-Checks review number and reels- Wow! You guys really outdid yourselves this time. 36 reviews and five chapters? Your feedback never fails to make my day!
And I'm sorry, really sorry, for the delay. Life's been keeping me on my toes and, unfortunately, school comes before fanfic.
Disclaimer: I swear on a pack of Oreos that I don't own MR. Come on. You can't beat a pack of Oreos.
randomperson…I think you know what I'm going to say next, right? Review reply at end!
In Reverence
Chapter Six
The momentum of Max's impact crushed them against the floor in the space of seconds. Iggy fell hard on his side, the impact jarring his shoulder and sending cold fire lancing down the length of his arm. One of his wings was pressed painfully against the tiled floor.
His heart was pounding so hard in his ears, he barely detected the bullet hissing past just above his head. It was so close he felt it scrape his cheek, a sharp lancelet of pain that came and went faster than he could realize. Warm blood trickled down the side of his face into the crooks of his neck, and the scratch burned — but he was alive.
Max had landed half on top of him. She hurriedly disentangled herself from him at the sound of the Eraser's furious screams and leapt to her feet, charging the beast. Iggy scrambled clumsily to his knees and tried to focus past the roar of adrenaline in his head.
"Let go, you little —"
Max let out a low grunt of pain and Iggy felt her land in a heap next to him. Heavy footsteps lunged toward him and he instinctively ducked. Metal whistled above the back of his head, the sound of the Eraser swinging its gun at him and missing. Iggy moved frantically, knowing that he had scant seconds before the wolf-mutant recovered —
Clawed hands bit into his shoulders and he felt himself fall back towards the ground. The Eraser only had its grip on him for a moment. With a furious shout and the sound of flesh striking flesh, Max attacked the Eraser with driving fists.
"Don't you — dare — touch him — again!" Max yelled. The Eraser howled in anger and pain, and Iggy heard Max cry out again as the monster's fist found its mark.
Iggy clenched his teeth. That was it. He'd had enough. This Eraser had taunted him, humiliated him in front of his family, tried to kill him, and worst of all, crippled him beyond repair. He wouldn't let it get away with everything unscathed.
"Hey, dog-face!"
He could feel its smoldering gaze on him the moment it turned its wolfish head. Iggy didn't hesitate in acting. He lifted his foot, took brief aim, and kicked up as hard as he could.
It wasn't exactly the smartest thing he'd ever done. The doctors hadn't let him keep his shoes on while stitching his wings, and an Eraser's skull was much thicker than his bare foot. But Iggy's strike was fueled by desperation and a need for retribution that he'd never felt before, and he had rarely ever had trouble judging positions by sound.
The kick struck the Eraser full on its nose. Iggy felt something crunch beneath his foot and give way before hot blood spurted around his ankle. The Eraser's head snapped back, and he heard it stagger away from him with a yelp and a gurgle.
Max took full advantage of the Eraser's distraction, and Iggy heard the creature collapse on the floor a moment later. His foot was telling him in no uncertain terms that it didn't appreciate being launched into an Eraser's face, but he ignored the pain and got to his feet anyway. Max was at his side in an instant, clasping his wrist in her grip and dragging him after her as she hurtled down the hallway.
"Guys!" She called back to the rest of the flock. "Scatter, pronto!"
Iggy tried not to falter as they fled. He could hear the Erasers howling in fury as the rest of the flock tore after them. Bullets screamed through the air, one coming so close he felt it part the hair on his head.
Max skid to a stop at the end of the hallway and hammered the button of what Iggy guessed was an elevator. "Come on, come on!" She said through clenched teeth. A bullet clanged against the door to her right and she flinched against Iggy.
"Max!"
They turned in surprise at the sound of a woman's voice. Iggy recognized her tone — it was Dr. Martinez, heading towards them with the sound of at least five more people behind her. He heard a man splutter in surprise and horror as he rounded the corner and laid eyes on Erasers for the first time in his life. Iggy frowned in pity.
"Get back!" Max warned them.
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open with a quiet brush of air. A flurry of gunfire erupted in the hallway and Iggy was thrust inside the confines of the elevator. His flock pressed in around him, Max shouting at Dr. Martinez to get in. Someone pressed a button, and the doors slid shut. Iggy heard an Eraser roar in defeat before the elevator began to lift.
It was cramped, to say the least, in the lift. Iggy was forced into one of its corners in an effort not to be squished against one of his flock members, and even so it was a very tight fit. Near the front of the elevator, Max let out a frustrated growl in the back of her throat.
"She'll be alright, Max," Fang said reassuringly. "It's not Dr. Martinez the Erasers are after."
"Yeah," Max said wearily. "You're right."
