A/N: Sup. So last chapter, I told you guys that you can send me suggestions about the plot and what you want to happen. So thank you to "Dovahkiin101" for sending me your suggestion :) I used it and came up with this chapter... Thank you!
So if you have any suggestions, please let me know :)
BTW: Phoenix is James Patterson's character but I gave her the powers, and Fern and her powers are my idea :)
REVIEW PLEASE.
~Harmony
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Chapter 22
I was forcibly whipped around to a furry looking creature that looked like wolf with plastic surgery gone wrong… like really wrong. Its teeth were barring at me and it snarled in my face. I gasped with a shaky breath.
"Eraser."
"Ahhh we finally get to meet." The eraser held me up by my neck and I could feel its nails digging in.
"Let my friend up! She's going to die!"
"Precisely." The eraser prolonged his answer to taunt me. "Well in my opinion, the offspring of two extremely successful hybrids is much more valuable than a rouge mutant who ran away isn't it?"
Why wasn't I getting mad? I couldn't feel the heat in my body anymore. Instead, it was ice cold with fear.
"Aww little birdie too scared to speak?" The eraser punched me in the stomach and flung me up in the air. I attempted to whip out my wings but the eraser had attached wings and was up in the air with me. They're not just erasers! They're the flyboys that Gazzy always talks about!
I gathered up my courage. "Let my friend up or I'll kill you."
The eraser was shaking with laughter. "You- You? A 6 year old… threatening me?"
I focused on frying the giant puffball of an eraser. I felt the heat entering my eyes. I kicking him in the groin and he fell a couple of feet.
"Why you little-"
"Don't hurt my friends or I'll hurt you." I opened my eyes as everything glazed over in a red hue. I felt his body heat up as he was screaming. When he let go of me, I dived into the pond and looked for Fern.
Swallow, open. Swallow open. I tried to use my gills so I could focus on saving Fern. I found her under the hold of another eraser. She looked so fragile and limp under the huge eraser hands.
Come on Fern wake up! I burnt the erasers hand and Fern started to sink to the bottom. I held her shoulders and swam up as fast as I could. I opened my wings underwater and kicked as hard as I could. When I was at the surface, I flew into the air and water droplets scattered below me. Fern and I were the same size so she was really heavy for me to carry.
I flew to a nearby clearing and looked around. I could feel tears running down my face. "Please! Fern…. Wake up!" I put my mouth on hers and did CPR. Her lips and hands were blue and she was unconscious. I blew air into her body. She started to move and sputter out water… then, finally, she opened her eyes.
"Fern! Are you okay?"
She started coughing violently as she pointed to something behind me. "Er- Eraser… run." She held her stomach as she coughed.
"No, I can't leave you!" I tried to get her to stand up.
"GO! I'll…get... Parents…" She crawled over to a tree with her back to the trunk. She wrapped two vines around her waist. "Phoenix." She threw up onto the ground. "GO!"
She leaned her head against the trunk and closed her eyes. The vines started to move and wrap around her to camouflage. Just as the last vine about to cover her face, she stopped it and looked at me. "Be safe." Soon, all I could see was a trunk covered in vines. You'd ever know there was a girl under there, hiding.
"Don't worry." I looked back as I ran. "I'll come back for you."
I flew up into the air and headed for our cave to tell my parents that I needed help- when I heard a deep growl. I turned around sharply.
"You'll pay for what you did!" I was in a fighting stance.
The eraser flew at me, barreling me into empty air. I punched him in the face. He grabbed my wings and pinched them together. I screamed in pain. I kicked my legs back and he loosened his grip on me. Then, he grabbed me with his hands and his claws sprung out. My wings were in pain and I had twisted my ankle. I tried to flap but he caught hold of my wings again.
"Now, now…" He traced the edge of my face with his claws.
I tried to force the heat into my body but I was in too much pain to focus.
He smiled sickly at me. "What to do with a broken feather?" Then his face brightened up. "Of course, your fate has already been decided." He took a tranquilizer gun out of his pocket.
"No please! Don't! I want to see my mom!" I was struggling to get free. My whole face was wet because of the tears.
"Oh don't struggle…" He jabbed the gun in to my arm. "It'll only take a second."
"No… please… don't…" I was slowly starting to black out. The last thing I saw was another eraser stuffing me into a bag.
