Chapter 6 of I Hate Wonder Woman
(A/N: Sorry it's been so long. School is hard. And I know this chapter is just a banal filler, but bear with me.)
Suddenly, the feet were gone, and I managed to catch a glimpse of two feet, one foot each, hitting my attackers as I jumped up. Max. A pain shot through my chest but I ignored it. Punches and kicks flew for a moment as I caught my breath, panting hard. A few yelps, and things paused for a moment.
I saw one, Will Harnadeck, of them sneak up behind Max, raising a scary looking block of wood above her head. It would be too late; there was no way I could knock it out of his hands in time. Harnadeck began to bring down the piece of wood, a few pieces of the splintered edge falling to the pavement. I ran forward, doing my best to shove Max out of the way. It came down hard, still getting the edge of her head and shoulder. Max reeled back, falling to the ground, eyes closed.
"Jackasses!" I cried, angry. "You could have killed her!"
They started to close in on me arms raising, Dylan directly in front of me. I threw in a few punches and kick, each landing with a satisfying 'oof'. Sadly, I also managed to get a clip in the arm. It was pretty weak from the angle it was thrown at, but it still bit.
Suddenly, there was an opening in the circle, and a hand grabbed my arm, pulling me through the alley. I stumbled along for a moment before getting my feet.
"Run!" Max commanded letting go my arm and sprinting ahead, which must have been awkward in her boots. A few drops of blood were splattering on the cement.
We sprinted for a few minutes before stopping at our parked car. We panted, for a moment before looking up. I was pretty fit, but sprinting for 5 min with, as I just realized, a punch in the gut, was hard.
Max looked up. "You're bleeding, a bit." She lightly brushed her fingers on her cheek to demonstrate where, and she looked very... Pretty, even with blood streaming across the right side of her face.
"You too. I think I have a first aid kit in the trunk until I get you to the hospital." I told her.
Her face paled a bit. "No... I don't need to go."
"You do." I argued. "You were KO'ed."
"Don't say that. And I wasn't."
"You were. I saw you."
"No you didn't. I faked it. It would be hard fighting all of them, and it's not good to fight, it will go on your record. I did that so I could get them off of me and get an opening for for you to escape." Max ran to a garbage bin several feet away and spat some of the blood that was trickling into her mouth out. "Spitting's disgusting."
I opened up the trunk and pulled out the first aid kit. "You first." she sat down on the edge of the opened trunk. I looked at what had happened. Part of the skin behind her ear was scraped and there was a gash on her shoulder, with many slivers in it. It had barely missed her jugular vein, and I realized how close they had come to killing her.
"Max, we need to go to a hospital. I can't clean this out with only a bit of antiseptic and a few bandages. You could need stitches." I told her.
"No." She said.
"Yes. It almost hit the vein. It could have killed you."
"No." She said again, more fiercely.
"Great let's go."
...
...
I waited in my car, cleaning off the blood on the seats. There wasn't much to clean, since I had put a towel down where Max was sitting, but there were a few escaped drops.
My cellphone rang, and I picked it up, seeing that it was not my mom, but Max.
"Hey."
"Hi. I'm done. Where are you parked?" Max asked.
"I'll come get you." I told her.
"Thanks." She sighed tiredly. "I'm at door five."
I pulled out of my parking space and drove to door 5. The sun was completely set now, but it had been since six. It was seven now. My mom had called several times wondering where Max and I were, but I didn't want to deal with a scolding, so I just texted her letting her know we were fine an would be home later.
Iggy had called angry, saying that he and Nudge had to take public transit home. I responded with "First world problem" and a dial tone.
Max stood by the entrance, looking uneasy. She stepped towards the car, then got in.
"Buckle up." I told her driving away.
"Can't." She said tiredly.
"So what happened?" I asked. "Oh, and I have take-out."
