A/N: Okay, here it is. Ready? Set? PULL.
"I'm leaving."
"Sure," Nudge agrees tensely. I sigh and trudge after her, following her dark little body as it darts between overgrown cars.
"Seriously."
Nudge doesn't say anything. All I can hear is her labored breathing. It must have rained here last night, because there's deep mud. Our footsteps squelch with every step.
"Nudge, I-"
"Can you just shut up, Fang?" Nudge spits. Possibly the first time anyone's ever given me that particular command. I retreat into angry silence, concentrating on her pants and the oozing sound of mud in our shoes. Well, her shoes. My boots are too high to get mud in.
She glances up for the fiftieth time, checking the numbers on the porches. Claustrophobia is kicking in: I can imagine the dull gray trailers stretching upward, higher and higher, so close together that I can't beat my wings, so far forward that I can't see the end. I swallow down a lump of hysteria.
"Nudge, for the last time, give this up," I try. "This is a bad idea. A *terrible* idea."
She doesn't respond, just shoots me a furious glance. We emerge from the close-set homes to the street. Across are more mobile queendoms. Down the street is a crossroad. I squint.
"Come on," I say. "I see Chaparral Court." Anything to get me out of this dull, terrifying trailer park.
We walk along next to the road. There is no sidewalk, only overgrown, prickly bushes determined to stab every square inch of our bodies. Nudge nearly trips over an old microwave, its insides sprawled out on the ground like a forgotten surgery. We're forced into the street when a car skeleton looms out of nowhere, looking sad and ghostlike. Graffiti covers it, and old spray paint cans pepper the ground around it, thrown into the dirt at odd angles, so that they lean crookedly into the sky, nozzles pointing up into the fog. Nudge swallows.
We crunch beside the car and I steal a glance at her. She's shaking. Sweat beads her forehead and upper lip.
"What if they moved?" I ask again, trying to sound gentle. My voice ends up coming out sharper than a razor wire as usual. "What if you misunderstood what you read and these people aren't related to you at all?" Then, feeling kind of bad, and using extra effort to add gentleness into my voice: "Nudge, even if you weren't a test tube baby - which you probably were - what if there was a reason they gave you up? They might not want you back."
"Do you think I haven't thought of that?" she nearly spits at me. I remain calm, holding my body still and unaffected before her hurricane. "I know that! But I have to try. I mean -" she pauses and lowers her voice, looking around "- if there's the slightest chance - wouldn't you try?"
I pause.
"I don't know," I say finally, as a result of my meditation.
"That's because you don't need anything or anybody," she says, looking back at the park. "But I'm not like that. I need people."
I'm silent. Does she really think I don't need anyone? I need her and the flock to survive. To be whole. To live and breathe. I need them.
I need Max.
The force of this statement hits me like a hurricane: partly because I even thought it, and partly because it's true. True like my wings are hurting like hell from being pressed so hard against my back. I feel like I'm trying to suck them in to my spine, retract them into my body until only the tips poke out my skin.
Nudge is trembling beside me. She's really sweating now. Then something clicks in my peripheral hearing. I tense up, and Nudge sucks in a sharp breath.
A mobile queendom is opening, and an African American woman is stepping out. Nudge looks at her own arms quickly, comparing. The shade of chocolate brown is more or less the same.
The woman descends the cheap steps from her door and settles into an old plastic lawn chair, brushing dead pine needles from her seat before she sits. She flicks open a lighter, and, shielding the flame from the wind, lights a cigarette. Her hair is wrapped in a wet towel, and a few dripping dreadlocks fall over one shoulder. She takes a drag on her cigarette, then pops the top of a Coke and takes a huge gulp. Our raptor vision can make out her throat bobbing up and down.
"Coke. It's not just for breakfast anymore," I whisper, and Nudge elbows me and then sits back on her heels, still watching the woman.
So now what? I think. What's your plan now, Nudgey? Are you going to just stroll op to that lady and be all like, "Did you lose a kid? Misplace one? Cos I found one in the lost and found when I was digging for a raincoat."
"Looking for something, freaks? Guess you found it."
S H beep T spells Eraser. Right behind us. Wow Fang, defenses are slipping.
Nudge jackknifes to her feet. I whip around into a defensive crouch, one hand barely touching the dirt, ready to spring up at a moment's notice. Then I see their leader.
The sight of him is so shocking that I almost lose my balance, but disguise it by springing to me feet. The Eraser's are morphing behind us, their muzzles elongating, their snouts nosing the air in search of blood.
"Ari," I say, like Transformers are something I see every day. Ha ha. Not.
