Chapter 12 - Truth

I felt as if I had made a breakthrough. I wasn't sure, but somehow I had managed to convince Max that the Fang she had just been with wasn't really me. And I'd also accomplished letting her know that I was still with her. She may not have understood everything, but she accepted it.

How awesome is my girlfriend?

I didn't tell her all the details, because it would be pretty confusing. Hell, I'm still confused with everything. But somehow in our strange, messed up lives, there was a part of us as mutant bird kids that made believing in anything possible. I can't tell you what Max is thinking at this precise moment, because I'm not that talented (or that dead), but there was going to be hell to pay when she meets Derrick. Maybe she thought I had permanently become invisible and couldn't find a way out of it. Maybe she knows that some strange separation between my body and my spirit occurred. There was no way to convey that with words.

So we were heading back to the flock.

At least, that's what I was pretty sure Max was doing. While she may be convinced I could read her mind, I really only knew her well enough to know the way she thinks. I unfortunately do not have Angel's skills.

As we flew back, I did some quick mental calculations. We were never ones for math, although our natural bird instinct made us experts with trajectory and wind resistance, angles and air flows. It had been over twenty-four hours since I had first found out that I was dead. The sky had just darkened, and by the angle of the moon in the sky, we had about four hours before midnight. Did the two-day deadline mean that I had forty-eight hours or until midnight? Ugh. If I weren't on the verge of getting my body back, I would pop back to visit Zeke to get some more questions answered, but I guess I had some things to decide on my own. I was never one to ask people to solve my problems for me, and I shouldn't pester him any longer. It was time that I took the initiative to get my body back.

Whether it killed me for good or not.

When we got back to the Flock, it wasn't exactly the scene I had expected. If things had gone the easy way, the others would have wrangled in Derrick like a cow, which would only have left us the problem of getting me back into my body. However, because life never worked that way for a dead mutant bird kid, the scene we arrived on was much more different than I would have liked.

Iggy was lying down with his torso propped against a tree trunk, major cuts on the side of his head bleeding. Nudge, looking flustered, was dabbing at his wounds. Gazzy was occupied with Angel, who appeared to have been knocked out cold. Derrick was no where to be seen.

Max landed and ran over to the others, her expression a strange combination of concern, rage, and crazed.

"What happened?" she demanded, coming up to Angel and Gazzy, who had tears in his eyes.

"Fang attacked us," he said, clearly shaken. "After Angel threw that rock at him and you took off, he turned and attacked Angel."

"We had no idea what was going on," Nudge added, her voice wavering. "I was so shocked. I⎯I couldn't move. Then he turned on Iggy, and by then we finally tried to fight back, he ran off." She choked back a sob. "Why would Fang do that?"

"That coward," Iggy mumbled around a swollen lip.

I took great offense to that, even if it wasn't me who attacked the Flock.

"Guys, as strange as it sounds, that person who attacked us wasn't Fang," Max said slowly.

Three pairs of eyes bugged.

"That must have been why Angel freaked," Gazzy concluded. "She knew. She saw it in his mind..."

The realization caught up with Nudge and Iggy.

"But if that wasn't Fang, than where is the real Fang?" Nudge asked.

Max took a deep, steadying breath. "The real Fang is here, with me right now," she said, as if trying to convince herself that the statement was true.

I knew I had to support her even if she couldn't see me. In the ground, I wrote out the word: 'Right'.

Nudge gasped. "Oh my, God! That wasn't Fang. Than who was that?"

"It wasn't Fang II, was it?" Iggy wondered, sounding rather annoyed.

Max sighed. "I don't think so."

"Fang?" Gazzy asked.

I was surprised that he addressed me personally.

'What?' I wrote.

"Who⎯who was...is that other Fang? What happened to you that we can't see you but we can see him as you?"

I sighed, which caused a chill to blow over the Flock. Each of them shivered for a second.

We heard a small groan, and Angel's face contorted in pain.

"Angel!" Gazzy shouted.

Max ran over to her and propped the small girl up slowly.

"Ugh," she breathed, looking extremely tired.

"So what's this brilliant explanation, Fang?" Iggy asked.

I wrote, 'I'm not in my body. Derrick is.'

