Chapter 13~Of When Everything Comes Crashing Down
PREVIOUSLY, ON BECAUSE OF A FIGHT, BELIEVE IT OR NOT:
"Nick," he addressed me grimly.
"What the hell do you want? I'm busy," I snapped.
His voice remained calm, "I believe whatever business you have to attend can wait."
"I believe," I mocked his words. "Stop assuming things, it's always been your flaw."
"Please, listen carefully to what I am about to tell you," he pleaded. "This is extremely crucial."
I was honest to God fed up with him and his talking. "Everything's crucial to you, isn't it? Just tell me what you have to say, I have things to do."
"Fang," the caller repeated. "You are about to die."
FANG POV
In the background, people began to cheer when the clock struck twelve. "You call me just for that?" I asked incredulously. "This was what you told me weeks ago at the last party, that I was in danger. What's the point of repeating it?"
The person on the other end sighed impatiently. "Just let me finish, for the sake of all that is holy. Yes, we've gone over the fact that they know your whereabouts and your current situation. But my old friend, you dying is all part of the plan of staying alive."
The atmosphere turned strangely cold in the heated house. "I-I don't understand. I have to die to stay alive?"
"Let me go over this very carefully, Nick. Listen to everything I'm about to tell you. I'm warning you; this plan works both in your favor and out of your favor..."
-line-
This plan was the stupidest thing ever. Asking me to die. A person can't get any crazier than that.
"Are you fucking crazy?" I roared into the phone. "After all this time I've spent in Colorado Springs, after all this time I've tried so hard to build a new life for me and Mom, you're telling me to throw it away like that. How dare you even suggest such a thing?"
"Nick, listen to me!" he insisted.
I growled. "For the last time, stop calling me Nick! Stop calling me, period! Ever since I saw you the first time in the diner, you've been screwing things up for me!"
"Do you hear what you're saying?" the caller yelled. "I'm screwing things up for you? My friend, you're screwing things up for yourself by not agreeing to my orders! Think about it; they will hunt you down and when they find you, Tr-the organization's agents will use every torture device ever invented on you to get what they want! If you don't give it to them, they won't kill you, they'll leave you there to suffer and die slowly and painfully from your own injuries. Please, Nick, I'm only doing what's best for you!"
I let out a frustrated sound. I hated it when he had a point. "Still, what about my friends and family? The news of my death would drive them insane. Think about what might happen to my mom; she'd never be the same!"
"Your mom knows about what you used to do and what the consequences were. She'd eventually move on."
"And my friends? I've grown so close to them, I can't bear to think what would become of them!"Especially Max. My death wouldn't just kill me, it would kill her too...
"The same goes for them; they'd move on. Did you forget that our secret is bigger and more important than any friendship? Relationships can be started anew; you realized this when you moved here, did you not?"
"Not the relationships I created with them! I've never had friends like these before!"
There was a silence on the other end. Finally, he spoke, "I'm sorry, Nick. I truly am. But this is for your own good and everyone else's."
I remained taciturn for a few long moments, trying to comprehend all these sudden happenings. Then I gave a long sigh. "Alright. When do I make the first move?"
"Soon enough, Nick, soon enough. For now, just get your affairs in order." The line went dead after that.
I wasn't an idiot. I knew what his last words really meant.
Get ready to die.
MAX POV
I waited at the park bench idly for Fang to arrive. His text said to meet him there in five minutes, but so far I didn't see him. That idiot was always late.
But I was about to eat my words when I saw a black silhouette on the horizon. Cupping my hands around my mouth, I yelled, "Fang! Over here!" and waved my hand.
He caught sight of me and jogged to the bench. "Hey," Fang greeted. Like last week, his face looked unsure.
"Hi," I replied. "So, why did you want to see me?"
Instead of replying, Fang took my hand and pulled me off the bench. "Let's go for a walk," he suggested.
I shrugged. "Alright." No harm in that.
We began walking on the concrete sidewalk. No words were exchanged until I said again, "So this was it? You just wanted to go for a walk?"
Fang glanced at me. "Hm? Oh, yeah. I just wanted to spend some time with you."
"Er, okay." He wanted to spend time with me? How sweet. I think.
Fang and I kept going. "You seemed distracted lately," I commented. "Any reason?
I saw him gulp. "Nah, just some family matters." It was obvious by his tone that he wasn't going to spill anything more, so I left the matter alone.
The entire walk was silent. Not an awkward silence, just a comfortable one. Honestly, nothing was ever awkward with Fang.
Soon, we went back to where we started, at the brown park bench near the edge of the sidewalk.
Looking at my watch, I saw it was almost time for dinner. I cursed. "Shit, dude. I have to go now. If I'm late for dinner one more time, Mom's going to skin me alive." He nodded. "'Kay, bye Fang. See you later."
