So I've decided to make this a thing. Each chapter is going to be divided with the first half a cute semi-plot related flashback and the second-half is going to be full-on plot advancement lol. In this segment the ages are: Nudge (10), Fang, Max (13), Iggy (12), Gazzy (7), Angel (5). Enjoy, my darlings.
Nudge sat in her bed, tears of anger and frustration spilling down her round, coffee-colored face. She heard another chorus of laughter erupt from the kitchen and she let out a long, silent scream of frustration into her pillow. She hated when this happened. When she got so angry that she began to cry and then Gazzy and Iggy would tease her and call her the baby channel. Idiots. She leapt from her bed and locked the door, sealing herself away from any further teasing or punishment.
She stuffed her thick, chocolate curls into a messy bun and hung upside down from the bed to feel the blood rush into her head. Also, it was interesting how her tears started running backwards. Who was she kidding? No, it wasn't. She was just so borrreeed. Thinking of her boredom led to her thinking of the reason she was sitting alone in this stupid room in the first place, causing a new stream of tears to flow down (Up?) her face with her flaring anger.
Nudge skipped into the kitchen, excited for the upcoming day. Today was strawberry picking day! The strawberries in the field close to their house had finally ripened and the flock had been salivating for fresh strawberries all winter. Now, the peak of spring had come and with it their delectable berries. Nudge could almost feel the sweet juices gushing down her chin now.
She'd taken unusual care in her appearance today, deciding to dress up for their little "Holiday". She had washed, conditioned and even (gasp) combed her hair, leaving it in a halo of thick, curly ringlets encircling her head. With it she donned a pair of white overalls with a pink strawberry shortcake camisole. The sweet smell of syrup covered pancakes filled the air and she took in the sweet, oddly domestic scene of Iggy alternating between flipping pancakes and spoon-feeding Gazzy bits of batter when Max turned her head. She and Fang were already at the small table, monster-sized stacks of pancakes on the plates in front of them.
Upon her entrance, Iggy nodded in her general direction and said, "Nudge, Pancakes?"
All of a sudden her excitement over her adorable outfit, the thought of an actual breakfast instead of cereal with half-spoiled milk, and the upcoming holiday caused what the rest of the flock liked to call a "Nudge Super Blast," to erupt from her vocal chords. Words seemed to spew like a fountain as she rambled absentmindedly for a solid ten minutes, too caught up in her Joy to register the protests of the flock. Finally, Max smacked a piece of duct tape over her lips and banished her to the lonely abyss of her bedroom where she presently sat, furious that it had happened once again.
To be fair, this was her fourth Nudge Super Blast in 24 hours but grounding her for a week seemed to be excessive, even for Max the Know-it-all. Worst of all, she'd miss Pancakes and Strawberry picking. Two of her favorite things in the whole wide world.
Suddenly, a loud knock cut off her thoughts.
"Who is it?" She called, the duct tape muffling her words. Oh, yea she couldn't talk. She thought about ripping off the duct tape but feared the wrath she would incur if Max ever found out. She hastily wiped her tears and opened the door, a look of irritation on her face. Except it wasn't Gazzy and Iggy, but Fang.
"Fang!" She cried. Or tried too, at least. Oh yea, no talking. He laughed at her dismal expression and strut into the room as if he owned the place.
Sitting on the bed, he watched her expectantly as if waiting for her to speak first. She quirked a single eyebrow, essentially asking him, "What the hay he was doing here?"
He shrugged and lounged back on her bed, his ever-growing frame taking up most of the tiny twin bed. She was forced to either squeeze in against him or move off the bed. Well, she was here first so if anyone was leaving, it would definitely be him. She squeezed next to him on the bed, her head uncomfortably wedging into his shoulder and her body balanced on the very edge. His shoulders shook with silent laughter at her annoyed expression and she rolled her eyes before quirking an eyebrow once again. Why wasn't he talking? Was this some sort of game?
He held up a single finger and crept from the room, seemingly making even less sound than usual if that were possible. After fifteen long, anxious minutes, he crept back in. Five wooden baskets were bundled in his arms. Five wooden strawberry baskets. Her heart began to swell as she realized what he was doing. The flock didn't plan on picking strawberries for at least another hour or two. Imagine their surprise when they arrived at the patch and discovered them all already picked. A mischievous gleam shined in Fang's dark eyes. One that was mirrored in her own. She grabbed her own basket from under the bed and crawled out of the hallway window after Fang.
As soon as she touched the soft green grass surrounding their "E" house Fang pulled her close, signaling with a finger to his lips to remain quiet. As if she had a choice. Quickly, Fang pulled the silver duct tape from her lips. She winced but respected his wishes and remained silent. After five minutes of walking in silence she opened her mouth to thank him only to receive the same, "Be Quiet" gesture as before. She was almost offended until she saw the laughter in his eyes. So it was a game.
