For the record, I can run faster than an Eraser. Heck, even Angel can outrun a good-sized man. So when I land from the tree and twist my ankle, I'm all 'No biggie. I could hobble and still beat these two dimwits in a marathon'. Unfortunately for me, these two dimwits have guns, and apparently know how to use them. I'll have to disarm them in order to get away.
My awkward falling angle causes me to somersault towards the two, and I use my momentum to pounce on Reno. He lands on his back, wildly pointing his gun. A bullet ricochets off a nearby tree, causing it to spit bark bits. I grab his hand and bend it backwards-careful not to break anything-until he drops the weapon. Reno and I both lunge for the gun, but my awesome mutant freak powers give me the upper hand, and therefore the weapon. As my hand closes around the barrel of the gun, I twist around to kick Reno off of me.
A large foot lands on my stomach, and my air evacuates my lungs. Ricky drops to his knees, keeping his full weight on my stomach, and wrestles the gun out of my hand while I gasp. It is not long before Reno, with the imprint of the bottom of my boot across his forehead, has the it pointed at me. Ricky, encouraged by this turn in events, shifts forward so his face so it is inches from mine.
"Look here, Blondie. We can do this the easy way or the hard way." Despite the waft of rancid tobacco breath, I roll my eyes.
"Your comic book villain is showing again." With that, I raise my leg and knee Ricky where the sun don't shine. He emits a high-pitched wheeze and rolls into the fetal position. I easily slide out from under him. A roundhouse kick to Reno's face, and he drops like a rock.
I pick up the two guns, not sure what to do with them. My thumb brushes over a button on one of them, and the bottom drops out of the handle thingy. I pick the bullets out of the tall grass-a task impossible for a non-mutant in the darkness-and dump them in my pockets. After I toss the two parts of the gun into the far-off undergrowth, I turn to leave, weapon in tow. A familiar chuckle from behind stops me. Spinning around, I find myself pointing the gun at the person I least expect to be there.
"Nick?" I lower my weapon, not sure whether he is a threat. My mistake. While a smirk spreads across his face, a hand-probably Ricky's-wraps around my bad ankle and yanks me down. I gasp as it goes from a "walk it off" kind of injury to more of a "have Iggy pop it back into place" kind of injury. My grip on the gun fails, but I remain upright.
Ricky, having learned from his mistake, skips the monologue and slides a knife out of the inside pocket of his jacket. I dive for the gun, but Nick grabs it first. I quickly lunge to the side, narrowly escaping the butt to my temple.
Ricky comes after me with the knife, slashing and stabbing rather ineffectively. With each missed attack, he gets angrier and sloppier, until finally he overshoots a slash. Bingo. I grab his hand and easily knock him to the ground. Grabbing the knife, I stand to run.
I register the click too late. Suddenly, it's like all of my muscles become jello. No, like all of my muscles decide to show off at once. At any rate, they aren't doing what I tell them to. My legs refuse to hold me, and I fall to my knees in the fetal position. My wings pull into my back painfully tight. When the volts of electricity stop running through me, I want to just lie on the ground, but the smarter (and, thankfully, dominant) side of my brain commands me to get away. I shoot a foot out and successfully trip Nick. He shocks me again, for longer. This time, my body remains numb.
Ricky zipties my hands behind my back. "Cool, man, where'd ya get one of those?"
Nick tosses the gun between his two hands. "A gift from the people who supply our firepower. For their best customers." As he talks, feeling comes back to my extremities. I begin to work out a way I can knock out Ricky from this position and get the electro-transmitter-thingies off of me. Nick slides his eyes over to me. "And, from what they tell me, it still has a few minutes in it before I have to change the batteries." To prove his point, he lightly taps the trigger, and my muscles go rigid temporarily.