This statement really confused everyone. Nudge whispered what I wrote into Iggy's ear.

"How is that even possible?" Max asked, sounding really peeved and really tired at the same time. "Is this some new skill you developed? Body switching? Why can't you switch back?"

'It's not that easy.'

"Explain quickly, because as soon as we find out what we're up against, we're searching for whoever this 'Derrick' guy is."

'I can't switch back because I'm⎯' I didn't get to finish what I was writing.

"Dead," Angel whispered, as silent as the grave.

Max's breath caught in her throat. The night seemed to have stopped dead by the statement. It was too impossible to believe. (But so was the existence of mutant bird kids, so, hey, anything is possible.)

"What?" Max said, not believing what she heard.

Angel nodded slowly. "I heard it in his⎯Derrick's⎯mind. He thought that if he waited long enough in Fang's body, than he can be alive again. Then he thought something that I didn't quite understand. Something about Fang being permanently dead if he could Possess Fang's body long enough..."

What was the point in me trying to explain anything when Angel appeared to have had the whole story covered? Maybe having a mind-reading bird kid in the Flock wasn't so bad, after all.

I could see Max trying to appear composed after discovering the truth. "So if you could read Derrick's mind, why can't you read Fang's?"

"I don't know," she admitted, looking frustrated. "I guess it's because Derrick is technically living, now that he is in Fang's body, and that Fang is⎯"

"Dead?" Gazzy guessed.

She nodded again. "I still don't get how it happened, though."

"None of us do," Iggy observed.

"The only time we have ever dealt with dead people coming back to life was with Ari," Nudge whispered.

Max stiffened.

"And we had no idea how that happened," Gazzy said. "How can scientists bring someone back to life? Did the whitecoats have anything to do with Fang's death."

"I don't think so," Angel said.

'No.' I wrote.

"So no whitecoats?"

'Nope.'

"Then why are you dead?" Gazzy asked.

How to explain this simply? Any way I put it, it would really only bring up more questions, and we really couldn't afford to lose any more time at this point. Despite Derrick's horrible flying skills, he was still putting major distance between us when we weren't moving anywhere. And we had no idea what direction he took off in. He could be anywhere...

I had a brilliant idea, and it was just crazy enough to work.

'Expiration date went off early.'

"So that's it?" Max nearly shouted. "So you're dead...for good?"

I knew she'd take it hard. If only I could verbally explain everything, then we'd be out of here a lot faster and they might actually begin to understand.

'Not unless I don't get my body back, and soon.'

I was tempted to add a 'brb' at the end of that statement, because I was going to pop out for a second. If we needed to find where Derrick had flew off, I was going to Teleport to him and then go back to direct the Flock. Go to Derrick, I thought, and then I suddenly appeared in the sky, floating below a frantic bird kid.

I looked so much different than I imagined when I flew, but then I just assumed that it was because Derrick was such a bad flier. He was honestly trying his hardest, but it was pretty pathetic. I laughed at him.

Based off of the position of the river and the way the stream was traveling, he was heading south. It wouldn't take long to catch up with him from where the Flock was, but that didn't mean that our job would be any easier. We still had to catch him, and then find a way for me to repossess my body. I Teleported back to the Flock.

'Derrick's going south' I wrote quickly. 'Leave now.'

I wasn't sure if the Flock had noticed my absence, but they seemed to take my directions seriously.

"Just remember guys," Max told everyone as they prepared for take off. "That isn't the real Fang. Just try to capture him, because we don't want anything bad to happen to his body." I smiled. Somehow, she knew exactly what I was thinking, even though I couldn't relay this information to her personally.

"Okay, up and away."

Sooo, where to begin? It's 1:15 in the morning, I'm on Skype with my bf, and I'm sitting in my room in the PA instead of NY. I'm going back to school on Sunday, and sadly I have some papers to write, which will occupy me for the next few days. I'm sorry this update took long, but I'm determined to finish this story before I do any more work on "Anything But Easy". I can't split my focus between multiple Fanfictions at the moment. NaNo has only a few more days, and I'm currently on pace to finish on time, so that's be one less thing to deal with, although finals are coming up soon. Wish me luck!

I didn't take time to review the chapter, so if there are typos, I apologize.

-biteoutoflife-