She suddenly shot out like a rocket, sprinting full speed in the direction of the flower patch. If he could make a game then so could she. She was winning! For once in her life Fang hadn't completely overtaken her within seconds. Wait a strawberry-pickin' second. She swivelled only to see a great, dark mass zoom by overhead. He was cheating! She launched herself into the air, working her tawny wings to catch up to the fast-flying boy ahead. But it was already too late. He'd arrived at the strawberry patch, beating her at her own game. She flew full speed right into fang, knocking him out of the sky and tangling their limbs in the strawberry patch below.
Groaning, he stared at her as if her wings had turned into actual chocolate and sprouted eyeballs.
"What in the-" He began.
Nudge cut him off with a victory cry and ignored her sore and bruised muscles to obnoxiously dance and shout, "I win, I win!"
"You cheated!"
"So did you, doofus!"
They glared at each other before bursting into laughter. Unfortunately, in the fall they had smashed all but one wooden bucket. Whoops. They met eyes and knew what they had to do. They couldn't very well fit it all in one basket, could they?
Two hours later, the rest of the flock arrived at the patch to see Fang and Nudge laying spread eagle in the center of the flower patch, fast asleep. They seemed to be covered from head to toe in Juice and seeds from the strawberries. And for some reason Fang's hair was in a Bun while Nudge's was spread around her in rather majestic halo of curls. It looked as if they had eaten nearly half the field.
Nudge cracked one drowsy eyelid, surveying the scene of livid bird kids before her. Fang had turned her punishment of silence into a fun-filled strawberry covered game, and she had only one thought as Max opened her mouth, ready to unleash her fists of fury on the two indolent kids. Nudge thought back to the brilliant silence that lay between she and Fang prior to falling asleep. It said more of their bond than words could ever hope to.
Nudge cut Max of with a decisive, "Shh!" holding her fingers to her lips. She turned on her side, staring at her protector. Her soul.
"Silence is loud enough," she said, before closing her eyes.
(Present time)
Nudge had spent a week traveling from city to city and state to state, before realizing the futility of her search. Fang could have been taken anytime and anywhere. She couldn't search every corner of the world, it would take too long. So she'd tracked down the flock, who had travelled to Dr. Martinez's house in Arizona while Max licked her wounds. She was determined to convince the others that something was actually wrong and Fang was actually missing. She arrived and, as expected, she was fawned over and thoroughly checked for bruises and violation. She waited no time to attempt to mobilize the flock. If all six of them looked, they were sure to track him down. But they'd only looked at her in exasperation before moving back to their daily lives.
That had been a month ago and the last time she'd said a word to any of her flock members. If they weren't going to help her, further attempt to convince them would only waste her time. She'd written a list of suspects and thoroughly searched each one using her stolen laptop. It appeared that Fang had taken the last one they had and she didn't trust Ella or Dr. Martinez enough to use the ones they kindly offered.
Instead of annoyance, the flock now looked at her with pity. They believed her to be delusional. Given, she currently had no proof but she was on her way she could feel it. Nudge was standing in her closet, going over her notes once again. She'd pinned up a world map covered in newspaper cut outs, comments from Fang's blog, hand-written notes, pictures of Fang, blog posts, and anything she felt could give her a lead on his whereabouts. She had extensively interviewed the flock on his actions but after only a week of questions, they had sworn not to feed her "delusions" any more than already had. That was when she had decided to go mute. She wouldn't talk until they did.
Using her handy-dandy red marker, she drew a large circle around New York City. So far, all roads seemed to be leading to the institute. If she could just sneak back in and extract a bit of information from the database she felt confident she would get closer to the ones who took him.
A soft sigh sounded behind her. She swivelled defensively to see Iggy, leaning against the door of her closet. Defensively, She crossed her arms in front of her chest.
"Nudge, I…" Iggy began. "I can't take this anymore. It's enough that we've lost Fang, why do we have to lose you too?"
Sorrow filled her chest as she thought of the impact her search has had on her other inter-flock relationships.
"I considered Fang my bestfriend, of course I noticed his change." Iggy rasped, pain evident in his voice. "I can't remember a time when he wasn't there. I mean, our cages were right next to each other for years. I felt pushed aside too when they completely isolated us. They treat me like a kid just because I'm blind but I'm 15 years old too."
Nudge looked away, unable to handle seeing the amount of pain in his expression. The entire flock has been impacted by Fang's absence, she reminded herself. And it pained her to know that she couldn't- wouldn't- comfort them without their help in her cause. Where ever he was, Fang was probably worst off then the six of them combined.
