A/N: Here's some action to make up for the boringness of Chapter Three. Anyway, this might be my last post until a few days. T'marrow's Monday and I gotta go back to school for a bit. I know...sigh. Enjoy!
Nari Streeter
Chapter Four: The Lake
Nari stared at Wolf dumbly, her eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. Wolf snapped the black thread with his teeth and rolled down her pant leg, grinning like a fool, "All done. The stitches should hold until the wounds all healed up. Give it three days and you'll be good as new!"
"What's Maximum Ride?" Nari blurted, curling her legs up to her chest.
Wolf rocked back on his heels, sliding the needle into his shirt pocket, "Maximum Ride is…she's…well, she's a hero."
Pandora crept over to where the two of them were sitting, her hair still matted for the storm, "What kind of hero?"
Wolf leaped to his feet, the wind from the mouth of the cave rustling his feathers, "The best kind," he said, pacing across the sandstone walls, "she's the bravest, strongest, most amazing kind of hero there is. She's beyond hero…Maximum Ride is a God."
Nari let Pandora wiggle into her arms, a sliver of impatience burying itself under her tongue, "What makes her so great?"
"Where do I start?" Wolf exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air, his face glowing with excitement, "you see, the School where I came from, the one in Death Valley, the one where Max is from, she escaped years ago. Single-handedly. Beat billions of Erasers into the ground on her way out…and she was just a kid then!"
Nari rubbed her fingers across her leg, which was slowly loosing its numbness. Maximum Ride. Sounded like a freak-bird-kid name. Erasers…must have been the wolf-men. Nari shifted Pandora onto her lap. There was no way a little kid could break out of the labs and take on Erasers without suffering fatal injuries.
Wolf was exaggerating.
"Just a few weeks ago," Wolf continued, "she came back. Busted up some more Eraser heads, snapped a few white-coat necks, and offered enough of a distraction for a bunch of us to just waltz out of there. I owe her everything. My freedom, my strength…my life. Without Max, I would be just another dead experiment."
The storm outside quieted down, the rain falling in more of a lazy drizzle now. The sky was still pitch black, all the stared blotted out by thin wispy clouds. A strange fog had settled over the treetops, bringing a slight chill with it.
"Where is she?" Nari asked, shivering as her still-wet clothes clung to her.
Wolf shrugged, "I hauled ass out of Death Valley. Didn't even get a chance to thank her. It's strange, really, I owe my life to a girl that doesn't even know I exist." He spun around on his heels, steely determination glinting in his eyes, "But I'm gonna find her. Find her and help her. When Maximum Ride saves the world, I want to be right there beside her, punching in Eraser bones."
"Sounds unreal," Nari mused, running her fingers through Pandora's hair.
"I know," Wolf exclaimed, "she's amazing…"
"No," Nari interrupted, letting Pandora slide off her lap as she hauled herself to her feet, "it sounds fake. A legend. Made up to give hope to freak kids trapped dog crates."
Wolf folded his arms across his chest, his gray eyes turning slightly cold, "She's real," he said confidentially, "and if you had the guts to take on a challenge. You'd come with me, and help me find her. Help her save the world."
Nari shook her head, stretching her sore muscles, "I don't want to save the world. What has the world ever done for me? Locked me in a crate? Stuck needles in my skin? Infused freak bird-wings on my back?" she sighed, rubbing a hand across her face, "forget it. I just want to squat down in some abandoned building, and live out the rest of my days."
"Which won't be very long," Wolf said darkly.
Pandora's hand tightened around Nari's fingers, her eyes widening in fear, "What?" she asked her small voice, a frown tugging at her lips.
Wolf leaned back against the sandstone, "the School is going to end the world. Max is going to need all the help she can get to save it. If you just sit around twiddling your thumbs waiting for someone else to take action…you're more of a coward than I thought."
Nari felt a needle of anger stick in her throat, she bit back several remarks, gnawing carefully on her lip, "I'm no coward," she growled, "and neither are you…but you are a fool. To place your hopes in some…Maximum Ride. You're the one throwing your life away, not me."
Wolf opened his mouth to respond, his lips peeled back over his fangs, but his voice was cut short, interrupted by a gravely snarl from the mouth of the cave.
Nari spun to face the thick bodies of four Erasers blocking the cave entrance, a hot sweat prickling on her forehead. Her and Wolf had been so busy arguing, they hadn't even heard the monsters sneak up.
"Well, well," one of the Eraser's crooned, his face twisted in half-morph, "I didn't think it would be a difficult job…rounding all you freaks up…but I had no idea it was going to be this easy."
"Bite me," Wolf snarled, falling into a defensive crouch.