"Ari!" Nudge gasps, horrified. "You were just a little kid!"
"And now I'm a great big grown up Eraser," he said, voicing my thoughts exactly. He clicked his teeth and grinned happily. "And you're a little brown piglet. Yum."
Okay, maybe I wasn't thinking the second part.
"What did they do to you?" Nudge murmurs. "I'm sorry, Ari." Ha. It rhymes.
"Save your pity for yourself," he leers. There is something in his voice, but I can't quite place it. What's the opposite of love and affection? "I'm exactly who I want to be. And I've got some news for you." He rolls up his sleeves, like he doesn't want to get them dirty. Wow, he's buff. Of course, the last time I saw him, I could wrap my pinkie finger around his bicep. "Your hideout in the mountains is nothing but ashes. Your pals keep having unfortunate accidents. You two are the last ones alive - and now we've got you."
Ah, I know. Hatred and the desire to mutilate everything around you until it lies in bloody ribbons on the ground. That's it.
But wait a second. Ig? Gaz? DEAD? Does not comPUTE, ye overgrown dogs. I glance at Nudge, who's sobbing but still managing to hold herself together. My jaw clenches and my hands coil into fists as she glances at me. I watch Ari instead.
"Pinwheel," I breathe in the corner of my mouth. Unfortunately, the overgrown dog hears me. His eyes narrow and his smile turns upside down.
"Cholla first," Nudge says. I spy the cholla she's talking about.
"Count of three." Which means count of one.
Ari leans over and shoves me hard. I lose my balance. "One," I say shakily, regaining my footing. Nudge shoots out from nowhere and slugs another Eraser hard, sending him howling into the prickly needles of the cholla cactus. He tries to get off but only succeeding in impaling himself deeper into the cactus. Lovely.
Nudge launches herself at me, arms outstretched. I catch her smooth wrists and fly her around in a huge loop, her feet knocking the Erasers over into more cactuses like dominoes. My arms screams in fury. Too bad. They roar and shriek but they still fall over. I let her go and she spins off into the sky, beating her huge brown w-
"You're gonna die, mutant," Ari growls, and dives for my feet. He wraps his huge arms around my ankles and I go crashing down on top of him. Quick as lightning, he rolls us over so that he"s on top, and starts beating me up.
He's heavy. I can't breathe. His rock hard fists are finding every sensitive area on my chest, getting closer and closer to my face. Another Eraser slams his steel-tipped shoe into my side, and I almost black out. Then Ari catches my chin at an angle, almost snapping my jawbone. My head jerks sideways unconsciously, my cheekbone hitting a pointed rock in the dirt. Ari karate chops my chest with a roar, almost snapping ribs. My breath - the small amount that I had left - leaves my body so fast it's painful.
I can't think. My entire body is screaming. Blood is pouring from my mouth, covering the green grass with dark red. I take another hit, and another. The steel toe slams me again and again. Ari's fist finds my nose, almost breaking it. Maybe it is broken. But judging from the feel of things, so is just about every other bone in my body.
I start jerking convulsively. I can no longer breathe. Blood is filling my airway. Then I hear a wheeze, and then a loud hiss.
Ari jumps off me. I don't know why, but I do know to get my sorry ass out of the way. I leap up and in the same moment am airborne before I have a chance to hack my insides out through my throat.
Nudge throws a paint can at Ari's head, and through a haze of pain, I see that his head is green. Green? Oh, Nudge must have sprayed him.
"You're dead, freaks!" Ari shouts, spitting mad. His friends are all jumping around crazily, trying to pull cactus needles out of themselves. He wipes green paint out of his streaming eyes.
"Oh, like you're not a freak yourself," Nudge shouts back. "Try looking in a mirror, dog boy!"
Ari screams with rage, fumbling in his pants pocket with his too-long fingernails. Ever hear of nail clippers? Then he pulls out a gun, and we zoom out of there.
My wingbeats are ragged and uneven. I can barely see. My throat is still a bit clogged with blood, so I hack it up.
"I'm sorry, Fang," Nudge says breathlessly. "It was my fault you got hurt."
I don't say what I want to, which is, Yeah, it is. Or, I told you so. Instead, I spit out the blood and watch it fall until it becomes fuzzy.
Then I say, "It wasn't your fault," and "You're just a kid."
"Let's go home," she says.
"They said it burned down," I say. Honestly, I don't think I can make it all the way back to Colorado. Maybe tomorrow. But not today. I can barely see straight.
"No, I mean the home with the hawks," she says.
Sorry. Please review. I'm having a bad week. Make me feel better.