I waved my hand and made a move to leave, but Fang's hand latched on my wrist. "Wait." I turned around. "Before you leave, I want to tell you this. You're my best friend." My cheeks felt warm despite the chilly January weather as he continued, letting go of my arm. "I just wanted you to know that you're amazing and I have never met anyone like you before. I've never met a person that I could relate to so wonderfully and I-well, I think that I could never have a better friend than you've been to me."
I turned back around to hide my blush. He sounded so final in his words and I've never heard him say that much before. "Thank you, I feel the same way about you, but...what was the point of telling me all this?"
I faced him again to listen to his response, but Fang wasn't there anymore. Confused, I looked all around in my line of sight. It was like he disappeared into thin air.
Suddenly, I heard a loud cawing noise coming from a tree, I curiously turned around and my eyes widened by what I saw.
There were two hawks nesting in a high branch. Since when did hawks come to Colorado Springs? I thought as I continued to watch in awe.
One bird had brown and white feathers and the other was black with a few chocolate colored ones here and there. The brown and white hawk was cawing loudly as the black hawk rose from the nest and flew away.
The radio was blaring loudly in my room while I finished my homework late at night. I listened along to it as I tried to finish my essay on soliloquies. Soliloquies; who was the stupid guy who came up with such a stupid name for such a stupid subject?
Suddenly, my phone rang loud and clear on my bedside. I walked over to answer it, wondering who it could be at this time of night.
"Hello?"
"Max," Nudge said. Her voice didn't sound like it usually did, bright and perky. Instead, it came out panicky and urgent.
"What, Nudge? Is something wrong?" I asked.
"Come to the hospital. Now."
I frowned, worried. "Who's at the hospital? Did your mom have another asthma attack?"
"No, Max. It's Fang. He's been hit by a car."
"WHAT?!"
"What happened?" I yelled.
Her words came out rushed after she gulped back what were undoubtedly tears. "I-I don't know. My dad, he had a late night shift at the hospital and I d-decided to come with since I couldn't sleep. Then I heard nurses rushing a p-patient inside a room. I managed to take a look at the face since I was curious, and-it was him, Max. It was Fang."
I breathed shakily, trying not to rush to conclusions. "Calm down, Nudge. Just tell me how bad it is. Maybe he just sprained a few limbs, right?"
The words Nudge said next sent chills down my back. "Max...he's in the ICU."
I dropped the phone in shock. No, no, no. Not the ICU, not the Intensive Care Unit. People died there all the time. Patients with deadly diseases stayed there.
Shrugging on a jacket, I pulled on a random pair of shoes and quickly ran down the stairs. I remembered Ella was babysitting Angel, and Iggy was at a friends's house; I'd have to call them once I was there. There was no time right now. Quickly, I grabbed the keys to my mom's car from the counter, raced to her car outside, and pulled out of the driveway.
I'm pretty sure on the way to the hospital I drove through three red lights, but I didn't care. All I cared about at the moment was Fang's safety. The whole time I was in the car, I tried to think that nothing would happen, that he'd stay awake and alive.
No matter what, I was determined not to lose my best friend.
In ten minutes, I reached the parking lot of Colorado Springs Hospital. But there weren't many parking spaces so I left the car in the first available space I saw (which was quite far from the main building) and sprinted inside to the front desk.
"I'm here to see Nick Walker," I told the lady sitting behind the computer. "Which room is he in?"
The woman peered at her screen. "Nick Walker..." she muttered. "Oh, he's in room 429."
I didn't bother to say thank you as I raced to the elevator. "No running!" The front desk lady called out, but I paid no attention to her warning.
The elevator seemed to move so slowly. Come on, come on, come on, I thought. Go faster. My foot tapped impatiently, but as soon as I heard the ding, I scampered away.
I ran down the halls and searched for room 429. 422...425...428...where's 429?
"Max!" I heard my name and turned around. There was Nudge, getting up from a bench. Her eyes were tinted red and her lip was wobbling. "You're finally here."
"I came as fast as I could, Nudge, where is he?"
With a shaky hand, she pointed to the door behind me. Under normal circumstances, I would have made fun of myself for being so unobservant, but this was no time for jokes and giggles.
"They're operating on Fang, Max. I just asked the doctor what happened to him, and he said apparently, he was on the sidewalk when a drunk driver swerved and hit him. The impact was horrible."
"And?" I pressed. "How bad are his injuries?"
I tried looking for some hope in Nudge's big doe eyes that might say it's not as bad as I thought, but I could only see worry. "4 broken ribs, internal bleeding, and a concussion," she whispered.
My stomach dropped. "Oh, no," I murmured. Holding my head in my hands, I leaned against the wall and slowly slid down. I felt sick, horribly sick and dizzy. Something wet stained my eyes, so I raised my head, touched my pupils, and looked at my fingers.
Tears.
Things were definitely bad, according to my brain. Maximum Martinez rarely cried, and to shed tears now? The situation was devastating.
