Hey Guys... I'm so sorry for the long wait, I'll explain at the end but without further ado...
Here's chapter 10
Nudge POV:
I saw them racing towards me and the whitecoats in the glass indestructible booths with their clipboards and pens poised to take notes down. Sick freaks... I knew I had to do this and survive for the Flock, even though I knew deep down I could never ever win this fight on my own and in my weakened state.
But I had to try, didn't I? The answer was, of course "yes" for two reasons. One, I was Nudge and was not going down without a damn good fight. Two, I grew up with Max... like hello Max is the queen of kick ass.
For these reasons I crouched down and prepared to face the thunder. Time to open a fresh can of 'whoop-ass'. Oh yeah...
My spirit was boosted by the rush of adrenaline, my eyes narrowed and my hands clenched into lethal fists. I had just enough time to draw a deep breath before the first of the tight formation descended on me. I was suddenly surrounded by salivating beasts and my body seemed as though it was working by itself. My fists swung out and broke jaws, my legs snapped to perform some beautiful roundhouses, my nimble body dodging most of their heavy blows. Emphasis on most, the freaks had good aim.
But I could never keep going good for that long and both I and everyone else knew that.
Everywhere I looked I could see a bloodthirsty crazed Eraser that wanted to kill me. Great... The worst thing was that when I looked up for a split second, I couldn't see the sky. Some Eraser-freak was blocking me from the beautiful sky where I needed to be. At that exact moment, one of them slashed the side of my face and I felt a searing pain. All the sounds of the arena suddenly stopped as if they were on a tape and the plug had been torn out of the socket.
I panicked and screamed at the top of my lungs as I lifted my hand up and came away with a sticky red stuff. The only thing was: I couldn't hear my screams.
It was like these dreams I used to have when I was little. I would scream and scream but I would never be able to hear myself and no one else could hear me. I would scream and scream in the dream until it started to close in on me and soon I would be smothered by the weight of my own cries which would not be heard. I would wake up screaming and crying, normally with Max or someone beside me trying to wake me. It was one of the reasons I talked so much, just to make sure they could hear me and the darkness wouldn't smother me.
That's why I freaked out so much. For a few seconds I was back in my nightmares and I froze and started to hyperventilate. That was when the Erasers started to win. I was yanked out of my mini-nightmare and into the real world when my arm was snapped and some of my hair torn out of my head. Ouch! Focus you idiot... Deal with the whole 'not-being-able-to-hear-one-single-solitary-thing' thing after the fight, which is probably to your death. I remember thinking that there was no possible way I could ever be deaf. I was just injured and after a while my hearing would come back and then the Flock would come and save me.
My blows became less powerful, my legs couldn't take any more kicks and eventually, I started to sink to the ground. I could feel my bones being broken in terribly painful ways and their kicks to my ribs were bang on but I couldn't move. Get up Nudge, c'mon UP! My mind screamed at me and I tried, God I tried. But it was no use; I couldn't even hear the beasts' grunts or the whitecoats' angry roars at me. Hell, I couldn't even hear my gasping shrieks of pure agony or my piteous cries.
I could feel my wings being forced out of my shirt, and no matter how hard I tried to pull them in, the beasts got hold of them. They batted my beautiful wings around as if they were toys attached to my back. I screamed as they were practically ripped from my back and already I could feel the sticky wetness dripping down my back. I tried to fight back and burst up into the sky and fly away like a powerful bird but, because it's Nudge's life we're talking about, it didn't happen. Instead, I got to have my wings unmercifully torn and twisted until I stopped screaming.
I stopped everything and just lay there, giving up completely. My arms stopped weakly flailing and my legs did their last kicks. There was no point in trying; I would just be postponing a horrible death so I might as well just get it over with already. I was going to die in here with the Flock nowhere to be seen.
All at once the arena started flashing red and, even though I couldn't hear them, I knew there would be loud sirens going off. I groaned inwardly, they were going into code 5. Code 5 is when an experiment is too valuable to lose so they stop the 'fight' just before it dies and continue it another time when the experiment is healthy. Lucky me... they didn't want to kill me right away, I'm so honoured.
As I felt the Erasers being pulled off me and my broken body being tossed into my crate, I swung my weak fist out on a whim. As if in a silent movie, I still couldn't hear, I watched one of the scientists that was standing too damn close for freaking comfort fall to the ground. 'Take that suckers...' I wheezed like an eighty year old before the darkness engulfed my world and my head fell back to crack against the steel bars of the cage.
Damn that's gonna hurt later. And then I was gone.
Third Person POV:
Dr. Batchelor strode through the reinforced steel doors, straight into reception, his legs working as if by themselves. Jeb couldn't believe they'd done it. He'd specifically ordered them to wait until he could get away from the family to test her. Someone was going to pay for putting Experiment N45g3 through all that pain and stress and not letting Jeb be there to see it.
He knew they were holding it in observation room 9 so Jeb practically sprinted up the three flights of stairs and skidded around the too clean corridors until he finally reached the controls room. Inside, was a young scientist with his feet up on the desk and something that resembled a playboy magazine in his (probably sweaty) hands.
