A/N: Hey guys. I can't remember, but I think this might be a late update. I can't remember. Thanks to those who reviewed for this story! Sorry if I didn't respond to you. My computer wouldn't open the freakin' response box! God...it's special ed, and needs medication. Unfortunately for me...the pharmacy apparently doesn't distribute computer medicine. That sucks. So...I'm just gonna make a quick general response to all my home slices out there.
Please choose the option that applies to you and your views...yaddah, yaddah, yaddah:
Thanks! I'm glad you (liked / hated) it. Thanks for (reviewing / ruining my life). I (love / wish death upon) you. I'm trying to (update more / plot your murder) because I (love / despise) you all so much. (Thanks / Fuc-k you) again for that. I hope you (Have a nice day / Get hit by a truck). (Stay ghetto, mothers / May all your cats die painful deaths). :)
How was that? Good? Good... Okay...now onto the part where I actually write something productive. Haha...yeah right...good one...
Chapter 10: How Do You Like Your Guilt in the Morning? Sunnyside Up, Or Poached?
Max's POV
Sulk sulk sulk. Sulkity sulk sulk sulk. This is what I was doing right now, all locked up in my room like a teenager who's mother wouldn't let her go out on a Friday night. No this was worse...it would be like if that happened, and then she had algebra finals and a tetanus shot appointment the next day. Well, I'm exaggerating, of course, but still... I NEVER did this sort of thing. But the stress of the moment was really just wearing me down to the last fray of the little peanut in my brain that allowed me to think coherently.
After Lissa had left me to play Hansel and Gretle 2: Hansel ditches Gretle in the Middle of Frickin' Nowhere, I had walked the however many blocks or miles, or whatever back to Anne's house. Once I was inside, I stressed for five minutes in the bathroom, and then called Emily and told her what happened. She'd sounded on the verge of a freakout, but after cooling down, had told me to come on over anyways as soon as I was ready. Apparently, she's been doing some research on some weird voodoo concoctions for reversing spells. Great...can't wait to drink purified yak's blood with trout extracts roasted over the fire of burning cherry wood. Mmmm-mmm...I'll have to look THAT recipe up on the food network website.
I looked at my watch. It was nearing four o' clock now. I was about to leave when I thought of something. I'm pretty sure it would be kinda wierd if anyone just saw me (looking like Lissa) walking around our house. I pondered the window for a second, but then I saw Fang coming up the driveway. Groaning, I figured it would probably look even wierder if he saw me climbing out the window. Suddenly there was a little knock on the door. I gulped. Maybe if I was just really quiet...
"Max, open up. I know you're in there. I can hear you thinking." Angel's voice came from the other side of the door. I sighed in relief and told her in my head to come in. "Max, how come I can't hear Lissa's thoughts anymore?" She asked curiously, coming to stand in front of me as I walked away from the window. I thought for a moment before registering what she'd said.
"What do you mean you can't hear them? Like...you don't understand them, or they're just not...there?"
"They're just gone. It was like one minute, she was thinking mad thoughts about you, and then it was like she just dissappeared or something." Angel's eyes shone with worry. It was unusual for her to get worked up about not being able to hear something as long as it wasn't one of the flock.
"I don't know..." I said slowly. Had she really flown that far away? I mean...someone can't just...stop thinking. (Well, with Lissa, you're never really sure, but...) Okay Max...think possibilities. Option A: She flew out of Angel's thought radar. I'll leave that one open ended. She'd probably be too tired to fly that fast that far. Option B...she died. I cringed, as did Angel.
"I think she's still alive, because...she didn't like, have any scared thoughts before she was gone. It just stopped right in the middle of a sentence." Angel said, trying to recall any details of thought. The phone broke the tense silence with it's shrill ring. It was picked up quickly by someone downstairs. Angel's eyes lit up in surprise. "It's Lissa." Of course, five seconds later, Iggy's voice bellowed up the stairs.
"Max...Lissa's on the phone!" Angel hopped off my bed, which we'd sunken into without realizing, and went down to grab the phone for me. A minute later, the plastic device was in my hand and up to my ear.
"Hello?" I said urgently into the reciever, my voice cracking a little bit with suspense.
"Max..." Indeed, it was Lissa alright. In the flesh and sounding perfectly calm except perhaps for a hint of something I couldn't quite pinpoint.
"Lissa, where the hell are you calling from?" I hissed into the phone. "You're out of Angel's frickin' thought radar." I couldn't help the swearing, I was just pis-sed as hell. There was a small pause on her end before she spoke in that same oddly calm voice.
