A/N Facebook status of the chapter: (something I think Harry or Fang would say too) by Owl City 'Tears are the hydraulic force by which masculine willpower is defeated by feminine water power.' Anyway got my Blackberry, so happy about that, it's like a handheld PC. *Laptop makes a coughing sound* I think my laptop might be jealous, the desktop doesn't care coz I still use him a lot, but my laptop's not that keen on new ones. Lol random thing for the chapter: witches pay tax in Romania, even Fortune tellers have to pay, buuuut they probably saw this coming.
Max led the way mostly, stopping every now and then to make sure I was okay or to see whether the corner we wanted to round wouldn't be our last. It felt like old times, we weren't acting all weird like I would have expected after all that's happened. I left that for later once we were out of the hospital, coz it smells, and with everyone we cared, or forced to travel with, safely eating big Mac's in a tree somewhere in Central Park.
"Wait!" I loudly whispered from the back, Max froze in mid step and looked around alarmed, but instantly alert. I can't believe I'm going to do this, but I just have to know. "I need to know whether you're really my Max, and not the twisted Max 2."
Max gave me a 'what, now here?' look, but I stood firm; I had to know this wasn't the Max who wanted me dead or captured or whatever. I leaned in and kissed her quickly, before Max could react.
Slap.
I stood back and looked into Max's angry brown eyes. My face burned where she slapped me, my lips also burned with an ache to kiss her further.
"You Asshole! You leave me for 2 years and now you expect a freaking kiss? What's wrong with you? You're lucky I didn't round house kick your sorry ass out a window!" She practically yelled at me, way louder than I thought was appropriate for our situation. I didn't actually care, I got my answer, and I smiled at her.
She continued to insult me and threaten me, and I knew only the real Max would react like this. I somehow just knew Max 2 was into me and didn't care whether and whenever I kissed her.
"Why the hell are you smiling?" She finally asked, staring at me now.
Before I could answer her I heard footsteps, it sounded heavy and hurried. I grabbed Max and placed my hand over her mouth; I dragged her into a room behind me and softly closed the door behind us. Still with my hand over her mouth I positioned myself and her so that we could peak through some blinds in the door window.
Max suddenly bit my finger. I pulled my finger away and shook it in the air, concentrating on not screaming out in pain. I looked over at Max and she tried hard not to smirk, but her eyes looked mischievous, not angry anymore about the kiss. I smiled back and remembered where we were, I quickly looked through the blinds again and saw two Erasers looking around, guns at the ready.
Max joined me at the window and gave me a look. I returned an 'I know' look; if we make any noise we're screwed.
There was suddenly a loud boom that sounded like it came from the other side of the building. The Erasers heard and ran into that direction.
"If that was who I thought it was, they are sooo dead." Max hissed and I knew who she meant. I just hoped that it wasn't my two arsonists instead; Anne and Trick didn't have much experience with escaping or breaking in. Gazzy and Iggy at least were experts last I could remember.
I sighed and said, "We should probably go look, if it is them, we'll have to help."
"Yeah, probably. . ." Max rolled her eyes and stood up. "I'm still going to kill them though, and you."
"Fair enough." I answered and she helped me up.
We pushed the door open and Max peaked around, she motioned for me to follow and we quickly left the room and went down the hall the Erasers went.
As we made our way down the hall I suddenly remembered something. I had the little Eraser earpiece in my pocket; I hid it just before Alex found me again. I took the little ear piece out and placed it in my ear.
At first there was nothing, then there was static and I winched, Max saw this and stopped. "What's wrong? You're leg still hurt?"
"Nah, 'tis nothing. Shh." I replied and tried listening to the voice over the ear piece.
"Alert, explosion on 8th floor, all units stop searching for Experiments 1M and 2F, search for intruders." The woman's voice said over the ear piece, Max looked at me expectant and I frowned.
"They've stopped searching for us because there are intruders; so good guess who that might be." Max frowned too and then looked at my leg.
"Can you run? We have to hurry." She asked, I nodded halfheartedly.
"I'll try and keep up but no promises. It's healed, but is still pretty busted." I answered.
Max grabbed my hand and we sprinted off, she dragged me. She didn't go as fast as she wanted too but we made pretty fast work of the maze of halls. There were surprisingly few people around, here and there the occasional person in a white coat or scrubs and disguised Erasers.
