Chapter 24

"Right, grab them both, there due for a fight with the Mock Two Battle Goblins," a female Whitecoat said.

The Twins stiffened.

Fight with the Goblins?... Dammit.

Fang sparred a glance at Talon, watching her wince as she pushed herself to her feet, hate coursing through her eyes as her hands were in tight fists at her sides, the white, sharp knuckles of her small hands standing out.

Crap. This is complete and total shit, he thought, looking at the scientists with complete apathy. Of course, he was hiding the anger…

Before they knew it, they were being shoved around and some lights in the small cramped room they were in flickered on.

Wait! Since when was there an observational two way mirror there?!

Fang didn't have time to respond as a Goblin was pushed into the room, mouth stitched shut into a smile and looking at them wickedly from its laser like eyes.

Tally was about to launch herself at the thing when it took a swipe at her with it's long disturbing black claws, something green splatting right bellow her collar bone. She didn't bother to look down and instead focused on trying to tackle it, only phasing through it.

"Guh!" Fang.

She turned to look at him, seeing the Goblin's hand wrapped around his throat.

He was turning blue, trying to scratch and kick at the thing but his hands just kept slipping through.

"It seems like the new Ghost surgery has worked out brilliantly for the Goblins," female voice. Tally paid her no mind as she squished herself between the Goblin and Fang, closed her fist and smashed one of the goblins cybernetic eye.

If she had a voice, she would have given a triumphant "hurrah." If she had a voice, and if she were someone like, um, Nudge.

Anyways, it smashed into itty bitty pieces and red goo into her hand with a SQUELCH, dropping Fang.

It gave something like a roar, blindly reaching out and scratching up Talon and Fang further as they collapsed on the floor panting.

But Fang had no intention of being ripped to shreds by the wannabe-Boogie man in front him. Nope.

He jumped up and in a moment of the beast's pain induced rage, he smashed the other eye with his elbow.

Talon's dark gray eyes were wide as saucers as it dropped to the floor next to her, she scrambled away from it before giving it an experimental poke with her bare foot.

She wrinkled her nose up with disgust when red stuff started practically pouring out of the Goblin, Oh, that's just wonderful, ain't it? Makes a swarm of butterflies nest in my stomach.

"Bleh," Fang muttered, examining his red goo covered elbow.

We hovered around the Facility, staying far away enough that any possible cameras they had wouldn't catch us but close enough that our raptor vision could get the basic layout of the building.

"Angel, can you hear them?" I asked her, putting my hand on her shoulder.

Honestly, I felt sort of guilty of relying on the six year old, but it was necessary.

"Yeah," she said, peering through the brush with her wide eyes. Usually they were round and trusting, now had that vacant and evil gleam in them that signified that she was reading someone's mind.

"I think Tally's gone feral," Iggy said, in all seriousness, tilting his head to one side.

"What?" Nudge asked. "Aren't dogs the only ones that do that?"

"What do you mean Iggy?" I pressed for information. I mean, a bird girl could only get so many vague answers before she starts to go cuckoo.

"Well, her thoughts are really weird…at least what I'm getting," his brows furrowed, sightless eyes staring off. "But I only get snippets and they all sound weird. Like 'Get the hell away from him,' 'I'll claw your face off,' and things like that…just less complete."

Tally glared at the door as soon as they attempted to roll in the cages. Both she and Fang had gotten up and stopped writhing, both becoming incessantly pissed off when they started murmuring about shipping them off again.

I swear to whoever will listen, I will rip off there arms with my bare hands if they try and put us in cages! Tally thought completely pissed off.

Max says to try your power out when they take down the electric fence thing, Tally.

And said bird girl jumped about two feet in the air, causing Fang to look at her like she was crazy from his protective stance next to her.

Angel?!

Yes?

Tally blinked (why hadn't she thought of that? Because she didn't do well in these types of situations. The smart part of her mind usually shut down and let her more idiotic side out), then turned to the door. Got it.

The dark haired girl moved in front of her brother and surreptitiously put her hands out in a "surrendering" gesture with her palms facing the door.

"What are you doing?!" Fang hissed in her ear.

She smirked and glared at the Whitecoats as they seemed to hesitate.

Oh yes, she could remember a day just like this one. Like, nearly a decade ago.

She had just discovered her nice little power, had been practicing it, and there was her first escape attempt. She smiled at the Whitecoats wickedly before blowing up the walls and stuff and running. But it ended badly, after all, a kid that young can't get out of an evil place like the school that easily.

The electric fence thingy went down with a shimmer and a white coat entered.

And Tally flicked her wrists, grinning when the Whitecoats froze. Literally froze.

She glanced back at Fang, raising an eyebrow in a sign of, Do you get it now?

"They're out of there holding room!" Angel said, taking a little three foot hop in the air, her face lighting up.

And cheers broke out amongst the little ones.

But Fang and Talon weren't out yet. They still had to evade all those Goblins and then get air borne, we had to make sure they weren't too drugged up, and then we could all get pissed at the Whitecoats together…

Fang and Tally ran as fast as they could, turning this way and that, hoping they were heading the right way and not actually just leading themselves into a trap. They just had to trust that nifty internal compass that was programmed into them to not lead them into the snake's pit.