"I waited two and a half hours, luckily the hospital wasn't crowded." She said sarcastically. "Then they examined it, asked what happened, cleaned out my cuts. The one behind my ear only needed a bandaid, but they had to pick out slivers of wood from my shoulders. I got four stitches. Three and a half hours later, I'm here."
I handed her a bag with a large order of fries in it. "Here."
"Thanks," She told me gratefully. Max dug in. "I'm so hungry."
The hospital was a slightly linger distance from our home, maybe 30 minutes.
"Am I forgiven?" I asked.
Max pretended to think about it. "...Well, you DID get me French fries..." She paused, mock thoughtfully. "Yes. So is you're face okay? No ER for you?"
"Nope." I did something strange, and popped the 'p'
When we finally reached home, my mom, by some supernatural power, pulled open the door the second we hit the front step.
"Where were you two! I was so worried!" She shouted angrily. Then her eyes fell to my cheek, and she softened. "Oh, Fang! Are you ok?"
"Yeah. I'm fine." I responded, hanging up my coat, as Max flopped down on the couch. Mom obviously hadn't seen the outline of a bulky bandage underneath Max's grey hoodie or the white bandage barely visible behind her hair.
Fierce mom was back again. "Did you get into a fight?"
"No. We -he was attacked." Max explained, not pulling her eyes from an old Simpsons rerun.
"What?" My mom demanded.
"I'm almost 18... Leave it. It's nothing important. I'll deal." My voice hit a dark tone on the last sentence. My mom seemed to pick it up, but amazingly, she let it go.
"Fine," she told me, waving her hand as she strutted out of the room. "I hope you made your own dinner though, we're all out."
"Yeah. We had something."
"One last thing," Mom stopped in the doorway of the kitchen. "Where were you all this time?"
"Uh..." I mumbled.
"The hospital!" Angel chirped in, and until now I hadn't even noticed her sitting at the dining room table coloring. "Lacey said that her big sister saw Max there when she went in for an appointment."
"You guys were in the hospital?" my mom asked incredulously, her face paling slightly.
"Just me. I took a nasty fall into a tree." Max lied.
"Oh! What happened?" Nudge asked.
"I got four stitches on my shoulder."
"Oh, dear!" My mom cried.
Everyone flocked around her, and Max began to look incredibly uncomfortable.
After a few moments, something happened and Gazzy started to argue with Nudge, and then they all started to argue, so Max slipped out and walked upstairs.
I went upstairs too, so I could finish my homework, which Max never seemed to have much of. Opening my math textbook, I was grateful that I didn't have much. I started working my way through, I realized that I needed a ruler, and that Max had borrowed it. I stood up and pushed my desk chair in, an waded through Iggy's dirty clothes to the door. Jeez, he was such a slob.
I knocked in her door. "Ruler?" I asked. I heard the sound bare feet walking across her rug, then the hardwood floor before she opened the door.
"Here." Max said, holding out a ruler. She had tied her hair up into a casual bun and gotten dressed in a pair of black pj shorts and a white singlet. The large bandage on her shoulder stood out.
"Thanks..." I muttered.
"Err...Can you help me out with something?" Max asked, looking embarrassed.
"Sure. What?" I asked.
"Well, I'm probably going to go to bed soon, and I need someone to help me wrap my shoulder. The doctor there said that I need to keep my shoulder stationary so I don't damage it or my stitches." Max held out a tan roll of cloth.
"Sure. Whatever." I deadpanned, hiding the fact that I was, yes, a little but happy that all the anger between us seemed to be gone.
"Thanks." Max smiled thankfully.
Ma explained how to do it, holding her right arm to her side, left arm up, and wrapping it around the right arm and waist several times. When I finished, Max had one arm awkwardly stuck to her side. She thanked me again and told me that there was another week and a half before the stitches came out. Then she told me that wrapping her arm was my job.
"No way. Not for a week and a half." I protested. I didn't really care, but I enjoyed teasing her.