"Please, stop this obsession. This board means nothing, okay? Get it through your head that Fang isn't missing. He chose to leave."
Nudge rolled her eyes, turning away as he attempted the same argument. Again. Each flock member had come knocking on her door to pull at her heartstrings. Even Dylan! Although she had to admit, Iggy's was by far the most sincere.
As if he could sense her exasperation, he gave one last desperate plea.
But she had already lost interest, pushing her way past him to sit at her computer. She logged onto her laptop, and checked the flock's bank accounts and the popular news outlets for any strange shot Iggy an irritated look and he angrily stalked out, muttering to himself. A few minutes later, she heard a distant door slam. Finally, she was alone.
Now to put her hacking skills to use. She logged onto her private, secure network and accessed her Skype account to call her only accomplice in the search.
A few rings later, the dark screen lit up with the grubby, acne-covered face of Mike the subway nerd. It had taken her two weeks to track him down, and he was reluctant to help but once she fluffed her hair and bat her eyes he was putty in her hands.
"You're late, sweet cheeks." Mike barked, winking and straightening his battered sonic-the-hedgehog shirt. Nudge held back a gag but forced a smile on her face all the same. She'd rarely flirted before her calls with Mike, but it appeared to come naturally if his "Ga-ga" eyes were anything to go by. She hated to waste it on someone as revolting as Mike but if it got her closer to Fang it was all worth it. "I found a lead on your brother. Remember how I've been tracking his blog's web history and locations of his viewers? Well, I've got one that you should see."
She opened her email and pulled up the file he sent her. He'd made a chart showing number of views based upon location. Most of it was the same data she'd already seen hundreds of times before. Until she noticed new views from a small island labeled unknown. Well, that was a lead if she'd ever seen one, There were multiple views a day and even a few comments posted from this person. Mostly the general fangirling and "Marry me!" that frequently occurred on his blog.
"But how had they been able to avoid our detection?" Nudge typed in the messenger. "We checked this data about a million times." Although this person had never appeared in the data before, their numbers showed that they had been viewing Fang's blog for forever. So why did it just show up? And from such a strange location. She switched tabs to Google Maps and searched the longitude and latitude of the island. Error filled the screen and her internet auto-shut down.
"They have to be really good to avoid me. One of the best." Mike answered aloud. "They've been monitoring the site since the first day it opened. This is definitely no regular girl, or boy I guess, they have some serious skills."
"Where are they located?" She typed, her mind racing with formulating plans and her heart pumping with the anticipation of getting a possible lead. Perhaps Mike had more success than she. He was, after all, a more experienced hacker than she.
"That's the crazy part. I can't tell! I haven't seen a network this secure since I tried to hack yours!" He said, concern knitting his eyebrows. He wiped sweat from brows on his sleeve as a distant siren sounded through the speakers.
"Crapula!" He screamed, before the screen went black. "Gotta scram!"
Nudge felt breathless, and borderline delirious with the hope of coming just a step closer. She completely forgot about her lead on the institute, instead focusing her energy on finding this unknown. Perhaps he or she could lead her to Fang. If anyone could figure out the location of the island, it was her. She began upgrading her firewalls, if this "unknown" were as good as Mike said she'd need all the protection she could get.
_-_-_-_Fang_-_-_-_
(About A Month Ago)
"You call that torture," Fang smirked, rising slowly from his crumpled position on the cold cell floor. He tried to disguise the pain it took the breath by taking slow, careful breaths. He spat a thick glob of blood onto her "Fancy-Schmancy" gold plated heels. She didn't flinch. "Try sitting in a room with the Gasman after a dumpster-diving trip to taco hell."
He shuddered mockingly and a sad look filled her beautiful features.
"Wrong answer," She sang with a click of her teeth. The monsters stormed back into the room, this time carrying metal rods in their large grotesque hands. Great, he thought sarcastically. He could only imagine what they'd use those for.
"Make him sorry, boys" She called over her shoulder. He felt a chill overtake him and the clicks of her heel perforated the sickly silence of the monsters. Somehow, the roars of the erasers never inspired the same degree of fear he felt in the shadows of the silence of the monsters.
He found himself thinking of Nudge's words in the strawberry field at their "E" house.
Silence was loud, she had said. She was only partially correct. Silence wasn't just loud. It was deafening.
So, I decided to write this instead of doing homework so please read it lol. I need to know I didn't fail math for nothing. I hoopppeeee you liked it! What do you think of Mike's role in the story? And how about that segment from Fang? Turns out Nudge isnt delusional! I was kinda doubting her, poor thing. REVIEW WITH QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, or CONCERNS.