Is there anything else?
Max's pov
I grabbed Fang's hand and pulled him into where Ella was hidden. "You're her last defense." And shoved him in, and closed the door. I hoped he would stay. If the erasers got to that room, Fang was her last defense. He wouldn't fail, because if he did, Ella wouldn't make it. I didn't need to deny that, there was no way for her to even get out of her hiding spot fast enough to avoid the claws.
I ran out to the living room, and ripped open the door, fists flying, taking the erasers by surprise. They were waiting to attack, they knew that we knew, but they had expected us to wait for them to attack first. I don't think so.
I knocked one to the ground, and Nudge came right after me, following my example, fists flying, as soon as I was clear of the door. Gazzy came out through the window, and landed on and eraser, knocking him to the ground. Angel and Iggy stayed inside, fighting off any that came made it past us. I jumped off the porch, there wasn't much room, and when I lifted up my arms to jump, I felt a tug.
It knocked me to the ground, and I fell off the porch. I saw an eraser grinning at me, his paw wrapped around my arm. He jumped off the porch, and landed on my other arm, just the very side of it, because I had the small amount of sense to try to pull it away.
I didn't even show pain. I took my leg and kicked the inside of his legs, knocking his legs further apart, so he slipped in the mud, and hit the ground in the splits.
I took advantage and jumped up, and had one brief flash of pain in my arm before I kicked him. He hardly responded. He tried to awkwardly climb to his feet, but I wasn't going to let him if I had any chance in me. They say that it is wrong to kick someone while they're down, but I say bull shit. If they are going to kill you, even in you are down, then why give them the chance. If they can't get up, then you have the advantage so you have a better chance of winning.
So I kicked his face, and then slammed my foot down onto the back of his neck with all the force that I could. He didn't move, but just in case I brought my foot back and swung it forward. Well… planned to anyhow.
I felt the hand on my leg before I had a chance to do anything about it. I felt my leg get thrust up, above my head, and I saw the ground spin. I landed flat on my chest, and felt the wind leave my chest in one fluid motion. I gasped and tried to push the pain in my chest back. I growled, and rolled over, taking little breaths to get my breath back all the while.
Now I was on the ground, and I had two erasers right by me. I cataloged my situation, very quickly. Ok, it sucked. I was in the mud, and I was about to be pummeled.
Wait… mud. I grabbed some in my hand and threw it into one of the erasers face. He shook his head trying to get it out of his eyes. He couldn't see.
The other erasers reacted just like I thought he would. He kicked me; just like I wanted him to.
My rib caught fire, well ok, it felt like it did, and that was my cue. I reached around his leg, to right behind his knee and pulled with all my might. He hit the ground, and I jumped up. I did an ax kick right onto the top of his head, and his eyes rolled. I watched him slump over just as I spun and kicked the eraser who was still clawing at his eyes trying to get the mud out. He was knocked back, and again I had the upper hand. I didn't waste time in twisting his neck so that he wouldn't ever get back up.
I saw my flock, mostly holding there own. Angel didn't have a scratch on her, she was inside, but Gazzy wasn't quite so lucky. He had a big slash down his face, and was getting hit twice for every hit he threw. He was right one the edge of the porch.
I grabbed one of the erasers foot. Gazzy had three erasers going for him, but one less and he would be ok. The eraser I grabbed, who just happened to be the biggest of the three, smacked his face onto the side of the porch, where there was no fence, thankfully.
He groaned, and I took the opportunity to flip him over (he is heavy!) and threw my hands over his ears, bursting his eardrums out. He screamed in agony, and I knew he wouldn't get up again for a while.
I jumped up onto the porch and saw that Iggy wasn't doing to well inside the house. He would try to dodge a punch and run into something.
I pushed my way into the house, avoiding the furry paws flying at me, and jumped on the back of an eraser who was taunting Iggy. I wrapped my hands around the front of his neck, and dug my feet into the back of his knees, right where it makes you fall if you get kicked.
Iggy knew it was me, most likely by my foot steps, but he didn't spare time to thank me. He turned at attacked the stupid eraser behind him who thought that he could sneak up. They never learn. I turned to give Angel a smile when I saw an eraser tip toeing toward the bedroom. If it weren't for the situation at hand, I would have laughed at the sight of an eraser tip toeing.
I kneed his butt, as weird as that sounds. When you hurt your tailbone really badly, you can't stand up straight, but you can't bend over either or you get this shooting pain up your spin. I know from bad experiences. I had bruised the bone when I was 11 and I remember how bad it hurt.