"Max, who's home right now?" she asked simply. I gaped. How was this at all revelent to our situation.
"I don't know! Pretty much everyone, why?" Another silence ensued. "Lissa, what's going on? Where are you?"
"Is Anne home?" I was absolutely perplexed by her fascination with who was currently chilling in the house. Did she not grasp the concept that we were in trouble if she didn't drag her bedazzled ass back to my place so we could fix this whole stupid curse thing?
"No, she's not. But what does this have to do with anything?" Even Angel looked confused. She mouthed that she still couldn't pick up on any of Lissa's thoughts. I looked at caller ID. It was an unlisted number not displayed.
"I'm sorry about this Max. But it's for your own good." The line went dead, a dull buzzing of the phone ringing in my ear. I was so confused. And suddenly, the whole house was still and silent. So still it was eerie. Angel's senses went hyperactive, and she turned at the smallest shuffle. "Angel, I think we have to get out of here." I said quietly, grabbing her small hand and backing inch by inch towards the door, never taking my eyes off of the intimidating window. I reached my hand slowly behind me, waiting to feel the chill metal of the door knob that would twist and get us out of here. But where the metal should have been, I felt the rough feeling of an outstretched arm. A furry outstretched arm that wrapped its greasy fingers around my neck. I smelled the doggy smell, and felt the fierce touch. I knew exactly who it was, making a lump catch in my throat.
"Hello, ladies. A pleasure to see you both again." Ari growled, giving my neck a hard squeeze as everything fizzed out of focus and I slipped under the curtain of darkness.
Lissa's POV
"More eggs?" The waitress asked as I scraped the plate that had once been home to my humble spinach and cheese omlet. I had decided the omlet needed a change of scenery. Preferably, the lining of my stomach. I shook my head yes and she grabbed my empty plate to give to the man behind the counter that seemed to have an endless supply of eggs. I tapped my fingers anxiously on the booth table and waited without grace for another omlet. I was unusually impatient today.
Ari had left almost an hour ago to go "collect Max and her little friends", and told me to stay put at this little greasy spoon diner we'd found off the road. The thought of the look in his eyes when he'd said he was going for them sent shivers up my back. But then I thought back to the way she had treated me. About what Ari had said about her being a controling, psycho-maniac that was plotting to dictate the world. If there was one thing plain as day about Max, it was her love to be in control at all times. And being supreme ruler of all beings pretty much opens up all doors of opportunity in the control department.
I groaned under my breath and twisted impatiently in my seat to see if they were making any progress on my omlet. But sure enough, the guy behind the counter was flirting shamelessly with one of the waitresses, completely neglecting my omlet. Jesus Christ...all I had ordered was a spinach omlet. How long can it take to make a spinach omlet? What were they doing back there? Still growing the frickin' plants?
Suddenly the little bell on the door of the diner tinkled, announcing someone's entrance. I looked out to the other side of the restaurant and saw Ari enter through the door, looking totally civilized for once. His fangs had shrunken tremendously, and there was hardly any hair on him at all, save for a little normal looking scruff on his chin and arms. The only thing that gave away his true nature was the small rips that littered his once neat clothing. I cringed at the thought of who had made those tears. No doubt it was Max or one of the flock.
He spotted me and walked over, sliding into the booth. "Got 'um all set and ready down at the school. They were a bit...uncooperative, but we managed to get them to calm down a little eventually. Anyways...it's all good now." I nodded without saying a thing and watched as the waitress returned with my long-awaited omlet.
"Here you go." she said cheerfully, setting it down in front of me. "Anything for you, sir?" she asked Ari, poising her pen just above her paper, ready to scribble his order. But he declined, saying that we had to go soon. After she left, he leaned across the table to whisper to me.
"Thanks again, Lissa. You've been real great with helping us catch those punks." he said pointedly, grabbing a morsel of my omlet with his filthy fingers. I grimaced and pushed the half he had touched away from me.
"Not all of them are bad." I said, picking at the sanitary half. "I mean...the little blonde one's okay. And Fang is more than okay. He's actually really great." I said, almost wistfully. He snorted.