"Keep running!" Fang said when they saw two Goblins haunting the hallway they had turned into, a small window that lead to—wait! Yes! It was the outdoors!

"Follow my lead!" her brother said, throwing himself on his knees, sliding and fading straight through the Goblins, she smirked and copied his move.

Bet he got that one out of some music video on the internet or something…she thought, jumping back to her feet and running through the door that her brother had just exited.

But then they saw a whole courtyard filled with Goblins.

Talon frowned, Ah jeez. Bad flashback to when I had to get out of this place the first time! Scrubs and all!

She started running full tilt, cursing the electric barrier they had over them.

Another little thing that she had discovered. One of the more idiotic experiments had been duking it out with her in the courtyard, made a jump for freedom (weird rabbit-human hybrid) and got completely charred by the three thousand volts.

She muttered soundless curses under her breath as the flashing red lights and the sirens began wailing, causing her to trip over thin air, scrape the palm of her hands.

She pushed herself back up, setting her eyes back on the trees, ignoring the Goblins as the reached out to grab them and only succeeded in scraping her side. At least they couldn't bite like Erasers.

But then her eyes widened as everything went dark.

No! No! No! She hadn't done this in the longest!

She kept on pushing forward, this time relying completely on the sound of Fang's feet, reaching out with her hand for the blind fold on her face. You have got to be freaking kidding me! How did they manage to put it on me while I was freaking running?!

She shook it off her head once her hand came upon the metal lock.

Fang looked back at his sister and saw the stupid two way mirrors back on her face. How fast were those things that they could both keep up with them and put those on her?!

He reached back and grabbed her wrist, adrenaline flooding his veins as their feet slapped onto the pavement that quickly became grass.

Tally brushed her hand out against a tree, then turned and touched another and something occurred to her.

She started running in a certain direction, ignoring her protesting legs and shaking her wings out. Exactly like last time.

She took a deep breath, jumping up into the air, flapping her wings. God forbid that the Goblins would be able to fly as well. Then that would be just a tad bit too eerie and then she would gladly volunteer to go to the nearest loony bin in a wedding dress.

Fang glanced back down at the ground where the Goblins were looking up at them hopelessly.

"Fang! Tally! Over here!"

Tally worked her way through the lock on her blindfold, profane words flitting through her head before she flew in the direction of the voices.

"Tally!"

She stilled.

Giving Tally her voice back wouldn't have made her happier in that single moment. She beamed in the direction of the voice and smothered the urge to do a flying tackle and completely doom them to a splatter art-y death. Iggy! Oh my god Iggy! I can't believe it! I'd hug you but then we'd go spiraling down to our deaths and that wouldn't be completely good seeing as Fang and I just got out from nearly being sent to freaking Spain, but oh my God! Have I said that I'm so happy to see you? Well, not see you per sé¸ since I have the most idiot invention of a blindfold on and need to take it off before I can actually see you and—!

"Holy crap that's one heck of a Nudge Channel you pulled there, Tally," he said. She could only imagine all the sarcastic faces he was making. His wing brushed against hers and she thought that her smile muscles would break from her grin.

Let's find somewhere safe then, and I will gladly hug, and tackle you and the rest of the flock but more importantly so that I can take these demonic contraption of a blindfold off my face already!

We checked into a hotel. Something that was starting to become far too common for my liking but still….

At least they had a medical kit that we could use to stitch up Talon and Fang.

Tally was currently very cozy by Iggy, her hand in a vice grip on his, and staring at Nudge with her mouth curling a bit into a smile, nodding attentively.

Talon had a big yellow bruise on one side of her face, and six scratches on her chest, just a bit above her…uh, bra. And it looked pretty nasty, with green staining the skin around it. She had a few stitches around her throat, a black eye and a ton of scratch marks running down her legs and her palms were scraped.

Then I turned to Fang, who was petting Angel's hair as they watched some show, something called Charmed.

He had scratched going horizontally on his cheek, with the usual bruises that were yellowing and scratched and the same green tint around the claw marks. And he had a pretty big chunk of skin missing on his upper thigh…like it was ripped off. Not counting the blood they had washed off, and the ripped up Facility scrubs they had asked Iggy and Gazzy to use as bomb materials.

They basically looked like crap.

But of course, Iggy and I had patched them up, while Gazzy, Nudge, Angel and Total had a commentary running in a background, asking a million and one questions that were all synonymous to: Are you sure you're all right?!

I bit my lip before reaching my hand out and placing it on top of Fang's.

Angel turned to me and beamed, while he gave me a small twitch of his mouth. (Fang's version of grinning like an idiot…)

Everything was great.

"Hey Max! I'm hungry! Can we order some room service? I'm sure Tally and Fang are starving too!" Three guesses to who it is.

"Yeah, Max! I'm hungry too!" And that was certainly not Tally and Fang agreeing. It was the Gasman, if you couldn't tell, siding with Nudge.

I raised and eyebrow and spared a glance at Tally and Fang, seeing him looking away with his hair covering his eyes and her hiding her face in Iggy's shoulder.

See, they couldn't have been more obvious that they were hungry if their—

GROWL!

I take that back. Their stomachs were even more obvious.

"All righty then, room service it is," I said, reaching over for the phone.

Our lives could not get any weirder.