"Too bad." She said, grinning. "I know you don't care."
"Fine," I told her, mocking a sigh. "Goodnight."
Before I left, I flicked her behind the ear, watching her wince were the cut was. She lightly slapped my cheek, over the bandage and shut the door.
...
...
MAX P. O. V
I woke up mid Saturday morning to the sound of television. Somewhere nearby, possibly a neighbors house, someone was vacuuming. I also smelled a delectable scent, and my empty stomach decided to investigate.
Before going downstairs, I caught a look at myself in the mirror. Usually I didn't care what I looked like around the house, but this technically wasn't MY house, and this morning I had a particularly bad case of bedhead from a rough nights sleep. Awkwardly combing it out with my one arm, I noticed my streaks fading. Huh.
After I had it out and detangled I made my way down the stairs to gleefully discover pancakes being fired by Iggy.
"Hey, Iggy." I said.
"Hey," He said not looking up. "You like chocolate chip pancakes?"
"It's the only way to eat them!" I said, in a decent mood.
"No! Maple syrup AND chocolate chips is the only way to eat them." Gazzy corrected, running in, he tried to sneak a finished pancake off a plae, but Iggy swatted his hand away. "Hey! What happened to you're arm?"
I bit my lip as everyone in the room, Gazzy, Iggy, Angel and Nudge turned to look at me. I didn't enjoy being the center of attention. It always made me flustered. "I, er. I hurt my shoulder." I explained quickly.
"How?" Iggy asked, putting the last pancake on the plate.
Sunlight streamed into the kitchen from the windows and seemed to illuminate the pancakes like a message from God.
"Those look so good." I commented sitting down at the kitchen table.
"Max." Angel asked, plopping down beside me. "Did you fall?"
"No. I got a big cut and stitches." I explained. Iggy placed a plate of pancakes in front of us. "Hey, where's everyone else?" I asked.
"Mom had to work, Fang's sleeping." Nudge explained. She took a big bite of the pancakes, which he had slathered in maple syrup and butter. "Ohmigawsh, Iggy. These are so good. They taste like heaven on earth. It's like eating a slightly dense cloud that didn't taste like water but amazing syrupy, buttery, pancakey goodness. Do you think clouds taste like water? Or do they not taste like anything? Can you even taste a cloud? Like, how would you get up there? I guess you could if you had wings, but that is the most ABSURD thing I've ever heard. Like, come on, wings, rea-"
Nudge was cut off when Iggy shoved a mouthful of pancakes in her mouth. "It would be a compliment to my cooking if you would turn off the Nudge Channel, please."
Nudge tried to cough out an indignant answer, but began to choke on her food. No one came to her aide, but a moment later, she stopped coughing and began to gulp down Tropicana. "You... You guy! I almost passed out!" She shouted angrily.
"Then you would have been quiet, and then we would have helped you." Angel replied.
I chuckled quietly. Even though I had been here a week and a half, I loved the mild family chaos and how much they really cared for each other. They seemed to be really close, like the Huxtables in the Cosby show, not at all how it seemed to be in books. I wondered if it was like this everywhere or if I was just lucky.
"Hey," I asked. "Can someone help me take these blasted bandages off?"
"Sure!" Angel said, jumping up. She had already finished her 3 pancakes. She had a big appetite for a nine year old. She gave me a sticky hug, sooo cute, and left sticky hand prints on my bare legs. She looked where the handprints were and blushed a bit. "Just let me wash my hands."
She ran off to the sink just as a bed headed, pj pant clad Fang walked downstairs.
"Morning!" I told him. "We left you a few pancakes, but they're cold."
"Thanks." He mumbled, tousling his hair. He looked really cute that way.
Wait, forget that, now. Now and I'm seriou- whatever.
His dark eyes were sleep-dull, and his hair was adorably mussed. I could see where the bedsheets had pressed into his tanned chest. Any girl would swoon at that. I'm not made of steel, you know.