Here's a longer-ish chapter to make up for my crappy updating...
If I could fall into the sky
Do you think time will pass me by?
'Cause you know I'd walk a thousand miles
Just to see you
Tonight.
- Thousand Miles, Vanessa Carlton
Fang POV
Tell me, how many of you readers have had windows explode in your faces? It's not a nice experience, not something you should try at home. Just FYI.
Now tell me, how many of you have had huge Flyboys burst through the aforementioned shattered window and leap onto you?
I jumped backwards, more out of habit than anything else. It had taken me a second to realize that the kitchen window I had been peering out of no longer existed, and another second to notice the big lump of snarling Eraser wannabee eyeing me.
Oh, and there were more Flyboys pouring in, but the rest of the Flock (how fast did they get here?) seemed to be taking care of them pretty well.
And there was Max, right in the thick of things, knocking out Flyboys like a whirlwind, blond-streaked hair flapping as she took on three Flyboys at once. I was glad to see that her earlier strange behaviour didn't do anything to her fighting prowess—if anything, she was even more ruthless than before.
The Eraser in front of me shifted, and I brought my attention back to it.
"So you want a piece of me?" I taunted, getting ready to fight.
Oops. Wrong words to say.
Suddenly, the Flyboy leapt, teeth aimed for my neck. I brought my arm up to protect myself, and bit back a cry of pain as its teeth ripped through skin and flesh, and broke bone.
Red haze edging in my eyesight, I swung my leg around and hit it in the ribcage as hard as I could. It fell back, blinking dumbly.
"Didn't the whitecoats feed you enough?" I muttered, hissing through clenched teeth, "Find your own bone somewhere else!"
The Flyboy tried to get up, but I just kicked it in the side, and then in the side of the head. It stayed down.
It was as if someone had flipped a switch.
All the Flyboys in the room froze, then dissapeared back out the window to…wherever they came from. Even the one I was sure I had knocked out climbed through the broked window painfully, as if we were dripping poison.
Stunned silence filled the room.
I looked up, clutching my broken and bloody arm, and surveyed the scene of what was only a few minutes ago a normal kitchen.
Now, it looked more like the site of one of Iggy and Gazzy's experimental bombs.
Tables, chairs, and just about everything not nailed down were overturned and scattered throughout the room. There was blood streaking the walls, and all over the countertops, and ripped out fur was everywhere. Scratches ran along the walls, as were bumps and dents.
The Flock, on the other hand, looked relatively unharmed, and were picking themselves up in various corners of the room.
"What just happened?" Nudge asked, rubbing her cheek where a huge bruise was forming.
Gazzy looked around wide-eyed. "Was it just me, or did the Flyboys actually run away? I mean, I know we're good, but they never do that."
Max nodded, still looking grim from the fight. "I know. And it's not just their retreat tactics that are different. It's like they changed their whole strategy. This time, they're using their teeth a whole lot more. Are they hungry or something? But it was Itex behind this, that's for sure." She looked troubled.
"Who's idea was it to go through a window? Couldn't they at least pay for damages before leaving? How rude," Iggy sniffed. Cue nervous laughter all around.
I cracked a smile, then flinched as glass cuts all over my face broke open. Max quickly looked over me.
"Fang! What happened to your arm?" she cried. Max grabbed a few towels from a drawer that was crookedly hanging open, then reached over to press in against me arm. Without meaning to, I hissed through my teeth.
"It's nothing," I said, trying to look reassuring—but probably failing. "It's just a Flyboy bite. Nothing new."
"Nothing new!" Max growled as she dabbed at my arm and pushed me to a sitting position on the now extremely scuffed floor. "You get your arm pouring out rivers of blood and it's 'nothing'? Nudge and Angel!" she said over her shoulder, "get the first-aid kit and a bowl of water. And Iggy, Gazzy, and Total, you guys can start cleaning the kitchen up before Mom wakes up and finds out."
I almost laughed at their faces. Cleaning up after our fights aren't something the Flock is used to.
Usually, it's just: see bad guys. See Flock kicking baddies' butts. See Flock fly away as fast as they can.
See? No cleaning involved. But since we're in Dr. M's house, I guess we should at least clean up after ourselves.