The eraser jumped up straight, and then bent his knees slightly, to reduce the pain. I decided to continue the whole 'beat him up with my knee' thing and I brought my knee up to where it would defiantly do some damage. He doubled over in pain, and I put my hand on the back of his head, and kneed his face. It broke his nose, and spilled blood all over my pants.
The eraser sunk to the ground, and I got hit with a major internal battle. Normally we just knocked all the erasers out, or let them fall to their deaths. We didn't kill them. We would get out of there ASAP and leave them to report back to Itex. They were in Dr. Martinez's house, we couldn't leave them, but I didn't want to kill them. I had already killed one eraser tonight, but I didn't want to make a habit of it. We would be killing many erasers in a few weeks, with the ambushes we had planned, but that was different.
'Is it?' the Voice asked me, shocking me. I hadn't heard from it in a long time, I knew that it was still there, I still felt it, but I hadn't heard from it in a while.
Just when I was about to reply, I heard a pained huff from the master bedroom. Where Fang was guarding Ella.
I leapt over the eraser, momentarily forgetting him and my internal battle. When I was about two steps from the fallen eraser, he somehow managed to lunge close enough to me to grab a hold of my ankle, bringing me to the ground.
"I don't have time for this!" I growled at him, and grabbed the side of his head, and twisted his neck. I heard the sickening pop, but didn't allow myself to register what it really was.
I sprinted to the bedroom, and had to refrain from just kicking the door open, I actually used the handle.
Inside, I saw that drawer under the bed open, and empty. No Ella. No Fang protecting Ella. No anyone.
Where are they?! I ran to the closet and threw open the door, no Ella or Fang. They were not in here.
"Ella! Ella! Can you hear me?!" I screamed frantically. It isn't that I wasn't worried about Fang, but honestly, he can handle himself much better then Ella could. If Fang needed to, he could fight off five erasers. Ella couldn't even outrun one.
I didn't hear anything, but I looked over and saw an eraser grinning at me through the window. "They're gone. They won't be coming back. They are gone," he said, grinning in a way that told me he was telling the truth, but my gut told me otherwise. I was going to trust my gut.
"No they aren't," I countered, throwing my fist in his face. He dodged it, but lost his footing in the process, and stumbled slightly. I jumped out the window and kicked him in the face so fast he didn't even know what hit him. Literally. The stumbled back a few steps but didn't fall. I kept kicking him and he kept backing up, only to be followed by me until he couldn't go back anymore. His back was on the wall and I was punching him.
"Where are they?" I would ask. He wouldn't answer and I would hit again. He wasn't going to say anything anytime soon, so I had to modify my method.
"If you don't tell me where they are I am going to cut each and every one of your fingers off, then your toes, then something more in the middle of your body. Do I need to put a name to that something?" I growled, knowing that I never would do that. I would just cut off the fingers and toes then kill him. He didn't respond.
Then I realized that I didn't have a knife. The eraser smirked, showing all of his yellow teeth. "With what knife?" he asked, and then he reached for his belt so fast that I didn't even have time to stop him.
He flipped his belt the inside out, and pulled a knife from a little zipper that I couldn't even see.
"How about this knife?" he asked, "You weren't supposed to know that we have these, but I guess you won't get the chance to tell anyone." And he licked the knife.
I froze. Why didn't he pull this out earlier? Was he hiding more stuff? No, I told myself, this was all he had, and I was better with knives then him.
I took one step back, so that I wasn't close to a wall. For fighting, you don't want your back up on a wall. If you need to pull back, you can't. The good side is that you only have to watch one side, your front, and you know that no one will attack you from behind, but right now, I was worried about the knife.
He grinned. "Now are you scared, little bird freak?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.
"Nope, just noticing the nasty piece of food stuck between your teeth," I snarled, hoping to tick him off.
He growled. "That's ok. Make your comments, they won't bother me. You will die and I will live. Keep talking," he said, attempting to scare me.
"Oh God, you wouldn't kill me would you?! Please no!" I faked.
He swung the knife at my face. I turned my head at the last second, and then dropped to the ground, kicking his legs out from under him in the process.
I jumped onto him, and reached for the knife.
"Oh no, you don't!" he huffed, trying to get me to let go. He was tilting it any way he could to try to get me to let go. If he was going to cut me, I would prefer him to get my hand. He could do the least damage there.
I dug my heel into his thigh, and reached with my entire arm span for the knife. He couldn't get the knife!
One of my hands was firmly on the knife, but the other I just couldn't reach further! He grinned, and then slipped his wrist, and I felt a burning sensation run up my hand.
I winced, and knew that he had cut me. But I wasn't going to let go, I was going to hope that the blood didn't make me lose my grip.
I slugged him in the side of the face, and his jaw whipped sideways, and his grip loosened just barely. But it was enough.
