Check out my new story, Shadows of the Past?
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Chapter Ten- Captured
"We need to buy more food today." Fang said quietly as the two of us sat at the back of the cave.
We'd slept for as long as my conscious would allow, whilst the knowledge that there was still mutants stuck in cages out there was at the forefront of my mind. Fang had heard me tossing and turning, and decided that rather than sleeping, he was going to join me in devouring the last two chocolate bars in the back of the cave.
The sun was beginning to rise now, warning us that yet another day was dawning.
"We could go down to a diner for breakfast, and then we can go shopping for food." I said gently, eyes still on the horizon. It was then and only then that I noticed the birds. A moment of confusion passed as I stared at them, and then I recognised them as hawks. Frowning as I failed to decipher what type of Hawks they were, I headed to the mouth of the cave, and stopped dead.
Having entered the cave last night, Fang and I hadn't left it again until now; which was perhaps the only understandable reason that we'd missed the fact that our cave was surrounded by twenty or so nests. A hawk sat on each one, some holding two or three – coupled with the birds that were flying, there must have been at least thirty of the creatures.
Beady eyes traced me as I froze, and the feathers of the nearest birds ruffled as Fang appeared, confusion on his face.
"Sit down," I whispered to him. "Very slowly, and let your wings out."
Fang didn't argue, and did exactly what I'd told him to as I did the same. The hawks eyed us suspiciously, but their feathers smoothed out as a long moment, and they finally turned back to what they were doing before.
"Ferringous Hawks." Fang whispered, dark eyes tracking the way that they moved through the air. After a long moment he turned to look at me and grinned before saying slyly, "It's a little early for breakfast yet, isn't it? Fancy a fly?"
Flying with the hawks was something that I'd never forget. After the initial awkwardness, they'd accepted us almost straight into their flock, and we'd been doing tricks for ages afterwards. Finally, our hunger had meant that breakfast was no longer a plan, but a necessity and we'd flown with the hawks as far as the edge of a town, where they'd turned and headed back to the caves.
Whilst flying with them, Fang and I had begun to notice methods of flying that would help with our own, and the two of them were eager to put them to use as we flew towards a gas-station-and-diner complex on the edge of the town. Randomly banking, swerving and barrel rolling, I was amazed to find that I could move my primary feathers individually – meaning that my flight was a lot more controlled.
Fang had stopped his random movements a while ago in favour of watching me as I spiralled and swirled – sometimes dangerously close to him. He had a small smile on his face, and I knew that both of us were happy to be in the air again.
As much as I'd enjoyed staying with the Martinez's, being told that I wasn't allowed to fly for the entirety of our stay was something that I'd be unlikely to ever even contemplate enjoying. Flying was a part of us, and a part that I was unhappy to of ignored for so long.
There was an essence of freedom, being up here, where no-one could touch us. Up here, we were invincible.
"Heads up." Fang called, nodding – ironically – down, I followed his gaze and noted that the highway had lead off to a garage, with a car-stop diner. It would be perfect, especially since it was surrounded on three out of four sides by thick, lush forest. I nodded back to him, and we both began to circle, slowly getting closer as we looked for a relatively large clearing to land in.
Finally spotting one, the two of us landed gracefully – practicing the way that the hawks had done it with ease. It was a scarier concept to master than the way that we'd landed beforehand, involving closing out wings only to whoosh them out at the last minute and break the momentum of the fall so that we could land neatly.
I grinned at Fang, realising that we'd mastered the new landing concept on only our second try (the first having failed epically, because we'd had to land in the cave). The two of us smacked fists briefly, before shouldering our windbreakers and heading through the forest in the direction of the small diner.
We reached it within a matter of minutes, but hesitated on the sidelines; waiting for a moment where no-one was likely to see us out of the bushes and ask questions. Finally, the moment presented itself, and we were just stepping forward when a fancy car screeched into the car park – stopping as close to a machine implanted into the wall as was possible without breaking the side-view mirror.
Fang and I retreated back into the bushes, immediately blending into the shadows, as the window wound down and an agitated voice carried to out to our ears.
"No, you shut up, you idiot. If you hadn't of lost your card, we wouldn't be in this position in the first place!" He snapped, and stuck what looked like a rectangular card of plastic into one of the slots; he pressed a few buttons and then money spewed out. Fang and I exchanged surprised looks – neither of us had realised that there were machines that handed out money.
That was pretty cool.
The man collected the money, and the card, and was about to fly back out of the car park in a similar fashion to the way that he'd come in when a second car flew into the park, narrowly avoiding a collision with the fancy red one.
This one was huge, and black – built more like a tank than a car, and I felt my blood freeze in my veins as a the cushmobile's owner leant out of the window and started spewing swearwords (including a new one, which I tucked away for further use), only to be cut off by another, deeper voice that I recognised instantly.
"That's not polite." Ari said, leaning out of his window.
I presumed that the man spotted the feral look in Ari's eyes, because he beat a hasty retreat; one of Ari's cronies popped inside, and returned roughly twenty minutes later with about ten bags of food – obviously pre-ordered. He climbed in the car, and then the erasers were shooting away – leaving Fang and I hidden in the woods, hearts beating in our chests.
"Food run?" Fang asked suspiciously.
"Must have been." I confirmed. "Right, let's just get something to eat and get out of here."
Fang nodded and, no longer worried about who might see us, the two of us stepped out of the bushes and stood inside.
