Sorry for taking absolutely aggggeeeees for writing this, but I've been ill and in no condition to write... Honestly. This is NOT an excuse, for all of you who are thinking 'ah, whatever, this is just another excuse for not writing chapter 12...' but NO. I have been ill, but now am all (hopefully) better!!!
So...enough of my drawling, and enjoy!
Phone call
Brriing. Brriing. Brriing. Brri-
"Hey," came a tired voice from the other end. "Who is this?"
"Um, it's me, Louis," I said. "Angel?"
"Angel?" he burst out. Then he calmed down. "How are you?"
"I'm alright, you?"
"Good," he replied. "School's become really boring without you, just so you know."
I was touched. "Aw, thanks," I said. "How is school anyway?"
"It's alright."
I could practically see him shrugging.
"Got a new girlfriend yet?" I teased.
He chuckled quietly. "Yeah; that Miranda Lawville is showing up pretty often nowadays…"
"Really?" I asked quickly.
"Hell no," he said. "I'm still your boyfriend. If you haven't got some other guy tucked up somewhere," he added.
"Nope, I'm clean," I said. "You're my boyfriend, don't worry. There is no competition at all."
"I don't know," he replied. "With you looking so beautiful all the time, I wouldn't bet on it. There're probably a million guys lining up for you right now."
I blushed. "But you'd be right at the very front of the non-existent queue," I said.
"No, I'm probably number a-million-and-one," he replied. "But I'm still pretty happy with that."
"That's-"
He cut me off suddenly. "So, where are you right now?"
"Um, like in Kentucky," I told him. "Southend park."
Beside me, Max's eyes widened. She motioned furiously to me, but I smiled.
It's fine, I thought. He's my boyfriend. Well, was my boyfriend. He wouldn't give us away.
But Ang-
It's fine, Max. Seriously.
"Kentucky?" Louis went on. "Do you live there?"
"Kind of," I lied. "My parents are split up, and I go between them, you know?"
"Oh, crap," he swore. "Sorry. I didn't know that your parents split…"
"Hey, don't worry about it. I'm fine," I said. "Seriously, I don't mind."
There was a silence. Then, from the other end came a quiet "I miss you."
"I miss you too," I said.
"It's so weird that we only ever had one date," he continued. "I feel like I've known you for, like, forever."
"Yeah, same," I said. "I-"
"So you're in Southend park, Kentucky?" he said, interrupting me again.
I thought it over for a second, thinking his voice was a little weird, then answered. "Um, yes?"
"Cool." His voice came out sounding strangled. "Bye. I've, um, got to go now."
"Yeah, sure," I said. "'Kay, bye."
I turned to Max, and gave her a little smile.
"You never told me you had a boyfriend!" she said teasingly, folding her arms across her chest. "What's he like?"
"He's pretty cool," I answered, blushing. "What about you? What's up with you and-"
Fang? I finished, sending the thought to her.
Angel! she burst out.
What? You guys are, what, twenty-four now? There must be something going on between you!
Aside for the occasional…romance, she finally thought, not really.
What's this occasional romance? I thought.
She was the one blushing now.
Well, um, you know. There's kissing and… Angel! You are WAY too young to hear about any of this!
I'm sixteen, I shot back. And I'm intrigued.
You're gross. Her eyes narrowed. And don't even think about 'influencing' me to tell you. Trust me, she added, grinning. You wouldn't want to know.
Are you sure?
I reached out to her mind, and, suddenly, a whole rush of pictures, sounds, feelings…came into my head, and I think I threw up the entire contents of my stomach. She was right. I really did not want to know.
Then I heard a scream and a muffled yell, and I snapped back into reality.
I span around to face Max, and saw that she was sprawled across the ground with a bunch of scary-looking things around her. In a flash, I recognized them, horrified.
It had oval amber eyes embedded deep into a skull-like grey head, and a thin body with lopsided limbs hanging down from its torso, lengthened with long black claws. It even, as I saw when it span around, had a spiked tail.
They were the things that attacked us that day, ten years ago, when we had split up from the rest of the flock. Max moaned softly, and one of them took her head and pounded it against the ground. He stopped only when it was obvious that she was out cold.
Furious, I started towards them, but something grabbed me from behind. I lashed out, but more hands grappled for me, and held me tight, so I couldn't move. I felt their breath, hot and smoky, against my neck, and tried to lash out again, but they shook me so hard that I bit down on my own tongue. I tasted blood.
"Don't worry, Angel, dear," came a voice. "Your tongue's fine. It's just a little scratch; that's all."