I successfully got the knife, and switched it to my right hand, the dominate hand. The eraser showed fear flicker across his face. I had to force myself to not smile; that would be sick. I wasn't happy that I had to kill the… man thing, but just that I wasn't going to be killed by him.
I took the knife, and was trying to figure out how to best kill him without feeling the guilt over it. I was coming up blank. I had given myself three seconds to get a better way before I just stuck with the traditional slitting his throat.
I came up blank. Still. So I stuck to my promise, and hit his cheekbone with the butt of the knife, then went behind him, and ran the knife across his throat with all the force I could. He fell limply to his knees, after I watched in horror as his blood left a trail down my Mothers wall, and on the ground; and on the whole floor, where he lay, dead.
I instantly felt sickened with myself.
"It was you and your flock, or him," the Voice said attempting to comfort me. Surprisingly it worked.
'Thanks,' I thought, shocked that something the Voice of all people said comforted me.
Then I remembered that the flock was all still fighting, viciously. Well, not all of the flock, Fang was still missing, and so was Ella. I ran around the corner, and saw that while I was off killing one eraser, my flock had killed quite a few erasers.
Just when the fight got less intense, and the erasers knew it was a suicide mission, a car came squealing up. I didn't have time to look and see who it was, but I knew that they couldn't be good. I finished off the eraser I was fighting, and turned to fend off this new evil, whatever it was.
It was my Mom. She had a gun pointed at and erasers head, or it looked like she did. "Step away very slowly," she said, low and dangerous to one of the erasers Nudge was fighting. Nudge smirked; it looked just like Fang's smirk!
She admired him almost as much as me, if not more. For some reason this didn't bother me that much. Fang was like a father to her, she talked and he didn't, but she respected him even more since their time with the hawks. I think that he must have been great at calming her down or something because she wasn't that worried about me. She was worried, yes, but not like I had expected.
The eraser turned around slowly, and then laughed when he saw my mom. "What Oh Great Maximum, have you sunk so low as to sick your mother on me. Your human mother?" he laughed again. I didn't like the way he said my name with distaste, and apparently, neither did my mom.
Before I heard the shot, I felt the wetness. His blood spattered all over me, and Nudge got completely coated.
My mom ground her teeth together, and then straightened up. I looked around, all the erasers were gone. I looked my mom in the eye.
"Max are you all ok?! I got to work and no one was there! I knew what happened, and I came home. Where… is… Ella?" she slowed down at the end, seeing the look on my face as she was talking.
"We hid her. Fang was… watching her. They're both gone," I said, holding back tears.
"Gone?" she choked and the flock looked at me in utter shock.
"Not dead, I can't find them," I said, and then I took off running for the woods, refusing to let my mother see my cry, after losing her daughter, who she had thought was safe with me.
What was wrong with me? And where was Total? I just realized that neither Total nor Akiela were there when we were attacked. Now I was even more scared. I started full out sprinting.
I ran this way and that, knowing that my hand was bleeding way too hard for me to be working my heart this hard. It wasn't healthy, but if I lost Ella or Fang, it wouldn't matter what is healthy for me or not.
Yes it will, I argued with myself, (almost as bad as arguing with the voice in your head) the rest of the flock still needs you. And mom can't lose both of her kids… but Ella isn't dead yet.
She wasn't dead until I saw for sure one way or another.
I finally decided that randomly running wasn't going to get me anywhere important. I had to look for where they may have gone.
After a few more minutes, I found some funny looking footprints. The toe was facing north, but the impressions looked like the person was heading south. My personal Tom-Tom was telling me so.
So I went with my gut feeling that the tracks were really heading south. The person's foot was fairly small, about size 5, and they weren't the most coordinated person. The tracks went right, then left, and not at all in a straight line.
About a half hour later, the tracks got closer together, almost like the person was walking slower. Finally they stopped.
But no one was there. I was in the middle of the thickest part of the woods, and there was no where to hide. I looked north south east and west but I didn't see anything. I had convinced myself these were Ella's tracks, but she wasn't here! I had looked everywhere!
Other then up…
When I tilted my head up, the only thing I was… furry… well lets just say male dog's underside flying down at me. I almost screamed, but then I hit it out of the way thinking about how for the first time tonight I was lucky this was a little dog.
I got into the fighting stance, wondering where I stood on fighting dogs. Wait… how did the dog get up in the tree?
I only knew one dog that could do that…
"Total!" I shouted, with nothing but joy in my voice. He seemed taken aback. Once I actually looked at him, it was obvious it was him, but I had been expecting a threat, not… Total, so I hadn't been looking for him.
I ran to him, and scooped him into a hug, then looked up to where he had come from; to see how high he had jumped to get there.