"It's all an act, Lis. You have to understand that those brats are willing to try anything to get on your good side. They want to use you for their own selfish reasons. It's in their nature." It bugged me that he'd called me by my nickname. We had hardly known eachother for more than an hour, and there he went, rolling affectionate terms off of his tongue like it meant nothing at all. I finished the side of my omlet, him grabbing the half I refused to touch. "Come on...if you want, I'll even take you on a tour of The School. You'll see how humane it is. Trust me, you don't have to worry." We wandered out of the diner, Ari tossing a twenty onto the table, and hopped in this random red truck sitting in the parking lot that Ari claimed was his. I wasn't so sure, judging by the fact that there was a picture of a man and two kids taped in the corner of the windshield with a post-it that said "I'll love you always" slapped on there by the adoring husband in the picture.
"Wow...I didn't know you were married to a man." I said slyly, pointing to the picture.
"Aw, shut your mouth." he growled, starting the car up and sluggishly riding it out of the lot.
A short time later, we pulled onto a narrow, winding road, enclosed by rows and rows of tall pines that seemed to have been planted in perfectly straight lines. The roads were spotless, though the sides of them were cluttered with branches and needles from the many trees. Seven bends in the road later, we were in front of a gray brick building surrounded by a tall, wire fence with a menacing sign warning you that it was electric, banded to the side of it. I gulped.
"Don't worry," Ari reassured me, "It's just to make sure no trouble makers escape. That would be terrible." I thought of how Max had said she'd escaped from this place before. We stopped just in front of the gate and waited for the attendant to verify us so that we could pull into the nearly full lot that encircled the large building. Once parked, we hobbled up the sidewalk, lined with dull, innocent plants, to the front doors. Two guards stood solidly in front of them. Ari flashed a strange, purple badge in his pocket to them, and then stepped forward to verify his fingerprints.
We stepped into a carpeted area that seemed almost like a waiting room of sorts. Cameras rested in every corner, catching my every move on video recording. We walked up to a woman sitting behind a lone desk. She looked normal at first glance, but if you looked closely, you would realize that her eyes changed color with every movement she registered.
"Welcome back, sir." she said almost lifelessly to Ari, her eyes going a startling shade of red. I felt my eye brows shoot up. He nodded at her and requested a visitors badge. She looked at me with now gray eyes and took my thumb print in a booklet she kept in a file cabinet. Then she snapped a quick photo of me, changing her eyes briefly to a bright orange, and then asked me some questions. All this for a little pin that I was told to stick in the upper corner of my shirt. She bade us goodbye in a strange voice, her eyes deep blue.
"She sounded like she was having fun." I whispered sarcastically as Ari swiped a pass key by some sensor, causing the doors to slide apart.
"It's a boring job." He said calmly, shrugging his shoulders and trudging onward, down a long, gray plastered hallway. Through another set of sliding doors, and I suddenly felt like I was in the children's ward of a hospital. Bright pictures were painted neatly on the walls, and calming music flowed quietly from invisible speakers. Little numbered doors lined the hallways, some barred in one hallway, and others not in the next. "Barred ones are maximum security." Ari explain, leading me past a woman wearing a lavender lab coat. Smaller children milled around in what looked like a play room. It had a giant fish tank and lots of books and games. And a tall woman in a pink coat passed out Goldfish crackers and chocolate milk.
"Wow..." was all I could manage. It was hard...no...impossible to believe that anyone would want to escape from a place like this. It seemed like some sort of heaven where women in lab coats gave you Goldfish crackers. It hardly sounded like the torturous death trap Max had described.
"Not what you expected?" Ari said knowingly, watching the kids play with their dolls and toy trains. Munching on fish shaped crackers and downing the milk like it was the source of all life and humanity as they knew it. Which, at their age, it was. "Yeah...Max has been known to stretch the truth on more than one occasion." I nodded in awe. It sure seemed like it. Some of the kids, though... Some had horns or antlers. Others had scaly skin and horse hooves. There was even one poor little boy that was completely adorable except for his huge snout. He seemed content with playing with his toy car, though, so I tried not to think too much about it.
"Where's Max and them?" I suddenly wanted to know, hardly imagining Fang in this sunshiney wonderland. Ari chuckled.
"They're in the teenage ward, wanna come see?" I nodded as he led me past the kitchen of the kids ward and to another set of doors.
Max's POV
"Now stay in there, and I swear, if you complain or act hurt for one moment, as soon as she leaves, I'm going to put you through all those tests again. And then make you watch your dear flock get them for the second time again. Wouldn't want to be responsible for their pain, now would you?" The door slammed shut with such a force that it shook the little table near it. I winced. After being put through unmentionable test after unmentionable test, they had locked us away in separate cells. Suddenly, they were stuffing us into these little simulator rooms behind glass walls. Random people would walk by from time to time and study me before scribbling something down in a notebook and hurrying away to go tell the good doctor some miraculous discovery they had made. I spent most of my time in the corner, my middle finger permanantly raised at anybody who stopped by for a peek.