Iggy grimaced and clenched his fingers in the thin fabric of his hospital gown. Not being able to see the narrow walls should have made the confines of the elevator easier to deal with, but shoved in the corner as he was, it was all he could do not to break out in a cold sweat of panic. Claustrophobia was something all of them shared, though for some it was worse. Usually it didn't bother him as much as it affected Max or Gazzy, the two most action-oriented of the group, but the throbbing in his back was making the panic harder for him to resist.
"Ig? You okay back there?"
He started at the sound of Max's voice and lifted a weak smile to his lips. "Fine," he said. "Just starting to feel a little claustrophobic."
A series of understanding groans moved through the flock.
"Totally," Gazzy agreed in a strained voice. "Why'd you have to set our floor so high, Max?"
"We can't go to the lower levels," Max replied. "If those so-called federal agents were really Erasers, who's to say they didn't have back up? The ground floor's probably swarming with them."
"So why don't we go to the roof of the hospital?" Nudge asked quizzically. "It'd be easier to make our escape from there."
"One, the Erasers will expect us to go there. There's probably a dozen helicopters waiting to cut us off already. Two, think about it, Nudge. This hospital's really tall. If we go all the way to the top, we'll have a harder time getting Iggy out of here."
Iggy automatically stiffened under the weight of his family's gaze. It wasn't like he'd forgotten he couldn't fly and needed vague hints from the flock to remind him. He'd simply been putting off the thought that he did not know how he would get out of this one if he was hundreds of feet off the ground and could not use his wings.
"You're going to try to carry me?" he asked skeptically.
"How else are we gonna do it? We're not leaving you here, Iggy."
He smirked wryly. "I didn't ask you to. I'm just saying, I don't think you'll be able to carry me all the way down."
It was funny how he could picture Max's stance just by the tone of her voice. Now he imagined her to be setting her jaw stubbornly, one hand placed on her hip and all her weight shifted to one foot. She would manage to do that in such a cramped place like this any day.
"Well, we're going to. What else are we going to do?"
"We could wait the Erasers out," he suggested. "It's a big hospital. How would they know where to look for us?"
"They wouldn't. But you know them. If they didn't see us leave, they'd assume we were still here and tear apart every single floor just to find us. Then what would happen to all the doctors and Dr. Martinez? They'd be in trouble too."
Iggy had never been afraid of heights before. But now, the thought of launching himself into empty air with only his flock between him and a swift and very messy end was making his heart pound.
Soft fingers touched his arm. He sent a grateful half-smile in Angel's direction, knowing that it was her by the feel of her skin.
"We can all carry you, Iggy," she said soothingly. "If we all work together, we can do it. We won't drop you."
He nodded and slid back into silence. For the rest of the trip up he focused on calming his heartbeat and his thoughts, forcing himself to relax.
Breathe, he told himself, in, and out. In, and out. Calm down.
Eventually, the throbbing in his foot faded away, and his heart had long settled into a comfortable routine of thump-thump-thump, thump-thump-thump when the elevator doors finally dinged again and opened. Iggy felt his carefully-measured heartbeat race back up again and sighed in exasperation.
Angel took his hand in hers and led him out of the elevator. He followed obediently for a few feet and stopped when she did, letting her be his eyes. Max's crisp footsteps strode away from the flock, trailed by Gazzy's rapid ones and Fang's near-silent steps. Iggy strained to hear someone speak, but the flock had fallen silent.
"Hey!" Gazzy suddenly cried out. "I think I can see our house from here."
Fang snorted. "Gasser, we don't have a house."
"No, see that one?" Iggy pictured Gazzy reaching forward with one grubby finger, pointing out of a window…how high up he didn't know, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to. The thought made him queasy.
"I think that's the one," the Gasman said confidently. "The one with the sloped gray roof, on the corner. The one we just came from."
"Err…I don't think we'll go back to that house, Gasser," Max said. Iggy pretended to not feel the awkward gaze he could feel her broadcasting at him.
"Oh. Where are we gonna go, then?"
"Do you think…Dr. Martinez would mind if we stayed at her house?" Nudge asked hopefully. "She'll come back later, right…?"
"Yeah," Max said firmly. "She'll be back really soon. I guess we could go there. If we touch down around there and walk the rest of the way to Dr. Martinez's, we won't draw the Erasers to her house. Even they won't be able to see us from all the way up here."
"Fine," Fang said. "How are we going to get Iggy out, though?"
Once again, Iggy was the flock's center of attention. He shifted from foot to foot, wriggling his toes against the chilly floor to keep them warm.
"We'll break the window," Max decided. "With these chairs. We'll fly out and Iggy, you'll step on these chairs right here, and we'll grab you and lift you out. It'll be easy."