I got up. "Can we see him?" I demanded Nudge, trying to gain back control of my emotions.
She frantically shook her head. "I asked the doctor, but he said Fang was unavailable due to operation. We can't even look at him through the window because it's covered with blue drapes. At least the walls here are quite thin, so if you press your ear to the window, you can hear what's going on."
Testing her statement, I put my ear next to room 429's window. True to Nudge's word, I could hear the beep of a heart monitor.
Unfortunately, that's when things turned for the worse.
The unsteady beeping quickly turned into one long, never-ending noise. "No," I whispered weakly. "Don't die, Fang, don't die."
I heard a doctor rustling though objects and heard him order, "Clear!" The electric buzzing filled my ears, but the heart monitor was still flat lining. "Clear!" Once again, the chargers crackled for about five seconds and stopped. The monitor continued to give off the same sound.
One more charge, that's all that could happen. Fang only had one more chance before, before- I couldn't think it. It was too horrible to imagine, to comprehend.
"Clear!" The doctor's chargers went off again. It buzzed, and buzzed, and buzzed until it stopped.
The heart monitor never stopped flat lining.
I heard a man's call fill the room. "I'm calling time of death at 10:34 PM..."
After that, I didn't tune into the rest of his sentence. All my senses and feelings went numb and I could only hear the voices in my head.
He's long gone. He left you. He's never coming back. He's not going to fight you again. Fuck fighting, he's never going to do anything again.
He's dead.
Nick Walker is dead.
Fang is dead.
The doctor walked out of the room, wearing a white overcoat over a black ensemble with no name tag. "I'm sorry to inform you, but Mr. Walker has passed away from his injuries. Your friend-"
"No!" I cried out. "He's not dead, he can't be! I just talked to him yesterday!" My fist hit the wall in agony and frustration. "Fang's still alive!"
"Max," Nudge's hand gently rested on my shoulder. I could sense her crying considering the choked voice she spoke in. "He's gone. There's nothing we can do."
I clutched her hand as a comfort as the doctor spoke up after clearing his throat. "You can visit his body in the room though, if you want to say your goodbyes."
Not a second after he said that, I pushed my way through him and Nudge and entered through the door.
There he was, lying there like a fallen angel. Fang's eyes were closed and his hands were on his chest. Whatever blood there was on his body must have been cleaned off because I could only see open wounds and cuts adorning him. A bandage covered his head, hiding whatever scars he had.
I rushed to his bedside and shook his arm repeatedly. "Fang. Fang, wake up. It's me, Max. Fangles, wake up. Wake up! Nick Walker, you do what I say and what I'm saying is to wake up, so fucking open your eyes!" I shrieked. "Answer me when I speak to you! Fang! God, Fang-" my voice cracked and I began to sob. "Why can't you talk to me, Fang?" I fell to my knees and cried hard.
It was official; my best friend was really gone. We would never exchange witty banter, fight at a party, text late at night, take silent walks together, or do anything together ever again.
I was on my own.
As my walls slowly broke down, Iggy and Ella must have entered because I could hear my brother's voice yell out, "Oh, my God. Fang!"
I didn't hear their pain. I didn't hear their misery. Because somewhere, in some tiny corner of my brain that wasn't consumed by grief, all I was remembering what Fang said to me yesterday on our walk. The way he spoke his words sounded so final, so ultimate.
It was almost as if Fang knew he would die.
FANG POV
I waited quietly on the hospital bed until he said, "They've left. You can stop pretending now."
Opening my eyes, I saw him removing his "doctor" coat and revealing his black attire. I sat up and stretched my arms. "Was it really that necessary to make the chargers so loud?" I hissed.
The man smirked. "They were listening from the window. Wouldn't your girlfriend get suspicious if you didn't 'die' properly?"
"She's not my girlfriend," I muttered. "Gimme a napkin, all these wound stickers and paint are making me uncomfortable." He obediently handed me a large paper towel and after peeling off the stickers, I wiped off all the makeup. Then I ripped the bandage from my head, letting it fall gently to the ground.
Even though I wasn't really dead, I felt like it. No one would ever comprehend the emotions that ran through my body when Max and the others stood at my bedside, thinking I left the world. I wanted so badly to get up and assure them I was still alive, that my heart was still beating. I wanted to hug Max and tell her everything was fine, that I wasn't dead.
But I couldn't.
Sighing miserably, I stood up and pulled my clothes back on. "Remind me why I had to fake my death?" I called out after I was dressed.
He simply said, "To make them believe that there was no point trying to kill you. After all, it's hard to make a dead body talk, isn't it? You of all people must understand that."
I ignored the last sentence and asked another question. "So what's the plan after this? Where am I being relocated to?"
The smirk on his face grew. "The one place where it would be practically impossible to find people in the middle of a crowded city."
"And that would be...?"
"San Fransisco."
Author's Note:
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