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MAX P.O.V
"Shouldn't Phoenix be home by now?" I was sitting next to Fang with my head on his shoulder. He was rubbing circles on my back like always.
"The school called and said she got detention so they said she'll be coming home an hour late." I rolled my eyes. "She can never stay out of trouble can she?"
Fang looked down at me and smiled. "Well then we know she's exactly like you." He leaned forward to kiss me. My lips smashed into his and I forgot to control myself. Soon, we were in our bedroom with his shirt off.
"Remember that time when we were too stupid to admit that we were crazy about each other?" He mumbled.
I giggled. "Yeah how stupid were we."
"Very." He smiled and got up off the bed.
We walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. Nudge and Angel had just come back from their job. They worked at a shop that gave makeovers to little kids for parties and such. It's such a perfect job for them. Iggy and Gazzy worked in an electrical shop while training Phoenix on the side. Fang was a bartender, and as for me- being a mom and the leader is a full time job.
Iggy was teaching Gazzy how to make some kind of explosive cake in the kitchen, and Angel was reading a book in her corner. Nudge was talking on the phone with her boss about an upcoming birthday party to do makeovers for.
"Isn't anyone going to get that?" Angel asked. My cell phone had been ringing for about a minute now.
I ran to the phone and picked up. "Hello?"
"Hello, is this Maxine Ride?"
"It's—Whatever- yes it is... why?"
"This is regarding Phoenix and her friend Fern. They have been dismissed over 45 minutes ago and Fern parents have just called and informed us that she has not returned home. It's often observed that Phoenix and Fern walk home together. Has Phoenix arrived yet?"
My hand was shaking. "Um. No. She hasn't arrived yet. I'll go out and look for them." The lady gave some instructions on reporting a person missing but I wasn't paying attention. "Thank you." I put the phone down.
The entire flock was waiting to hear what that was about. "The erasers. They got to Phoenix. She's missing. With her friend."
"How do you know?"
"She was supposed to be back 45 minutes ago and Fern's parents called and said that she was missing." I took a breath and tried to compose myself.
"But we aren't sure that its erasers right?" Nudge piped in. "Let's just think a second—"
Knock. Knock. Knock.
We all turned our heads towards the door. Know one knew where we lived and the whole flock was here.
"Mind blocks." Angel looked scared. "I can't read their mind."
Fang breathed out shakily. He walked over to the door. He raised his eyebrow, questioning us if we're ready.
I looked around and everyone was in fighting stances. I nodded. "Ready."
He opened the door and we were all ready to punch the living day lights out of whatever the school sent to kill us. Instead, we saw a little girl.
She was barley able to stand up and she looked like she had just been beaten to death. She had pale skin with piercing green eyes. There were claw marks on the side of her face and her hair was a mess. There was a dark red liquid seeping down her head- blood.
Her head was down and she was mumbling something. Fang leaned closer.
"Me… and Phoenix…." The girl panted and wiped her hand across her blue lips. She coughed up some water. "… Attack... Erasers... the School…" She stumbled onto Fang. "Nix… not safe." She coughed and sputtered some more water. She looked up at me. "Save her." And then she collapsed.
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"Max, they took Phoenix to the school?!" Iggy was in hysterics. He was intensely cutting carrots, and almost cut his fingers off. "We have to go rescue her!" He slammed the knife on the counter. "Now!"
"Max can we go? We have to go!" Gazzy pleaded at me.
"Guys, I want to go save her probably more than you but we have to wait for Fern to wake up!" I had Fern on my lap and Angel was healing her with some medicine of some sort. I shifted Fern to the couch and walked over to Nudge who was typing something up on her computer.
Nudge exclaimed, "Look, I hacked into the school's database and records!"
"Let me see." Fang grabbed the laptop and started to look through the files.
"Do you know what any of that means, Fang?" Nudge looked pissed.
"No."
"Then give it back to me." Nudge glared at him.
"Guys, guys! No fighting… We have to find Phoenix. And we will save her." I turned to Nudge. "Nudge, search for Phoenix and see of anything attached to her name shows up."
"Got it." She typed some code and a list of files popped up. "It's just the standard stuff that we always see. Wait- here's something." She furrowed her eyebrow. "Oh no… no, no, no! This can't be happening." Her eyes filled with worry.
"What? What is it?" Fang lifted his head from out of his hands.