"How're we gonna carry him?" Gazzy asked.
"Me and Fang will get his arms. Gazzy, Nudge, you two balance his legs out. And Angel…"
"I'll be right under him," Angel said. "For extra balance in case he gets a little wobbly."
Wobbly, over fifty feet in the air, and no wings to steady him. Oh, yeah. He was going to be sick.
"All right." Max pushed the air out between her teeth. Iggy heard a chair scrape against the floor. "Let's do it."
Max's first hit sounded like it cracked the glass, badly. It took only one more strike of the chair before the air was filled with the sound of cascading glass. Iggy felt several tiny shards patter around his feet.
"One at a time," Max called. Iggy waited, heart in his mouth and stomach lost somewhere by his feet, as one by one his flock launched themselves out of the window and into the air. Very soon, only he and Angel were left in the hallway.
"Come on!" Gazzy said. "What're you waiting for?"
Iggy knew he should trust his family, and he did. He trusted them more than anyone in the world. But as he worked his way gingerly over the glass-covered floor, getting thin slivers wedged in his feet for his trouble, a wave of doubts and fears swept over his head in a rush of panic.
What if the flock wasn't strong enough to carry him all the way down? What if Gazzy or Nudge lost their grip for one second? That would be all it took to let him fall. Or what if a sudden gust of wind rose up and tore him away from them…?
No. Iggy squared his shoulders and carefully lifted his feet, wincing a little as the chair's seats forced the glass slivers deeper into his skin. He couldn't afford to doubt his family now. They had been there for him through everything. Even when he himself was ready to give up and surrender to despair, they'd been there to keep him afloat, no matter how much he struggled.
They would not let him fall.
Iggy let his hands wander in the air as he straightened on the chairs, testing to see how big the hole Max had made was. It was big enough for him to fit through without having to curl himself up. Taking a shaky breath, he set his jaw, and reached his arms out for them.
Max and Fang gripped his arms just beneath his shoulders. He could feel the wind propelled by the beating of their wings and instinctively tilted his face up towards the caress of air on his face.
"We have you," Max told him. "Don't worry, Ig, we've got you."
He turned his head to regard her with sightless eyes and, for the first time since his freedom had been ripped away from him, gave her a wide, trusting smile.
"I know," he told her.
If she was surprised, she didn't let on. He tensed his legs and gave a little jump, pushing off the chairs — and then he was over the window ledge and out in the open air, dangling, his family keeping him aloft.
Gravity didn't seem to acknowledge the importance of the moment. Iggy felt it working on his limbs immediately after he cleared the window, clenching at his entire body and trying to drag him down. Max and Fang faltered and they began to drift lower.
"Gazzy, Nudge!" Max said, strain evident in her voice. "Grab his feet!"
Little fingers wrapped around his ankles and Iggy felt some of gravity's pull die away. He stopped floating down and stayed where he was. Max and the others shifted until they were above him and brought him up, stretching his body out until he was completely horizontal. The feeling of hovering high above the ground, splayed out on his stomach and facing straight down was disconcerting. Iggy reached his arms up around Max and Fang's sturdy holds on him and clasped their forearms. He fought against the urge to move his feet, knowing that it would dislodge Gazzy and Nudge's grips, and became utterly still with a massive effort.
"Alright!" Gazzy cheered enthusiastically. "We're doing it!"
"Angel, come out here so we can get out of this place," Max beckoned.
No matter how long he was forced to stay on the ground, Iggy would never forget the feeling of flying. Even if it wasn't him keeping him in the air. His flock moved around him as one, the sound of their flapping wings thrumming in his ears. A giddy feeling moved quickly through his stomach and chest, shooting up to his head and making him dizzy with delight. He loved to fly, and it was only when he was so in danger of losing that ability that he realized just how ecstatic it could make him. Moving through the air, his wings flat against his back and his arms and legs splayed out to let his flock guide him, he let the wind wash over him and sweep away all the fear and misery he'd been plagued with for the past hours.
Throughout the flight, not one helicopter or Eraser gave off in pursuit. He knew they were watching, but Fang reported that there were no helicopters on the hospital's roof, and the Erasers wouldn't make it out in time to catch them before they touched down. If luck was still on their side, the Erasers wouldn't catch them again. At least, not until he'd had a much-deserved rest.
"Why didn't we ever come here before?"
Iggy shrugged in reply to Gazzy's question and leaned back into the couch's cushions. Pain shot through his bleeding foot and he shot back up, flinching out of reflex.
"Sorry!" Ella Martinez patted him apologetically and went back to helping him get the glass splinters from his feet. "It's just…there are so many and they're so small…how did this happen, again?"