"Awesome. Can I try?" Ricky holds out his hand expectantly. Nick gives him The Look. The Look is a face I've only seen Fang make once, and it was when a very young Angel asked him to play dress up. Because Baby Angel had grown immune to Fang's Glares, Stares, and Other Facial Expressions throughout her life, The Look didn't faze her. She won (luckily for me, because it made for a very interesting Christmas morning when Fang opened his present and found the photos.) Luckily for Ricky, his human eyesight, paired with the surrounding darkness, protects him from The Look and all possible side effects.
When Nick realizes Ricky can't see his face, he puts it in words.
"Heck no."
"Why not? She deserves it!"
"We may need it later." My temporary relief is squashed when Nick kneels down in front of me. "In fact, we may need her later." He leans a little too close for comfort, but I refuse to lean back. I stare him dead in the eye, and then realize he can't tell where I'm looking. Pesky humans. Nick doesn't turn around as he asks, "Cody, you got a light?"
Cody, formerly known to me as Ricky, pats his pockets apologetically. "No, man. I sold my last one-"
"A flashlight." I can almost hear Fang's-er, Nick's-eyes rolling.
"Oh, yeah. Here." A circle of light illuminates the forest floor and promptly lands on my face. For a second, Nick is a silhouette, and I can almost pretend like my family isn't missing and I'm just waking up from another nightmare and Fang is leaning over me with a sun halo and has this look like 'I-can't-believe-you-just-fell-out-of-another-tree'. The illusion shatters when Nick raises an eyebrow.
"Hey, you're the girl from the mall. The one who knits?" He says the last bit like he believes it almost as much as he would believe that I have wings. Ha. I raise an eyebrow and open my mouth to reply.
"Dude, this is the chick you were worried about? I mean, from what Tess told me, I was like 'No way!' I mean, knitting? Pharmecudical salesman?" Nick shifts his weight so the light hits me better, seemingly ignoring Cody. "But, geesh! Spot on, man. There's no way she isn't a spy."
Nick finds the two charges from the Tazer in my shoulder. Because of his close range, they went in deeper than they were supposed to. I reply through grit teeth as he digs them out. "I'm not a spy."
Cody huffs. "You were sitting in a tree when Reno and I found you. What else could you have been doing?" It takes lots of self-control not to pull one of those epic-sci-fi 'You wouldn't believe me if I told you' lines.
Suddenly, Nick's brow furrows. He turns to face Cody. "Where's Reno?" Cody swivels the flashlight beam until it rests on an unconscious lump. Nick shuffle-crawls to the body and flips it over. The jostling wakes Reno up. Even from here, I can see Nick's shoulders relax a little.
He fishes Reno's flashlight out of his pocket and turns it on. A low whistle. "Whew. The girl sure did a number on ya. Cody, come look at the size of this knot on his head." Cody hesitates. "It's okay. She's not going anywhere with that ankle." Cody and I glance down at my foot, bruised and swollen, and I grimace. That's going to be painful to run on.
Cody scurries to get a closer look, and the light from his flashlight wildly flies. For a fraction of a second, it reflects off something a few feet to my left. My eyes widen. I glance at the boys, but they are preoccupied with an animatedly-swearing Reno. I silently sweep my feet around and pull Cody's knife closer to me with the heels of my boots. He must have dropped it during the scuffle. In a few seconds, I close my bound hands around the handle.
It is times like these that I'm thankful for Jeb's training. I remember the first couple of times I tried to escape. Half of an hour of pathetic sawing left my hands in ribbons and still bound behind me. Though my fine motor skills have improved since I was nine, I opt for the more suitable option (which, to my dismay, Iggy had gotten after only a few minutes). Maneuvering was a lot easier when I was short and more flexible, but soon, my hands are in front of me.
I pause to listen for any indicator that Nick and friends realize I'm moving. They are too engrossed in their conversation with a newly conscience Reno to notice. The knife makes quick work of my bonds, and I silently rise to my feet. Or, at least, try to. My ankle protests any weight. A tentative step backwards shoots sparks up my leg.
I bite my tongue, glance at the boys one last time, and sprint away.