We reached a board that said we were on the 10th floor, then found stairs and ran down them. We were just into rhythm with taking 2 stairs at a time, when another much stronger explosion rocked the building. Pieces of plaster rained down on us and we quickened our pace.
The dim lights in the gray stairway flickered and then went out. I heard Max gasp and I bumped into her back. I ignored the pain in my leg and the pieces of plaster still raining down and grabbed Max and ran through the nearest exit in the stairway.
"What's going on?" Max yelled looking at me. Fire alarms started to go off and water rained down on us now.
"I don't know." I answered looking around; the lights were flickering on and off. We were on the 8th floor now. There were people running around in the halls, wheeling sick or injured people around in wheel chairs. The people seemed to not notice me and Max standing around. I looked at the door we came in from and noticed a strange lock.
Max tried opening the door again but couldn't. "Whoa this is strange." She breathed and turned to me again.
"Let's find whoever's bombing the place." I suggested. Max nodded and we started walking down the hall.
We were soaking wet and every step made a shushing noise. Doctors and Nurses ran around us, evacuating people. One doctor came running up to us, he spoke urgently. "Come kids, you have to evacuate, terrorists are bombing the hospital!"
Max and I just stared at him and I spoke, "Is this a real hospital?"
The doctor gave me a look and continued to run down the hall helping whoever he could. "I guess we can take that as a yes." Max offered and pulled me down the hall into the direction the most recent explosion came from.
We rounded a corner and found a bunch of nicely dressed Erasers, all wet, standing at a big hole in the side of the building. They were standing and inspecting the area, so we backed up, right into an Eraser, just our luck.
Max reacted first and jumped away, but my reaction time wasn't fast enough, the Eraser grabbed me and pushed me into a wall. The Eraser called out and a group of about 4 Erasers came around the corner we backed away from.
"Max run, I'll get away, find the others." I ordered.
She nodded and ran past the Eraser holding me against the wall, knowing if he released me and went for her, he would be up against two, so he didn't let me go.
Max got away and the Eraser holding me snarled at the others, "Get her, and someone help me with this one."
Three Erasers ran off after Max and one came to help the one holding me. "Should we clip his wings so he won't get away?" The other Eraser asked, taking out a knife from his belt.
The one holding me must have smiled and nodded because from the side of my vision I saw the second one smile ruefully and walking over to me. It's now or never Fang. I told myself.
I pushed against the wall and rounded on the Eraser, kicking him in the crotch I jumped out of reach of the other one. But alas I wasn't fast enough; his blade caught me on the arm and clipped my wing a little.
I clutched at my arm, figuring it was in worse shape than my wing and my leg just then. Blood already started seeping through my fingers and falling to the wet floor, mixing with water. My arm felt a little numb, good thing I was ambidextrous and could punch just as hard with my left hand as my now injured right.
The Eraser smiled ruefully and licked his lips; water was dripping off his face, making his red hair stick to his skull. He readied his knife again and I got ready to charge him, the other Eraser was still rolling around on the ground in pain. Before I charged a kind face greeted me from behind the Eraser and hit it over the head with a fire extinguisher.
He was all wet too, and smiling widely at me.
"Loewy!" Before I could stop myself I ran at him and gave him a hug with my left arm, he was a little surprised at me hugging him but placed one big arm around my back.
"Patrick and Anne and a few of the others rescued me, they're looking for you." He said when I pulled back; I think he didn't know what else to say. It's not really normal for me to hug people.
"First tell me what's going on here." I said through clenched teeth, my arm throbbed and I pressed it harder, trying to stop the bleeding.
"First I have to stop that bleeding." He answered almost reading my mind and pulled me into a room away from the two Erasers, after he hit the rolling one unconscious with the same extinguisher.
He found a cabinet and took a few things out and brought it over to a bed I was sitting on. The water finally stopped falling down on us, but everything in the room was still wet. Through the wailing of the fire alarm I could hear fire engines down below, I might also have heard ambulances.
I was sitting at the window looking out at the chaos below, people running and screaming, what the freaking hell happened?
My arm stung a little and went numb, I looked over and saw Loewy putting down a needle, he then picked up a little packet, opened it and took out a sterile needle with some plastic thread attached. He started giving me stitches, it didn't hurt and I knew then the first needle had to be local anesthetic. He worked on my numb arm neatly and then finished.
I looked at my arm and saw 10+ stitches closing what used to be a jagged gash in my arm, I let out my wings and he took a look at them too.