Jeb, fuming, gave a cold cough and a smirk grew on his face as the boy yelled in surprise and fell of the chair he had been lounging on. 'Aaah! D-d-dr. Batchelder, I-I-I didn't see you there. The, uh, experiment is currently unconscious and injured so we have placed her-I mean it- in the observation room as you can see..?' He stuttered and flicked a switch, as Jeb nodded coldly to him, so one of the many computer screens lit up and Jeb saw Nudge for the first time since that night.
Jeb's reaction was totally unexpected to the young man who couldn't have been older than 25. 'WHAT?! Why hasn't the freak been tended to? For all you know it's DEAD! Do you even know how much that is worth! China and Japan would pay billions to have it! That experiment is worth more than your life, boy... More than your whole family and a thousand of your closest friends, do you hear?!' He swung out at the boy and threw him onto the floor again and then stormed into the observation cell.
Nudge was lying crumpled on the floor where she had been thrown hours ago. Her body was twisted at every possible angle and her clothes were soaked in blood. Her wings were spread out under her and Jeb could see they were in a very bad way. He crouched down close to her and felt her broken wrist for a pulse. It was there but faint, very faint. He gently brushed some frizzy hair away from her face and froze when he saw the entire side of her face covered in blood, dried and wet.
Jeb whipped out his walkie-talkie type thing and radioed for assistance. 'Pat. You complete fool. Get down here right bloody now.' His voice was cold as ice and icicles seemed to grow on his heavy words.
In lab 4, on the other side of the humongous building, a man named Pat O' Connell dropped his walkie-talkie and everything else he was holding and started running towards observation room 9 fast; because if the boss called you like that you ran for your life. Literally.
Iggy POV:
Prepare to die Nudge... I woke up gasping and covered in sweat for the second time this week. And it was only Wednesday. Damn my over-active imagination.
It was always the same dream though. I could see Nudge swaying weakly in an arena with a makeshift bandage around her wrist, the one she had broken on that night. There was loads of what looked like rabid Erasers racing towards her and the last words I hear before they reach her and it goes blank, is her scared voice whispering to herself, time to die Nudge. Sometimes on a bad night, I can hear her screaming in pain. Then I wake up scared out of my mind for her, even though it's been around three months since she died.
This night it had been slightly different though. For the first time I had gotten a brief glance at her after the fight. I could have gone my whole entire life without ever seeing that. Nudge was crumpled in a horrible heap on the floor with blood matting her hair and her arms and legs in a terrible state. And I mean terrible, they appeared to be broken in several places and long jagged cuts covering her body. I dreaded seeing the damage on her beautiful face.
Her wings were folded halfway under her slender body, crumpled and broken in loads of places, and they were stained a dark red colour; her blood. I flinched involuntarily away from the sight of her body and stumbled backwards. Because this was 'Iggy's Messed up Dream', I ended up falling through a seemingly endless hole screaming.
Then I woke up.
I stumbled blindly –no pun intended- down to the kitchen and chugged a big glass of water down in record time. I couldn't get the image of her out of my head and it was driving me crazy. Breathing heavily, I felt my way over to the table and plonked myself into a random chair. School, the real kind, started tomorrow and I couldn't get my head in order. Nudge was dead I reminded myself for the hundredth time and sighed heavily as my heart let out a beat of pain.
I had been reliving that night every day in my mind for the last few weeks. Had I imagined the almost undetectable pulse just as I was pulled away? Did I really feel the slight rise of her chest filling with air for a split second? Or am I just making things up to give myself false hope and to avoid moving on?
My mind was plagued with these questions and more but I just wanted out. The screaming of my love echoed in my ears, when I closed my eyes all I could see was her broken and defeated figure. I couldn't tell the rest of the Flock about any of these things as it would either fill them with hope that could be easily shattered or make them look at me like I was crazy.
Ugh... My life was so confusing!
As I made my way back up to bed, to try and salvage the two hours of shut-eye I had left before school, I stopped where Ella's room was. Or at least where I thought it was, this house confused me. Anyway, I paused outside; just to be sure she was okay and breathing. Iggy, what are you doing?! You love Nudge! A voice in my head hissed at me, but I didn't care. 'Coz, maybe I had finally started to heal.
But did I want to move on...?
How did I do...? I tried to include some important things in this chapter so I hope you guys picked up on them.
I'm so sorry for only updating now when I said I would update a while ago but I have been busy with exams and holiday stuff...
Thanks to the following for reviewing the last chapter:
Nequam-Tenshi
MaxRide05
MEGGEM
BookFan a.k.a GwenFan 22
dont have account yet... heh
Constant-Rae-Of-Sunshine
You guys are the best!
So please everyone else that maybe read my story but didn't take the time to review, REVIEW! I need your opinions and suggestions to make it better!
I'll update fast if people review but I'm going to need a certain amount of reviews to motivate me!
So, I'll leave you guys with that final plea...
Happy Holidays everyone!