"It said she's expected to arrive in the EEHPU."
Iggy gasped and dropped the knife.
She looked at the flock. "They're sending her to the death unit."
The EEHPU was the Extensive Experimental Hybrid Procedure Unit or what we call it- the death unit. Hybrids only go there if they were going to be experimented on and more often than not, they died in there. Iggy was one of the few who survived… and he became blind.
Fang sat on the couch with his head in his hands. It's been a long time since I've acted like a leader. It's time to step up and relive your past. "Okay guys, here's what we're going to do. Fang, Nudge, Iggy and I will go to the school. Gazzy, and Angel, I need you guys to stay here and take care of Fern."
"What?!" Gazzy retorted. "I am NOT staying here! I want to go with you guys!"
"Me too, Max! We can't just stay here!" Angel joined in.
"Someone has to take care of Fern!" I reasoned.
"We can take her to a hospital!" Angel crossed her arms.
"No you can't." Fern was awake. She sat up. Her face had some more color in it and her eyes were bright green again. The blue in her lips had almost faded away. "You can't take me to a hospital or to my parents."
I walked to the couch. "You need to be taken care of properly, Fern."
"No you don't understand. I want to go with you guys. I want to save Phoenix." She took a breath. "Look, Phoenix was going to tell you soon but I'm not human either. I broke out of the school with my sister and then she got killed and someone found me and I got put in the foster system. I got out of the school 3 years ago and I know what they do there."
I was speechless. "I- I don't know what to say."
"You can say yes." Fern looked at me pleading.
I looked at Gazzy and Angel. "Alright. Everyone is going. Nudge, print out a layout of the school, Angel, dress Fern's wounds, Fang, get everyone's backpacks ready, Iggy, pack food, and Gazzy- weapons."
I went to Phoenix's room to get her backpack that was under the bed. Like I said, we always tried to be prepared. We each had an extra backpack ready to go under our beds. I replaced the water bottle with another one and threw in a jacket. I met everyone in the living room.
"Ready?" I walked over the Fern. "Are you sure you're okay? How will you—"
"Fly. I can fly." She looked up at me. Fern was so much like Phoenix.
"Alright then." We all walked out to the mountains. The sun was already going down.
Fern whispered. "We're coming for you Phoenix. Just hang in there."
I smiled and squeezed Fang's hand. "Three." We all jumped into the air and soared into the sunset sky.
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PHOENIX P.O.V.
Beep. Beep. Beep. I slowly opened my eyes. Where was I? I could hear muffled talking.
"Its vitals are good. I think we should do the procedure today."
"No. She just got here today! She'll be reluctant! We have to wait until tomorrow. Don't you remember her mother? I heard she takes after her."
"But-"
"No buts. I am you boss. You will obey me. After all, I have the connection with these mutants."
What? A connection? What are they going to do to me? I tried to move but my hands and legs were restrained with an IV dripping into my arm. It was completely dark except for one small light bulb above me. I could hear the door start to open. And a man with a round face and glasses appeared in front of me.
"Hello Phoenix. How are you feeling?" He smiled at me.
"Pretty bad considering I CAN'T MOVE!" I glowered my eyes at him.
"Hm. I sense you're just as uncooperative as your mother was. Luckily, times have changed and you don't really have a say in what we do to you."
Suddenly, I realized that I recognized this man. The flock would always tell me stories about him. Jeb…. Jeb Batchelder, the man who betrayed the flock.
"LET ME GO!" I screamed as loud as I could. Jeb flinched.
"We won't have any problems if you listen. I won't hurt you."
"Liar!" The lights flickered off and on. "You hurt the flock!" I was starting to have a panic attack. "I want to go home… I want my family!" I was having hard time breathing.
Jeb chuckled. "Didn't expect Max to raise such a wimp of a kid." He shook his head. "But that will change here. We're going to remold you."
I was shaking from crying and yelling. "I want to go home! I want my family!"
Jeb leaned closer to me and caressed my face. "Oh but honey, you are with family…. Say hello to your grandfather." He smiled viciously as he uncapped a syringe with black liquid in it. He injected me with the liquid as I struggled away from his grasp.
I could feel my eyelids shutting. The last thing I heard: "Welcome home sweetheart… it's family bonding time."
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OH SNAP. Cliffhanger.
Hope you enjoyed that ;) REVIEW.
~Harmony