'm going to stick with them and try to find you at the same time.
Because I'm the leader.
And even though my followers are diminishing by the minute, that's not changing anytime soon. Not if I have anything to say about it.
MAX.