He actually gasped when he saw my wing. After the throbbing in my arm subsided I could finally feel my wing's pain, it hit me like a sledge hammer, knocking the wind right out of me, making me gasp for lost air. "God." I exclaimed.
Loewy scowled at my word choice and then with a tentative hand he took my wing, it hurt like hell and I gasped again. He cleared away some loose black blood soaked feathers and applied some antiseptic smelling stuff that stung as it made contact.
"He hit a bone of your wing, and sliced some muscle, Mama Mia, Fang you won't fly for a while." He said in a grave voice, I gulped and knew he was probably right. He injected some local anesthetic and started stitching together my wing. There was another loud boom and the room shook. Loewy continued with my wing, sensing the urgency of the situation.
"What happened?" I finally asked Loewy, he seemed to know what I was referring to and answered.
"Halloween, I was talking to a person who wanted to buy my shop, I refused and laughed, that's when you, Kat and Will sneaked away to go and find Joshua." He said and I got red, I he was starting to tell me how the Erasers got into our home.
"You knew about that?" I asked.
"Yes, it was good you left also, right after you were gone the man came back with 'friends', they asked to talk privately and I took them to my office, I didn't know who they were until it was too late. The man who wanted to buy my shop ordered his men to cuff me and they did, I tried fighting back but they drugged me, before I fell I saw the man change into me. I then woke up in a closet! Here of all places!"
"Where is here?" I then asked, I also guessed the person who changed into Loewy then lived with us until the night I was captured, maybe even after that.
"A hospital, run by the institute, they have a few over the country, I worked at one in Colorado a few years ago. This is also the one Patrick was taken from, his mother was experimented on in one of the upper floors, closed to the general public." Loewy answered as he finished with my wing.
"Let's get out of here." I said and stood up; Loewy looked at me with sadness in his eyes.
"Please do not tell Trick what I told you." He pleaded. I nodded and he smiled relieved. "The young one named Alex is Anne's twin brother, he's a shape shifter, do not trust anyone, he could be anyone." He continued and startled me.
"Anne has a twin brother?" I asked in a low voice. Loewy nodded.
Well hell, isn't this getting interesting. . .
"Yes, I know a lot about all the kids, I'll tell them when we get out. I care and I really want to help you, we'll have to get away from here too, away from New York. I know a place, you might know about it, it's where you saved Angel from, it's abandoned now and maybe the safest place to teach them to survive." He quickly told me, I knew exactly which place he was talking about, Death Valley, the place it all started all those years ago. I'm being told to go back to the place I've been kept so long ago, where I met Max, where Iggy got blind, where we first awed at how cute Gazzy looked as a baby, and how he stunk up the place, the place where Nudge cried so many times after bad dreams, where Angel's mind got twisted and where we watched so many other experiments die.
I was practically frozen in my seat, recalling everything; I never thought I'd have to see that place again, ever. Back then I told myself I'll never see it again.
"Yes." I agreed. Just then I heard movement outside the door. My senses went on high alert as I made my way to the door. I tried turning the knob but it was locked. There was a hissing sound and green gas started to come out of the vents. "Cover your mouth!" I ordered Loewy and he did.
I grabbed a piece of cloth that used to be the jacket I was wearing's sleeve and covered my mouth and nose. The room filled with the strange gas and breathing became hard.
I fell to my knees and Loewy crouched down next to me, he didn't look affected by the gas, he removed his cloth from his mouth and breathed in, nothing happened.
"This gas must be especially made for hybrids." Loewy panicked and went around the room, trying to block the gas.
I gasped and got a lung full of the gas, I started to cough and my airway felt on fire, oh God is this how I'm going to die? I survive Gazzy's gas for years just to die of some gas in a hospital.
Loewy came back over to me, panic clear on his face. I looked at him with blood shot, teary eyes, pleading for him to help me as the darkness started to wrap itself around my body.
My body grew heavy and as I hit the ground with a loud thump I passed out, darkness won and I lost.
A/N thank you guys for waiting patiently, and by the way please read my beta, Melikecake's fanfic for Percy Jackson, it's awesome and called 'Dreaming With My Eyes Open' I read it and it rocked, and it's still ongoing! I think I fave'd it, so go and check my profile.
I'm Melikecake, and I approve this message!
And that Kat-chan is Cake-chan, my beta, you weren't too sure who Cake was right?