I cringed. All the smells, and the sights, and the people. It all brought back countless memories. Twisted ones. Ones that flashed behind my eyelids. I would see a photo on the wall of an aerial view of The School, and would immediately think back to how it looked as we were escaping, soaring high over it as guards ran out of the building and after us, Jeb driving his little car with Angel and Gazzy and Nudge in the back of it, far down below. They had all been too little to really use their wings at the time. I shuddered as I spotted a framed picture of all the scientists resting on a desk that was set up in the corner.
I can't believe Lissa would do something like this to us. Just turn us right over to The School without so much as a second thought. And all because of some stupid girl-fight that didn't even seem relevant now that I actually think it over. I sighed with frustration, turning and shuffling behind the bed to stay out of the view of a scientist who had come to observe the bird-girl in "natural habitat". The habitat was hardly my place to be, if you ask me.
Lavender walls, and a dark wood floor. A canopy bed decorated with tiny pillows and purple sheets just shades darker than the walls. A little tv with heart and star stickers slapped randomly on the sides of it, rested in one corner of a low dresser strewn with bottles of nail polish and a stack of paper back novels. A mirror and vanity set was nestled in another corner, and small lamp with a shawl draped over it cast an almost blue glow over the room as it rested on a small bookshelf cluttered with novels and magazines of all sorts.
I picked one up. 'The Notebook'. Screw it. I tossed it aside, and it slid under the bed. Another one was in my hands. 'Little Women'. I threw that one under the bed. The last one I picked up had a pair of pale white arms stretched out holding an apple. I didn't even WANT to know the title of that one.
Suddenly, there was a tap on the glass. Curious, I poked my head around the corner of the bed. I felt my eyes squint down as I saw who stood there. The nerve of her to actually come here after what she had done! It made me want to spit. I stalked up to the glass and smacked it hard with both my fists, not even shaking the plexiglass with Lissa's strength.
"You bitch! How could you do this to us? What did I do to you that deserved this? I spent my childhood in this hell hole! Thanks a whole fuc-king lot for landing us back here, you cheap-ass whore!" I screamed, so consumed with anger that I didn't even realize what was coming out of my mouth. I slammed my fist against the wall that seperated us again, sure that she couldn't even hear me, because she didn't seem to realize that I was flinging profanities at her. Ari tapped on the glass again and smiled, waving. I flipped him off and stalked off to sit behind the bed again. "Yeah...fuc-k you, too." I muttered under my breath.
I sat for a few minutes, just breathing to calm myself down. How could I not have realized she was a traitor? You'd think Angel would have heard SOMETHING in her thoughts. Anything to give us a clue that she was plotting to turn us over. Then I thought back to what she'd said about not being able to hear any of Lissa's thoughts. Maybe The School had invented some weird way to block that from happening. To make it impossible for the scarce mind-readers in this world to get any reading off of anybody they didn't want them too. Damn them and their super-technology.
When I poked my head around the corner again, I saw that the pair of them had disappeared. I sighed, and glanced around this lavander shit-hole once more. This time, I spotted a microscopic camera lodged in the spine of a fairly large book with purple binding. I grabbed a hairbrush off of the dresser, and calmly retrieved the privacy-invading novel off of it's shelf.
"Sorry, boys...looks like its lights out." I said into the camera before smashing the lens with the tip of the brush. I watched as it fractured off tiny pieces of glass, exposing the black core behind it. Okay, now that the camera was off line, I figured it was about time to start formulating a plan.
Lissa's POV
After we saw Max (who obviously wasn't very pleased with me), we set off to find the others. "Alright...this is Fang's room." Ari said, coming to a stop in front of a huge glass wall. Behind it sat a larged bed, a desk, a small tv, and a bookshelf. Everything but Fang himself. It was almost identical to Max's room except this one was designed as boy's. With blue walls and less girly furniture.
"Where is he?" I asked anxiously, pressing my forehead against the chilly glass. Ari shrugged, and then tapped a woman in a lab coat who happened to be passing by.
"Excuse me, do you know where specimen 312 is?" Ari growled at her. I cringed a little when he reffered to Fang as a "specimen". The woman looked down at her clipboard and shook her head.
"I'm sorry, specimens 311 through 316 are being...um, treated for injuries sustained during their collection. They aren't due out of first-aid until dinner hour at six." With that, she flipped her hair authoritively and stalked away through a set of swinging doors. I looked back at Fang's empty room.