He licked my face, and then grimaced under all that fur. "Ewe, too much salt," he stated, being his normal self. Obviously he didn't know what had just happened.
I didn't say anything, I just dropped him, and snapped out my wings, and flapped down once, twice until I was in the tree.
Ella sat next to me; she was in the fetal position, on the biggest branch on the tree. "Max," she said, and she launched out of the fetal position, and crawled slowly over to me, then reached out and hugged me.
"Oh god Ella. Are you ok?" I asked her, looking her over just to make sure that I didn't see any gaping wounds in her. She looked fine to me…
"Fine. Are you guys all ok? Other then Fang I mean…" she added. I felt a tare run through my chest.
"F-Fang is h-hurt?" I asked, not letting it register until she told me for sure.
"Well, he was bleeding after he killed that eraser that got in there, but he said he'll be fine. An eraser got in that room Max!" Ella shouted, apparently not realizing that Fang always said he would be fine, even when he was about to fall 5,000 feet because of loss of blood.
"Was he walking ok? Where did he go? How many got to you guys?" I asked her, firing off questions like I was Nudge.
"He brought me out here, and told me to walk backwards. Find a tree and climb it. Then he left, back to where you guys were. He said he wasn't sure if you would be ok without him. He seemed fine, but his leg was slashed up," she said. Typical Fang, hurt but worrying about me.
"A minute later, Total came up, said it was his duty to protect me," Total huffed out his chest, "and then led me to a good hiding spot. I climbed the tree, and a few minutes later, you showed up," she said.
"Total, thanks. Show her how to get back. I have to find Fang," I said, and looked at Ella to see if she was ok with this.
"Ok, I'll have Angel tell Akiela to come back now," Total said, and then added, "she went to Dr. Martinez's office in case any of us showed up."
I smiled at him, hoping to god that none of us would be hurt bad enough to show up there.
I took off running in the direction that Ella had pointed me in. I ran and ran, until my lungs were burning.
'Where is Fang,' I asked the Voice, hoping that for once he would tell me a straight up answer.
'Where do you think he is?' Jeb answered, using the voice.
'I don't know or I wouldn't be asking! I think that he may be heading straight so that I could find him. He knew that I would look,' growing ever more irritated.
I felt him smile, in my head. As weird as that sounds, 'then go straight,' he responded, obviously happy with me.
I started running north east, where I was supposed to be headed to go straight.
I ran and ran until my lungs burned so bad that I knew I had gone much further then I had ever ran before. I would open my wings, and fly to find Fang, but the trees were too close for me to even hope to spread my wings and fly.
I stopped and put my hands on my knees, and tried to catch my breath. As soon as I half caught my breath, I started walking again.
I picked my way through bushes and everything until I saw something that caught my attention.
A small piece of black fabric that was torn on both sides, like it was used to make strips of cloth. I stood up to my full height, and saw a shape in the distance, but because it was nearly black outside, even my raptor vision couldn't pick things out perfectly now.
I ran to where I saw it, as fast as I could, and stopped when I got to a little clearing. I spun in a circle, and saw nothing.
I slumped my shoulders. Maybe I imagined it?
Then I saw it again, a shape, about 20 feet from me, that was nothing more then a silhouette. I walked slowly closer, and the closer I got, the more that I recognized that silhouette. There was no doubting who it was.
A/N Oh my gosh! thank you so much guys! wow... 22 reviews...
ok... you are very lucky to get this chappie, even when you did review so well. a lot has happened in my life right now. my mom lost her job, becasue a machine can now do it. she went to 4 yrs college, and 2yrs medical school to get this job. then that same day (friday) i find out that my aunt rosemary had stage 3 cervical cancer. then about an hour later i get a call that my cousin, mike, who is rosmarys oldest kid (of 6) tried to hang himself. his younger brother joe (11) found him. then the next day, mike is in a mental hospital btw, i find out that my uncle, rosmarys husband, and mikes dad, lost his job the week before, and has been out looking for a new one. to keep someone in a mental hospital, it costs almost 1000$ a day. with no job, my aunt rosmary cant afford that. so she is taking mike out... and idk how well that will work.
so my life is just like... blah right now. i am on the verge of tears all the time, and if you even say 1 little insult to me, i cry. normally i would just say fuck you, but right now i cant handle it.
unless it is in a review! so pretty please review, and i will eturnally love you! thank you so much! it would help me feel SOOO much better too!
REMEMBER... IN THE NEXT CHAPTER OR TWO, THERE WILL BE SOME MAJOR FAX, IF YOU ALL REVIEW AND MAKE ME HAPPY! SO REVIEW!