But I was almost glad to be 'poor, injured Flock member' at the moment. Not because I probably didn't need to help with the cleanup (really, I wouldn't mind), but Max was so close, I could probably just lean out and kiss her…
Okay. I've got to control the hormones. Concentrate on her hands instead, gently washing the blood away from my arm…Now look up, slowly…
And see huge spots darkening on her shirt.
"You okay, Fang?" Max asked, concerned. She squeezed red-tinged water from the already hopelessly-stained towel.
I just grabbed the fringe of her shirt with my good right hand, and tugged it upwards, revealing a neat row of long slices in her side, oozing blood. The shortest of them was about the length of my hand, and I could tell it that the cuts weren't shallow.
Quickly, Max pulled her T-shirt back down, wincing slightly as she was doing so. "What was that for?" she snapped.
"You're hurt," I said simply. I tried to sit up straighter and reached for the bandages, but Max pushed me back down.
"Careful. You'll mess up your arm even more. And they're better than they look. You're the one needing medical attention." She started dressing my arm, wrapping it up neatly in gauze. I could tell she was trying not to move her side too much.
"Why don't you let Dr. M look after me?" I suggested, "Then you can take care of your self."
"Are you saying that you don't trust my medical skills?"
"No, it's—"
"Nah, I was kidding. I'm just worried about what Mom'll say when she finds this in the morning. I mean, we basically totalled her kitchen…it's a wonder that she hasn't woken up to all this noise already."
Max finished tying the last knot of the bandage, and got up. "Do you think you can walk?" she asked, helping me up onto my feet.
I rolled my eyes. "Of course. My feet are fine, see?"
I took a step, wobbled, and then almost fell only to be lifted up and carried by Max.
"Hey! I don't need help!" I protested. "Where are you going?"
"To your bedroom, of course. You're on the verge of falling asleep."
"But…"
"But nothing. You're going whether you want to or not."
I chuckled. Now this was Max. Not the nervous, jumpy bird-kid that was sitting on the couch only an hour earlier.
And come to think of it, I did feel sleepy. I couldn't seem to keep my eyes open.
"Aww…they look so cute together…" A voice, probably Iggy's, snickered to my left. I made a mental note to kill him after.
But, for the moment, I resigned myself to the humiliation of getting carried to bed—by Max, of all people. After all, there wasn't much else I could do.
Swiftly, darkness carried me off on silent wings.
Max POV
I walked back downstairs, trying to maintain a 'cool, calm, and collected' appearance.
But really? I was seething in anger.
How dare Itex attack the Flock in our home?
I mean, I knew that to believe that Gazzy's bomb have ended our troubles with Itex once and for all would just be wishful thinking on our part, but really? So soon? At least give it a few months to make the usual evil-scientist-taking-over-the-world plots.
They just never stop, do they?
Then again, Mr. Martinez, from what I had heard of him from the rest of the Flock, didn't strike me as someone who'd just give up. to me, he seemed to be an all-or-nothing guy.
A very smart all-or-nothing guy.
There must have been an ulterior in this seemingly random attack, and I was almost positive that he had something to do with it. Knowing him, it was probably just the tip of an iceberg.
My shirt pulled at my still scabbing-over wounds painfully, and jerked me out of my haze. I grimaced. The good news was that it was scabbing over, which means less blood loss. The bad news was that the drying blood was soaked into my shirt and effectively gluing the cloth into place, which meant that every movement hurt. A lot.
But it can't be any worse than what Fang was experiencing, and thinking about that brought the anger back.
How dare they?
Finally, I turned into the door that lead to the kitchen, and surveyed what the Flock had managed to clean up so far. Which wasn't much.
They had been able to right most of the tables and chairs (except for one, who had its legs bent and broken and was currently lying down on its side). Cupboards and drawers were closed, kitchen knives cleaned and returned to their respective holders. The floor was tiled, which was good as it meant that wiping the blood off of it would be pretty easy, but the walls would be harder. And there were still plenty of scratches, scuffs, dents, holes, and broken kitchenware that can't be fixed.
Not by us, in any case.
I frowned. Even working as the Flock were working now, we couldn't possibly clean up everything to bring back the kitchen to what it was.
Darn Flyboys, making our lives so much harder...
There will be some awkward questions asked tomorrow at breakfast time.
Review?