It seemed like a nice enough place. I mean, sure, it was a little...restrictive, but...it was for their own good. Right? Of course it was. It was just keeping everyone safe. An odd feeling twisted in my throat. I coughed a little and ignored it.
"Guess the others were a bit more...agressive with our collectors. Don't worry, they'll be fine." Ari reassured me, smiling slightly and baring his pointy teeth. I shivered a bit.
Suddenly, a loud droning buzz echoed throughout the building. I started a little bit at the sudden noise, and looked around, waiting to see ninjas drop from the ceiling or an advanced laser system to pop out of nowhere. Instead, we were greeted with a voice over a loudspeaker.
"Attention! All scientists, board members, and affiliates are required to come immediately to the meeting room for a discussion on the situation we have with specimens 310 through 316. Thank you." The voice squaked to a dry close. Ari groaned loudly.
"Lousy board of directors. They always call meetings at the worst possible times. Hold on." He growled quietly, pulling out a pocket walkie-talkie and pressing a button. "Camille. We have a bit of a problem." He snarled into the speaker. There was a second's pause before there was a slight hiss and a woman's voice came from the other end.
"Yes, sir? What do you need?"
"I have to go to a meeting, but our...visitor can't attend, and she can't exactly wander around this place for an hour." Ari explained jauntily. There was a small sigh.
"Are you asking me to babysit, sir?" she asked. I felt my eyes narrow down. I wasn't a child. It wasn't like I was going to wander away into a strange corridor and take candy from a mutant, or something. Ari growled.
"Camille, let me put it simply. Take the girl for an hour, so I don't get fired." Another sigh hissed over the radio.
"Sure thing, sir. I'll meet you in a minute by the meeting room doors." The radio hissed off, and Ari snarled a bit more.
"Useless interns." he mumbled under his breath, leading me in the opposite direction and through a set of double doors. And then another. Many scientists and other people were abandoning their posts and walking with us to get to the meeting room. We finally reached a huge pair of blue, plastic swinging doors with the lable "Meeting Room" printed on them in black, formal lettering.
As it turns out, Camille was actually the secretary woman who had taken my information when I'd first arrived. She stood by the doors patiently, her eyes changing from a dull gray to a vibrant green when she saw us round the corner.
"I'll be out in a little bit. Just stay with Camille." Ari informed me, making me feel like a little kid on Take Your Child to Your Top Secret Science Lab Day. And with that, he pushed through the doors and disappeared. I turned to Camille. She was paying me no attention, but, instead watching the remaining people walk through the doors, her eyes and impatient shade of purple with blue rims. The last man finally pushed through the doors, and she suddenly grabbed my wrist.
"Ow!" I exclaimed, trying to yank my arm away. She continued to pull persistently, dragging me in the direction of what appeared to be an empty room. "What are you doing? Freak, let me go!" I didn't understand how she was pulling me. I should be much stronger what with Max's body and all. Then it occured to me that she was obviously a mutant, too. Her eyes changed color every five seconds, after all. Finally, she tugged me into the empty room, flicked on the lights, and locked the door. I backed away up against a wall.
She approached cautiously. "Calm down..." she whispered, eyes going a soft pink. "I'm not going to hurt you, or do anything to you." There was a brief pause. "But they will." She gestured out to the meeting room where everyone was gathered.
"What the hell are you talking about, you psycho?" I said coldly, assessing how easily I could take her out. She put her hands up in a surrendering motion.
"Please, you have to listen. This place does not take care of these people. These genetically modefied children. They create them and then they run test after test on them until they just can't take it anymore. Trust me, I would know. I was one of them." Her eyes were an urgent shade of yellow. I shook my head.
"Are you kidding me? This place has better conditions and care than kindergarden. They were serving the kids frickin' goldfish crackers! It's not exactly a prison." I said angrily. She shook her head sadly.
"It's all for show. In reality, they keep those kids locked up in dog kennels and inject them with poison just to place bets on how long they'll survive. This place has about as much compassion as a concentration camp." Her eyes were fiery red. "They're feeding you lies. What? Did they show you those cheap, prissy rooms that look like something out a barbie dream house? Yeah...a bit more comfy than the stone cells those kids really sleep in."
I could tell she was getting pis-sed with the situation. "Well, everyone seems happy enough." I contradicted, thinking back to those little kids playing with their trains. Camille gave a short laugh.