The inside of the diner smelt delicious, and I was relieved to find that there was no-one queuing; the only other occupants were two families with small children and an elderly couple – no-one that looked even remotely eraser-ish.
"Hello there," The woman behind the counter said with a small smile. "How may I help you?"
"Uh, I'd like a double cheeseburger, a fried-chicken sandwich, a chocolate shake, a pack of fries and two large chocolate chip cookies?" I asked, the woman nodded slightly and smiled when I requested that the chocolate chip cookies be placed in a bag to take a way.
I think the woman had assumed that I'd ordered for both of us, because when Fang stepped forward she looked more than a little confused.
"Okay," He said. "Can I please have: three double cheeseburgers, a chocolate shake, three packets of fries, and three apple pies to go, please?"
"Uh, sure. The rest to eat in?" The two of us nodded, and she sent the order off.
Less than fifteen minutes later the two of us were digging in heartily to our meals. Was I a tough-as nails girl? Yes. Did I whimper like a baby when I sunk my teeth into my burger? Also yes. For a while, the two of us just sat and ate in companionable silence, and then I became aware that the back of my neck was prickling dangerously.
I took a casual glance around, noting that the families and elderly couple had been replaced with dozens of model-type guys wearing black. Erasers.
"Fang." I muttered under my breath. "We need to make a dash for it, fly as fast as we can outta here."
Fang shook his head, "Are you crazy? You just got shot, there's no way you'll be able to fly fast enough to dodge bullets!"
I thought for a long moment, before grinning in triumph.
"Can you remember how to hotwire a car?"
Fang nodded almost imperceptible, and I allowed myself to sag a little in relief. "Good." I continued. "In five seconds, you're going to excuse yourself to the toilet. You'll leave your pack. Exactly three minutes later, I'm going to come barrelling out of those front doors, and you'd better be out front for me, or I'm screwed, alright?"
Fang nodded slightly.
"Jeez." He said loudly. "I'm gonna head to the bathroom, I'll be back in a minute?" He excused, wiping his mouth with a napkin and acting completely normal as he stood and headed to the bathroom. I continued eating through my food, eyes on the clock as I slowly moved mine and Fang's backpacks with my feet so that they were in the prime position for… now.
Without warning, I grabbed both bags and vaulted over the table, the next booth over, and ran straight through the door – relieved to see Fang waiting outside of the door in a… red van(?) with the passenger door wide open. I leapt in and slammed the door shut behind me as the two of us screeched out of the car park.
"Nice plan." Fang said. "Didn't even need hotwiring, they left us a handy little key."
I shook my head slightly, dumping the backpacks in the footrest as I saw the erasers peel out of the little diner behind us, and climb into their fancy cars.
"Here comes the real fun." I commented dryly. Fang took a glance in the rear-view mirror, and we nearly went careening into a car containing a family with two young kids. "I tell you what. You keep your eyes on the road and I'll keep my eyes on the bad guys." I said, watching him nervously - suddenly not so sure about our plan; what if we crashed?
Despite the fact that Jeb had taught us how to hotwire a car, he'd never taught us to drive. We were literally making it up as we went along, and I had a feeling that it wasn't going to end well. The erasers were gaining on us now, meaning that Fang had to step the speed up even more.
"We've got to get off this road." I said desperately as Fang swerved dangerously to avoid yet another car, the van teetering precariously on two wheels for a long moment before lying flat again.
Fang nodded, and veered suddenly left –straight into a corn field. For a moment I almost breathed in relief, and then something smashed into the front of the van, and the two of us went jolting forwards – straight through the windscreen.
Falling was nothing new to us; goodness knows we'd done it enough times when Jeb – the poor, wingless being that he was – had tried to teach us to fly. Thankfully, all of the practice was now coming in handy, and we managed to twist ourselves in the air, landing in the least painful way possible.
Fang had his windbreaker off and was in the air in a split second; I was a couple of seconds behind him, windbreaker off and leaping in the air when a hand closed around my ankle, dragging me back into the puddle of glass on the floor.
"Max!" Fang roared, speeding towards me – eyes locked on the eraser that had pulled me ungraciously to the floor, completely ignoring the other twenty or so. "Get off her, you filthy mutt!"
"No!" I cried, surging to my feet in an effort to stop him, instantly swarmed by erasers. "Fang get out of here – Plan B, remember?"
Fang hesitated, but we both knew that busting out would be a lot harder if we were both back in cages; his eyes locked with me for a long moment.
"I'll be back for you. I'll get you out. I promise, Max." He said, and then turned and flew away as fast as he could.
I felt as if my heart was being torn in two as I watched my best friend fly away; I'd never done anything without Fang at my side before, and something about it felt… wrong.
Of course, I didn't have long to think about that, because somebody hit me around the back of the head with a rifle butt, and the world faded to black.
"Well," I thought hazily to myself. "Looks like I'm going back home a little earlier than planned."
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A/N I'm so sorry about the long wait, I haven't had as much time to get on as I thought I would, so sorry. ALSO, I'm going to try to update before I go on Vacation on Saturday (for over a month) but I can't make promises. I SHOULD, however, be able to update at least once whilst I'm there, but again, no promises.
On the upside, I should have plenty of time to write!
Remember, The competition is still on-going, so...
R E V I E W!
PS: Give me the names of the three people/objects/things you love the most, and why!