Disclaimer: I own various OCs, but not the flock. They'd probably eat me out of house and home anyways.
Fang shifted Angel on his lap. He raised a spoonful of cereal, moistened with a carefully rationed amount of milk, and began to move it to her lips, but she turned her head away. Fang sent a questioning thought in her direction.
Nudge says she'll take me, Angel thought back. She's done eating now and she says you need to deal with Max.
Fang turned his head and saw Nudge looking at him. She nodded. He awkwardly transferred Angel's body onto her lap. Angel's facial expressions, which were much more vivid now, revealed her embarrassment. She had always been independent, even when she was only six. This older Angel resented her obvious weaknesses, Fang could tell.
Nudge had also noticed this, and instead of holding Angel in her lap, she used her free hand to pull up another chair. Fang was surprised at how insightful Nudge was becoming; it was like she'd grown up during the brief period they'd been separated. Or maybe she'd always been like this, and he was only noticing it now. Whenever it had happened, Nudge had grown enough to see through Max's shields as well, not that the older girl was putting much effort into retaining her barriers at the moment.
Max was hunched over the table, twirling a plastic spoon between two fingers. Her eyes appeared to be centered on the spoon, but closer examination showed that they were clouded and unfocused.Her tangled hair was pulled back loosely, with several escaped strands dangling in front of her eyes. Her skin had a grayish tint from the dust that seemed to follow them and her hands were so dry they were cracked. The dried blood had seeped into her skin, staining her palms with dark red.
"Max," said Fang. Her eyes slowly adjusted, coming in and out of focus. She turned her head only slightly in his direction. "You need to eat something."
Max cleared her throat. "I'm not hungry," she whispered, so the stranger across the table couldn't hear. Thankfully, Cassy had not yet made one comment concerning their bedraggled appearances.
Fang copied Max's whisper nonetheless. "You haven't eaten in… God, Max, I don't know how long it's been, but it's been days."
Max eyed the empty bowl in front of her and started turning the spoon in the opposite direction. She avoided Fang's eyes, and frustration built inside of him. Did she want to die?
The subconscious question caught Fang off guard, and he immediately blocked all thoughts not directly applicable to the situation. He lowered his voice even further. "You are having breakfast, end of story." He grabbed a cereal box from across the table and popped open the torn cardboard lid.
Max turned so they were looking right at each other, a sudden intensity claiming her dejected form. "I don't need to be taken care of," she hissed.
Fang kept his tone conversational. "Obviously, you do."
She sighed. "Look, I feel like crap, okay?" Fang responded by shaking the cereal box. She snatched it out of his hands, suddenly angry, and filled maybe a quarter of her bowl with the stale flakes. She shot him an angry glance as she added a splash of milk. Fang didn't allow the relief to show on his face.
She ate slowly, eating only a single flake at a time. The milk moistened her chapped lips, turning them a slightly darker shade of pink. Fang noticed how pale the rest of her face was. She hadn't really slept or eaten in days.
Suddenly, he felt someone watching him. He raised his eyes to look across the table, and there was Cassy, her head turned, concentrating on some unseen thing in the distance. Fang knew she'd been watching them, and it made him worry. No one outside the flock was supposed to see their weaknesses; they even hid it from some of those in the flock. But now only Gazzy seemed truly oblivious, since Nudge had figured it out and Angel was in everyone's minds.
Gazzy. Who knew what was going on in his head? Fang would have to ask Angel sometime soon. The Gasman's friendly matter had completely disappeared in the wake of his best friend's death. In fact, he was avoiding making any contact with anyone at all. It wasn't like Gazzy to be so quiet; it was almost as though he wasn't there at all. Now that he thought about it, Fang missed Gazzy's jovial moods. They would have done wonders to lighten the situation a bit.
Fang watched Max carefully, making sure she at least finished eating the miniscule amount she'd served herself. She was eating more slowly now, as though the sudden nutrients had made her aware of how tired she was. Her elbow rested heavily on the table and she leaned her head against her arm, breathing deeply between bites.
Cassy cleared her throat and Fang looked up suddenly, an instinctive glare dominating his face. The woman's expression was concerned, even a bit frightened, so Fang lessened his gaze, but continued to stare at her. She hesitated, and then spoke. "You're new, right?"
"Yes," said Fang gruffly, watching Max stir her cereal.
"If you don't mind my asking… How new?"
Her prying was starting to make Fang nervous. "Why?"
Cassy looked down at her hands, twining her long fingers together. After a short pause, she looked up and met Fang's eyes. "I'm just trying to help," she insisted. "I'm just asking if you're new enough not.. Not to know how things work around here. That's all."