"With pleasure," the Eraser barked, leaping forward with his jaw gaping open.
Wolf leaned back on the palms of his hands and rocked back, slamming his foot against the Eraser's thick jaw. Nari flinched as the bone cracked, the Eraser's jaw twisting to one side in a permanent scream.
"Get back!" Nari shouted, shoving Pandora farther back into the cave, her blood still boiling at being called a coward. She didn't live through fourteen years of torture just to be hauled back into the School on the shoulder of a malformed beast. The three other Erasers surged forward as their broken-jawed comrade crashed to the cave floor.
"Aim for the ears," Wolf said curtly curling his hands into tight fists and throwing himself forward with one beat of his wings.
Nari darted for the smallest Eraser, the blood roaring in her ears with the sheer insanity of throwing herself at the claws of a monster.
The Eraser ducked her first punch, swiping his claws toward her neck, the razor points just missing her skin. Nari jumped back, realizing that she was smaller and more agile than the thick-bodied Eraser. She had to rely on speed rather than force.
She darted up against the cave wall, spreading her wings and bouncing over the Eraser's head with one beat. She landed directly behind him, spinning swiftly and driving a kick to his back. It was like kicking a rock wall.
The Eraser stumbled, but regained balance easily, turning to face her once again. "Birds belong in cages!" he roared, swiping forward again.
"But human's don't!" Nari retorted, dodging and cupping her hands the way she'd seen Wolf do in the forest. She slapped her hands over the Eraser's fuzzy ears and flinched as he howled and spun away.
Nari twisted around to look at Wolf.
He smirked and landed another punch to an Eraser's muzzle, watching with pleasure as the Eraser spun to the floor.
"Go!" Wolf shouted, sprinting to the mouth of the cave.
Pandora's small body darted past Nari, immediately throwing open her mousy wings and darting into the sky. Wolf gestured with his hand, "Ladies first," he grinned, all traces of the hostility gone from his pale face.
Nari gritted her teeth as she rushed past, her stomach lurching as she dropped several feet before her wings gained purchase. The cold wind bit at her face as she spiraled into the sky, pulling up next to Pandora against the clouds.
Wolf shot up next to them, his knuckles bleeding from small scrapes in his skin. "We've got to scat," he shouted, tucking into a tight spiral so they could talk, "backup will be swarming all over this place in seconds…" he trailed off, a disgusted smirk spreading across his face, "well look at that. They picked up quicker than I thought."
Nari flipped around to look at the black dots spread across the horizon.
"Follow me," Wolf grinned, angling his wings against the wind.
Nari felt a bubble of adrenaline spike under her ribcage as she caught the airwaves under her feathers. The wind pushed her forward, propelling her across the sky faster than she's ever gone before. The wind tore at her hair, whipping it across her face so hard she was certain it would leave welts. From the corner of her eye, she could just barely make out Pandora's wave of red hair lashing in the wind.
Wolf pulled up higher, the wispy clouds swallowing him up.
Nari pumped her wings harder, the clouds soaked her hair and face, tiny droplets of water spiraled from her feathers as she flew faster. Wolf was nowhere to be seen. The hairs of the back of her neck stood on end as Nari flicked around. Her eyes scanned the fog pressing in from all around her.
Pandora was missing.
"Pan!" Nari shouted, her voice muted by the fog. There was no response. Panic fluttered in Nari's chest as she circled around inside the clouds, goosebumps pricking her skin. "Pan!"
There was nothing.
"Pandora!"
Wolf surged up from below her, a large scrape cutting across his cheek. "Erasers," he growled, spitting blood, "they snagged us from below. Where's Pandora?"
"She's not with you?" Nari whispered, hysteria tinting her voice.
Wolf's gray eyes flashed, "I thought she was with you!"
Nari gritted her teeth and snapped her wings tightly against her back, letting her body freefall. Wolf's surprised face flashed by her, his hand snatching at the air where she had been moments before. The clouds vanished in seconds, opening up to reveal a massive body of water. Nari banked, circling as close to the water as she dared.
The boiling black waves snapped at her ankles, demonic eyes staring up from below the water like pits of blackness. Nari hesitated, her eyes scanning the black crests of the waves. Wolf swooped down from above her, his hands clenched into fists.
"Are you crazy," he snapped, balking next to her, "do you have any idea how easy it will be for them to spot us from here?"
From the corner of her eye, Nari caught a strand of red flashing against the waves. Her stomach rolled as her sight narrowed to that single bit of red amongst the endless black.
Pandora's pale face rolled momentarily to the surface of the water, her forehead smeared with pinkish blood, her bright green eyes closed. Her lips parted for a split seconds before the waves sucked her back under, the water around her tinted with red.