Iggy looked up plaintively at his flock. They had reached Dr. Martinez's house without any Eraser trouble, but the harsh ground hadn't been gentle on his bare feet, and the glass shards had been driven so deep it hurt him just to stand. Dr. Martinez had apparently instructed Ella to go to her aunt's house down the block while she was gone, but Ella's aunt hadn't been home and so she'd returned back to her own house.
"And it's a good thing I did," she'd said, "or I wouldn't have been here to help you."
Iggy had been bullied into letting the headstrong girl remove all the glass from his feet. So at the moment he was sitting awkwardly on a couch in the Martinez's living room, his flock alternatively prancing and lounging around him.
"We were in a tight place and the window was the only way out," Max explained from her spot on the other side of the couch.
"And Iggy wasn't wearing shoes," Nudge said from the floor.
"Poor Iggy," Angel sighed. Iggy felt her pat his hand and smiled.
"Really, though!" Iggy heard Gazzy bounce around the back of the couch, his endless energy spurred on by being in an actual, comfortable family house. "Why haven't we ever been here before? Look at that couch! It looks so comfortable."
Iggy shot him a look. "No, Gasser. I'm sitting here."
Gazzy giggled. "I wasn't gonna jump on it."
"I wish I'd met you guys earlier," Ella lamented. "You're even more fun than Max made you sound."
"Oh, yeah," Fang grumbled from somewhere behind them. "We're loads of fun."
"Especially him," Max commented.
Ella laughed and finished tugging the last of the glass shards from Iggy's feet. She wrapped them in clean bandages and touched his hand to get his attention.
"All done," she said proudly. "You can relax now. I'm sure you're pretty tired."
He nodded and straightened up against the couch's back. "Thanks," he said quietly.
"Don't mention it. My mom taught me a lot about how to take care of animals, and it's not that different from taking care of people when it comes to surface stuff like that."
Iggy may not have been able to see Ella's expression, but he heard the worry in her voice loud and clear. His battered heart went out to her.
"She'll be home soon, Ella," Max said reassuringly. "The Erasers wouldn't hurt her. As far as they're concerned, she's just a doctor."
"Yeah," Ella agreed. "I hope you're right, though."
A strained silence fell over the living room. Iggy picked at his hospital gown. Max sighed. Fang coughed.
Gazzy's stomach rumbled loudly.
Ella burst into peals of laughter by Iggy's feet. "Are you guys hungry?"
"Starving."
"Gazzy!"
"What? I am."
"I guess we could use some food," Max admitted sheepishly. "It's been a while since we've had anything to eat…"
"I'll get you some food right away! I'm sure my mom won't mind. Got anything specific in mind?"
Iggy smirked at Gazzy's endless gush of requests and Max's embarrassed admonishments. When asked if he wanted anything, he only replied that something to drink would be nice. His family migrated from the living room to the kitchen in a bundle of excited noise and hunger.
His eyelids felt like they had pounds of marble strapped to them. He couldn't remember a time when he'd felt so exhausted, save for the night they'd escaped from the School. Iggy let his head drop back against the couch's back and gingerly lifted his wings, making sure he wasn't squishing them.
Thinking about his handicap was enough to send a cloud of hopelessness thundering over his head. He prayed that Dr. Martinez got home soon so he could ask her if his crippled state was permanent. If it wasn't, he'd spend every minute of every day in the air for the rest of his life. Forget the need to stop and rest every now and then.
And if it was permanent…
A sharp lump in his throat throttled his breath, and Iggy swallowed thickly to rid himself of it. If it was permanent…he'd always been strong. Not as strong as he knew his flock thought he was, and with this recent turn of events he knew they wouldn't look at him in the same light for a while…but he was still strong. He would pull through, he told himself, even if it took forever.
Besides, he had his family standing beside him the whole way. And nothing, he realized as he rested in the Martinez's living room, letting the happy sounds of his flock lull him into contentment, would ever change that.
By the time his flock came bustling back into the room with his drink, Iggy was fast asleep.
A/N: As always, I would love it you left a comment. There's only one more chapter to go, as closure. It will be, I think, rather light-hearted in general. With the exception of a mildly grave undertone, of course. And, my, did we actually have fluff in this chapter? Or what I call fluff...what can pass off as fluff...yes, the worst is definitely over.
randomperson: I think everyone hates cliffhangers. Except those who write them, of course. Patience isn't just a virtue. It's a rare and not-easily-obtained virtue that most aren't born with. Hope the delay didn't make you go too crazy. As for length…I'm pretty sure there should only be one more chapter left in this fic. I know just how I want to end it.
Until next time!
-Kimsa