Fang contemplated the woman's sincerity with a steady gaze. Her eyes darted back and forth between her hands and his face, obviously uncomfortable.
Be nice, Fang, came Angel's chiding voice. She doesn't want to hurt us. Fang trusted Angel, although it defied his basic instincts to reveal information to a stranger. Then again, they didn't really have much else to lose.
"Fine," said Fang, his voice sounding strained even to his own ears. "We're new. Brand new."
Cassy gave a cautious smile, not sure how he would react. "Would you like me to fill you in?" she questioned.
Max picked her head up, suddenly interested in the conversation. "Yes," she said, her voice stronger than it had been all morning. Nudge turned her head too, her eyes bright and inquisitive.
Cassy surveyed her new audience and took a deep breath. "Okay, well, after the bomb, as you probably know, the government evacuated everyone in the towns around the city. That was the last we've heard from the government. There are rumors about more bombs, but there's no way to tell for sure, so either way we're pretty much on our own."
The flock has always been alone, Fang thought. We've always taken care of ourselves.
Cassy looked around nervously. "Is this good? Did you guys know that already?"
"Keep going," Max prompted.
Cassy swallowed. "We get all our food and clothes and stuff from the scavengers. Pretty much everybody who doesn't rent out their house or something, like Cat does, is a scavenger, myself and Mark included. It's not really as bad as it sounds, for most of us, anyway. We go out into one of the empty towns, it takes days to get there and back, sometimes, and we pick up the most useful things we find, and we bring them back here. We sell them to the head scavenger- he owns a warehouse where he keeps everything- and that's the money we live on."
"And then he sells what you find to everyone else in the town," finished Fang, catching on. Cassy nodded in agreement.
"We don't have to pay as much for provisions, but it's still a lot. It's hard, but it's all there is for us now." Cassy looked around again, still fidgeting.
It's harder than she says it is, said Angel, explaining the woman's nerves. The head scavenger person- she thinks of him as "The Boss" in her head- scares her a little bit. But she's telling the truth.
"Thank you," said Fang, nodding at Cassy as he stood up. "We'll have to think about it for a while, but I assume you could get one or two of us a job."
"Yes," said Cassy, who finally looked at ease again. "It was nice to meet you. Good luck."
The rest of the flock rose from their seats, all except for Angel, who Fang picked up again. He noticed that Max had eaten only half of what she'd served herself, but it was a start, so he didn't mention it. They trooped to the hall and into their room. Fang set Angel down in a corner, where she could support herself enough to sit. Gazzy sat down next to his sister and they watched each other silently, their faces contorting into expressions occasionally . Fang assumed they were having some sort of nonverbal conversation.
Nudge and Max leaned against the opposite side of the wall. Max slid into a sitting position, leaned her head against the wall,and sighed. Nudge looked concerned, but couldn't hide a hint of excitement as she turned to Fang. "Are you going to do it?" she inquired, her eyes wide. Apparently she hadn't grown up to the point where the idea of "scavengers" didn't excite her.
"I don't know, Nudge. We have to talk about it, and find out if there's anything else we could do."
For a second it seemed as though Nudge was going to open her mouth and start babbling, like she had in the old days. She seemed to struggle with herself, opening and closing her mouth several times, but then remained silent.
"Go find out what Angel and Gazzy are up to," Fang suggested. The look on her face clearly showed that Nudge knew she was being dismissed, but she left all the same. Fang sat down next to Max, close enough to hear her sporadic breathing.
"I'm going to do it," he told her.
"I knew you would," she rasped. Fang had expected her to argue, but she didn't. Instead she rested her head on his shoulder, and he shifted his arm so that it went around her waist. She flinched when his hand brushed against her broken wings.
Author's Note: I personally find this chapter to be much better than the last one, so I hope you guys agree. It was also relatively easy to write, I just had a bit of difficulty wrapping it up, so I did the little sad fax thing, which is how I end things when I don't have any other ideas.
I have the next chapter written in a notebook somewhere, but I still need to type it up and make edits and add things and stuff, so I'll do my best in terms of posting it. As long as you people review, I should be very motivated.
Speaking of reviews, if you could let me know what you think of the OCs when you review this chapter, that would be wonderful. I've considered writing chapters that are semi-OC centric, so if you don't want that, please let me know. I don't want to write something that you don't want to read, so, give me your feelings on that, unless of course you're Kristin, in which case I already know your opinion and you don't have to be so harsh. :)
Thanks to all the great people who reviewed the last chapter: disneydork, therealme1123, Someone aka Me, aradiea(x2), Empathic Hero, bbaluver3, senoritasophia13, punkartgurl13, Kristin, FangsBestFriend(x2) and Taylor.