Chapter 17
One Year Later
"Max-ax-ax-ax-ax-x-x-x. Maaaaaaaaaaax-ax-ax-ax-x-x-x." My eyes slowly opened. My vision was completely blurred. I could only general shapes. "She's coming around! Max!" My vision started to clear. I could see that there were people around me, two of them to be exact. "Max!" My vision cleared completely. I could see Nudge standing beside me, yelling, "MaxMaxMaxMaxMa-!" Fang put one hand on the top of her head, one on the bottom of her jaw, and pushed the two together, cutting Nudge off.
"Thank you Fang," I croaked slowly, my muscles feeling weak and unwilling to move. "So, what happened?" Nudge started talking at light-speed, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to handle it. I put a hand up, and she stopped. "I'd rather hear it from the acting leader." I knew who it was. "If everyone else would leave the room, that would be nice, because I'm not in the mood for side-comments at the moment." Nudge left, leaving only Fang and me in the room.
There were a few moments of silence; Fang broke it, sounding slightly uncomfortable, "How do you feel?"
"Well, I certainly don't feel like I was given a friggin' golden ticket to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, but I feel alright. Anyway, what happened in the last-" I peered at a newspaper that was laying beside my hospital - oh crap – bed, my eyes widening when I saw the date, "year!" Fang took about ten minutes to relay what had happened. Apparently, I'd tried to fly Fang and me away from the falling helicopter. I realized that we wouldn't make it, and used all of my remaining strength to hurl Fang fifteen feet up to Nudge. Ah, I'm such a hero. Then the helicopter tail swung around and swatted me into a tree, really, really hard. Nudge and him, after he'd recovered slightly from his gunshot wound, inspected my injuries, which were severe, and were forced to bring me to a – du du duuuu – hospital. There, they were contacted by secret service agents, who said that the president had no interest in killing them, and offered his protection, not the protection of the FBI. Fang and Nudge were forced to agree, and then they sat, waiting, for almost a year. They were offered lodging at a safe house, but they said they'd stay in the hospital.
"So," I said, "did you go to a baseball game? Meet a girl?"
"No," replied Fang, moving closer to the bed, "there's only room in my heart for one." He bent over my bed, and kissed me. Omigod. I felt lightheaded. In my mind, only Fang and I existed. After about a minute, we stopped. Both of us were breathing very slowly. "Well," I gasped, "we better get a move on, I'm sure that Nudge is getting impatient.
"So," I said, "anything eventful happen while I was out?"
"Not much," replied Fang. "Just the presidential election, about a week back."
Alarm bells started going off in my head as memories of Herman Batchelder telling me his plan came back to me. "What were the circumstances?"
"What do you mean?"
"How did he get voted president? Did the other candidates drop out? Die mysteriously?"
"The circumstances were kind of weird. After the nomination, the other major front runner died under suspicious circumstances. More suspicious was this; the candidate that took the forerunner's place dropped out a week later."
"Oh god!" I said. "We have to get out of here!"
"Why?"
"Herman Batchelder, the bad guy leader, told me that he was going to use Angel and that weird kid to make the flock kill presidential candidates, presumably until their candidate was the only one left. It seems that they've been able to do that without us. And now, the new president probably is their candidate, and he's probably sending a team to kill us right now!" Fang immediately slid an arm under my armpit and dragged me up.
"Can you walk?" he asked.
"Normally I would say no, but I think the adrenaline will help." I started stumbling toward the door, but I got better at it with each step. Fang threw open the door and yelled at Nudge to run. Then something exploded down the hall, demolishing walls and sending a plume of fire straight toward us.