I looked around for the source of the voice, and there, parting through some of the creatures, was a slim woman clip-clapping towards me in her five-inch stilettos. Two of the gross mutants stood behind her; standing with something between them. I gasped.
It was Louis.
"I believe you two know each other," continued the woman jovially.
I didn't even look at him. "Who are you?" I snarled. "And what do you want with us? I thought this was all sorted out years ago."
"No, darling," she purred. "It has never been sorted out. Maximum here tried to find us with the rest of her…flock…but they never found us. That was only after they escaped from confinement, of course. We took them all ten years ago, but they wouldn't cooperate." I grinned, despite myself. "Then we perceived that they had two members missing. You…and a dog."
"Total," I hissed. "His name is Total."
Her eyes gleamed, and a smile played on her lips. "But now," she carried on, seeming to ignore me completely, "we have all of you."
My stomach literally fell to the ground. I felt sick. So, so sick
"All of us?" I croaked. "How?"
"With a little help from-" She glanced at Louis. "-Subject twenty-seven."
"Subject twenty-seven?" I repeated, my voice barely a whisper.
Louis grinned at me, and sprung, suddenly, beside me, holding me close. For the first time, I sensed a predator in him. He grinned, showing the teeth I had kissed, then they grew longer, into pointed fangs. I was about to throw up. Again.
"I'm sorry, Angel," he said. "You were fun while you lasted."
I struggled out of his grip, and leant closer to him.
"Newsflash, fella?" I sneered. "You were never fun. Or romantic, for that matter."
"I was romantic," he growled. "Romantic enough for you to kiss me, if I recall. Rather desperately, in fact."
My cheeks burned as the woman tittered with laughter.
"You. Were. Not. Romantic," I hissed. "You gave me freaking SpagBol as a leaving present!"
"A lotta girls love the SpagBol," he said in an Italian accent. Then he grinned. "Right, Angel?"
"You're a cow," I retorted.
"Now I am," he replied, grinning. "I'm dumping you."
"You are a foul, foul jerk," I growled. "And by the way, Louis, I don't think you ever knew how foul you are."
I morphed into an exact replica of him, except my fangs were longer, and I had scales across my back, and my feet were bent at an extraordinary angle. So I had a tendency to exaggerate a little.
"This is what you look like," I told him.
His eyes widened. "No, I don't," he choked out.
"Yes, you do," I said.
He stomped his foot, and let out a roar. "No, I do not!"
"Look in a mirror, vampire-boy."
He screamed in fury, and tried to slap me. I dodged, with my now-super-bendy legs.
"Enough, Subject-twenty-seven," the woman snapped. "Knock her out."
And before I lost consciousness, I managed to croon in his ear, channeling all my anger into it: "You know, I really do prefer the other name, vampy. Or are you too much of a mommy's boy to let her call you her ickle Subject-twenty-seven?"
"I can't believe it," I whispered to myself, when I woke up, bound, gagged and tossed in the back of a moving van.
I buried my head in my hands. "I can't freaking believe myself," I said, gritting my teeth to try not to cry. But, of course, I couldn't help myself, and the tears spilled over and began to run down my cheeks.
I never thought that I would be the type of person who would cry over a boy. A boy. No, not a boy. A monster. Like me.
"But he was so nice," I continued to myself. "He was so, so nice, and I thought that I had- finally- become normal with him. Just a normal girl with a normal, cute boyfriend. And then it just had to end, didn't it? Nothing ever goes right for people like me. For mutants like me. I always have to be on the bad end of things. Al-freaking-ways!" I ended, the tears blurring my sight and clogging up my mouth so the words only came out as incomprehensible burbles. I kicked the floor of the van, and felt the pain ricochet back through my knee. I did it again. It helped me to focus a little.
After a while, I calmed myself down by thinking of the top five things I could do to hurt Lou...Subject-twenty-seven. This was it:
1) Kill him. Slowly. But without getting anything on me. Gross, no! I would NOT want any bit of that jerk on me. So I'd just get Iggy and Gazzy to blow him up or something.
2) Persuade him to kill himself...? Or would that fall under category number one??? No, number one is exploding him. Number two is making him commit suicide. That would be fun.
3) Maybe killing him is too harsh. Maybe I could simply...kick his ass all the way to the next century?
4) CENSORED-CENSORED-CENSORED-CENSORED-CENSORED
5) Get his mommy to tell him she despised him. Boy, would he hate that. He might even cry. Bonus!!!
So I may have been a little messed-up. But, in my defence, he did dump me. And I'm not the kind of girl that can just be dumped like that. No freaking way.
Review??? For me? Maybe I could write chapter thirteen a lot faster if you just...review?
Thank you!!!
