xi.
part eleven
"You're not leaving today?"
Fang looks over to the eight-year-old girl in the cage beside him. She is scrawny —obviously underfed— with dirty blonde hair that has never seen a brush, and brown eyes that shine despite their dreary circumstances. She's a friend Fang has had since he can remember, and she calls herself Maximum Ride though everyone refers to her as "Max" for short.
"No, Jeb said he'd be busy…" Fang frowns, glaring at his bare feet. He knew what that meant.
Max seems to catch on too, a sullen look on her young face. "I'm sure she'll be fine. You said she's tough, and the ugly whitecoats haven't taken her down yet."
Though he knows Max is just trying to be encouraging, Fang knows more about Octavia than the rest of their small family. He has witnessed first hand what the whitecoats put her through, and even if he hasn't been told anything about her past— Just looking at Octavia, Fang knows she is more broken than complete.
So, he bites his lip and looks away. Thinking it's probably better not to say anything at all.
"I wish I could have got to meet her," Another voice pops up from across the room. Max and Fang look over to see their peer, Iggy, with a weak smile on his face. "Before— You know." The strawberry blond haired boy gestures to his sightless, ice blue eyes.
"Not funny," Max says.
Iggy just shrugs; he was used to it by now. It had only been a year since a botched operation by the whitecoats failed miserably, and had left him blind. His friends are seemingly taking the change much harder than he is, though in the back of Fang and Max's minds— They know Iggy is just hiding his pain with poorly executed jokes and puns.
"I'm just saying; I wanted to know what she looks like. It's kinda hard to picture people I haven't met in my head. The way Fang describes her, I'm just gonna picture a beautifully shining warrior princess."
Fang blushes, denying Iggy's claims with a scoff. "I have never called her that."
"You didn't have to," Max decides to join in on the fun. "Going by the way you look when you talk about her was enough."
"Should I comment on that statement?" Iggy asks, making Max realize her choice of words. Her face heats up fast, and it's Fang's turn to be thoroughly amused by someone else's embarrassment.
"Shh!"
Abruptly, the three children are jolted back to reality when one of the other children in the room interrupts them with a harsh sound. They're glaring at them from their cramped cage, but say nothing else as they turn away and resume staring at the wall.
The mood has turned somber, and suddenly "having fun" isn't a thing they can do anymore.
Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, and the newly named, The Gasman, (Gazzy, for short) are not liked in the least by the other children in this hell hole. The other experiments can clearly see the favoritism that the small group receives from a certain scientist, while they are forced to endure with no ray of hope in their life. One by one, they are picked off and replaced, and yet that group of children remains.
The hatred, fear, and envy that is projected at them only makes the group grow closer. At the same time, they feel the weight of their privilege and see how lucky they are to have Jeb in their lives.
Before they can sit in silence for too long, the door to the dark room they're in opens. Light filters into the room, falling directly onto the two cages that hold Nudge and Gazzy— forcing them to rise from the naps they had been taking.
The guards step aside, and in walks the groups' savior.
Jeb smiles at the select children, "I have a surprise for you."
author's note: hi! so after hearing everyone's thoughts and feedback, i decided i will be redoing this story and changing it to where we start at the beginning of "angel experiment" instead. for now, while i alter and finish writing the new beginning, i will occasionally post small chapters like this just to tide you by. i will be posting another chapter directly after this, since i don't think ff will allow you to review twice on the same chapter, that way if you have any thoughts to share- you can just leave them on the next part!
thanks again for all the help, guys :)