"You know..." she said, "My real name is Chameleon. That's what they called me. And then they came up with Camille as a bit of a pet name of sorts. They genetically modefied me so that not only would I have strength and speed, but I would also be able to reflect the feelings of those around me. To detect hostile behavior, mostly. But it backfired. It only showed my emotions." She pointed to her bright orange eyes.
"And, of course, they had no use for me. So they threw me in a cell and practically gouged my eyes out trying to figure out where they went wrong. Finally, they got tired of having me in the holding cells. They were running out of room. So they shoved me into a skirt and sat me behind that fuc-king desk so that I could wipe their sorry asses 24/7" She was breathing heavily.
"Those kids are told that if they don't act happy and perfect, they'll get whipped, or put in the electric chair, or be starved for a week. It's all and elaborate act designed to fool people just like you." I shook my head disbelievingly, my mind over-run with all these twisted thoughts. Confusion in who to believe. "You don't believe me?" she asked frantically. "Well, here!" She grabbed my wrist again and yanked me back through the door. "I've got proof." We banged through a couple sets of blue doors until we reached a final one. She shoved me through first. I froze.
Row after row of small, iron cages. Little dog kennels piled ontop of eachother. Syringes overflowing the trashcans, and the stale smell of urine and disinfectant reeked off of every surface. Little faces trying desperately to poke through the bars of cages. Starved, frightened faces shining behind the smooth metal. My mouth was agape as I stumbled slowly into the room. It was almost mind-boggling that a room could ever be so awful and sick. I felt like I was going to vomit, all of the sudden.
"You see?" Camille cried, gesturing at the horror surrounding us. "This is the behind the scenes look at your pretty little kindergarden fantasy. Don't exactly look excited to learn their ABC's, now do they? What? A is for acellular vaccine?" She gave a twisted, frightened laugh. I sunk to my knees by a cage to my left. A little face peeked out at me, scared and distraught. Her eyes shone with terrified tears. An unbelievable rage bubbled in the pit of my stomach. Scorched its way up my throat, and gagged me. I was absolutely, positively disgusted.
"So what do you think now?" Camille asked frantically, shuffling around the cramped room. "What do you think after seeing this..this-monstrosity." I clenched my teeth.
"I think it's time I got my friends out of here." She snorted.
"And how exactly do you plan on doing that?" she asked.
"Why by pretending nothing has happened at all, of course."
A/N: Okay...I am pretty much the most RETARDED person on the planet. (Wow, I had to respell retarded, like, eight times. That's really sad.) But, I forgot to tell anybody I'd be gone for a week. Great...can't wait to read your hate mail. LOL. See ya in a little bit for the next chapter. Oh, and Max was a little bitty OOC in the beginning with her sulkity thing. Oh well. You do what you can.
Just Rambling: Okay I read this book. It was called Invisible Monsters and it was by Chuck something-or-another. (Can't remember his last name) And it was pretty much the most awesome book ever. It was symbolic, and funny, and tragic, and cruel, and chilling, and filled with transgenders. Its pretty much my new favorite. But...although it was superbly AMAZING, it sounds incredibly weird when you describe it. Listen to this summary.
Ahem...so there's this chick, right? Her name's Shannon. She had a brother who was gay, and apparently died of AIDS. And she was incredibly beautiful, but a real bitch. And one day, her jaw gets blown off by this gun shooting supposedly through her car window. And now she's apparently SO hideous, that no one will acknowledge her existence. (That is REALLY sad) Anyways, so she meets this other chick named Brandy at the hospital she's staying at. And Brandy takes her in and gives her these veils for her face, and they become "friends". And then they find Shannon's ex-fiance who tried to kill her and slept with her best-friend (who also you think shot Shannon's face off) and they bring him along too.
And basically, this Brandy girl is actually a transgender (minus the lady-parts as of now) and they go to all these rich peoples houses and steal estrogen pills for her. And as it turns out, Brandy is actually her "dead" gay brother, now a woman. He was taken in by these cross-dressers, and yeah...it's a long story. So they do that for a little while, and then Shannon gets mad at her friend you think shot her face off for all the stuff she's done to her, so she wants to go burn down her house and stuff. It turns out her friend is also a transgender. So they go to her wedding, it turns out her ex-fiance is gay and he's going to become a woman. Brandy gets shot, but just in her implants. (Oh no! She's boobless!) And you find out that Brandy never wanted to be a woman, and that Shannon actually shot her self in the face because she was so tired of everyone only loving her because she was beautiful.
Tadah! Sounds like a bad soap opera, but is really a piece of artwork enclosed in paper binding. LOVE IT!