A/N: I'm updating now here because my other stories aren't interesting right now. Ha. My dad is listening to Angel on audio book, and it is awkward. He just listened to the part where –SPOILER- Dylan kissed Max on the Arc de Triomphe, and it is AWKWARD. I think I'll get my iPod and listen to some Pandora…ahh…
Wait, I said that already.
DICLAIMER: JP doesn't need to listen to listen to his own books, 'cause that would be really self-centered.
When we make it back to the cave, I just about collapse in the opening. Already I can feel my wounds healing themselves, my energy regenerating, my vision restoring. I lay my head down on the rocky cave and breathe shallowly through my nose. My arms flop down my by side. Every part of my body throbs.
Nudge skitters into the opening after me, ducking so that she doesn't hit her head on the opening. She falls to her knees next to me. "Fang!" she yells. "Are you OK?"
"Uh-huh," I mumble, half-asleep. It's not really even words, just two puffs of air with some sound added. I feel like crap, and I just want Nudge to leave me alone. I just need to sleep for about an hour, and then I'll be good to go.
Unfortunately, Nudge doesn't think that way. She puts her hand on my neck, feeling my heartbeat. Then she stands and gets my old backpack, fishing out the first-aid kit in it. She pulls out a bunch of supplies, scattering them all over the floor. Then she stops.
My eyes are closed, so I can't actually see any of this. I wonder what she's doing now.
"Uh, Fang?" she says in a real quiet voice. "I think there's some trouble."
My eyelids flicker. Oh, no. What now?
"Your nose," she says.
Then something clicks. I remember Ari's stone fist breaking it. And then….I must have forgotten. I didn't set it, I was in too much pain to. Now we have to re-break it and let it set and heal again. Crap.
"Uh," I say as a way of expressing this. I don't remember when I was last in this much pain.
"Can you sit up?" she asks. "We need to do it right now. Or everything will heal and we might make it worse."
SupeRN to the rescue.
I slide one arm under me. The other one, my already injured one, flops uselessly on my side. I slowly push myself up, opening my eyes a bit. My vision is already clear, but my eyelashes meet my bangs and stop there. I see Nudge's hands near my face and close my eyes again.
Then her soft fingers are on my nose, her palms resting on my mouth. Her right thumb is pressed on the opposite side of my nose, leveraging herself.
"I'm sorry," she says, and pushes.
There's a loud crack, and suddenly I can't breathe. My face explodes. My hand shoots out and punches her in the stomach.
"Nub!" I yell, and scramble over to her. She picks herself up off the ground. "I'b sorry, I didn't meab to, it was just a reflex reaction."
She smiles. "Yes, well. I didn't have a hammer ready."
My breathing clogs in my throat. I sit cross-legged on the floor, slowly lowering myself down in stages, pausing after every movement to wince and recover. Once I'm seated on the floor, Nudge sits down across from me again, propelling herself closer.
"Okay," she says, and I close my eyes again. Blood is caking my mouth, chin and upper lip, but she puts her hands in the same position, not caring about the gore. "Ready…?"
She pushes again, and my nose grates back into its normal position. At once about 50% of the pain flushes down the toilet. I grin at her, opening my eyes and pushing my hair out of the way.
"Thanks, Nudge."
She shrugs. "Least I could do. Now can we eat?"
"Help yourself," I say, motioning to the backpack. I really don't want to lay back down anymore – the fresh pain woke me up. Stiffly, I stand and limp over to the backpack, pulling off my bloody T-shirt to account for each bruise. Hmm, doesn't actually look that bad.
Nudge looks up from the backpack and gasps.
"What?" She's seen me shirtless a million times before. She's seen me shirtless and bruised a million times before. So what?
"Your side," she says.
I look down again, lifting my arm so I can see it better. I blink and look again.
Where the Eraser's boot had acquainted itself with my side is a huge, mottled purple bruise. And when I say huge, I mean ginourmous. Like the size of my head, maybe bigger. It spreads over my side to my back, and I lift my wing and twist my head, stumbling a little bit as I look backward. It goes at least to my spine.
Nudge's hands are pressed to her mouth. She looks like she's fighting tears. But then I cock my head and press a finger to my crusted lips. She freezes, her head tilted, holding her breath.
I'm not mistaken. There's a distant chop-chop-chop of a helicopter. Erasers.
We race for the back of the cave, pulling every sign that we were here back with us. Nudge flattens herself against the wall, looking at the dangerously close cave entrance. If the Erasers realized we're there, we're dead. I can't fight at all right now, and Nudge can't take all those Erasers by herself, especially angry, bloodthirsty ones.
I slide down onto the floor, anger and frustration radiating from every pore. For once, it isn't at Max. It's at myself. I hate being helpless. I hate being not able to help Nudge, maybe my only surviving flock member, the supeRN. I mean, if you can't break a nose or two every day, then life's not worth living.
"Fang," Nudge breathes. She slowly lowers herself down to my level, resting her body on her heels.
I move my head a fraction to the left, then two fractions to the right, then a fraction to the center, indicating that she should be quiet. You can pick what kind of fraction it is. My brain's too busy screaming at everything to waste time doing that.
My breath hisses between my teeth: "Sshh," is what it sounds like, and is supposed to be. The chopping noise comes closer to our little hideout, so close that we can see the underbelly of its source, before the copter veers away. The noise recedes into the distance. Nudge makes to get up, but I pull her back down.
"Wait," I breathe. She takes her turn doing the fractions, nodding.
But after twenty minutes of holding myself absolutely still, there's still no sound. So I stand slowly, my joints creaking. Nudge follows me.
"I'm going for some food," I tell her. "I'll be back in a few minutes." I wouldn't be going, but Nudge ate everything. I don't know when. But all our food is gone. So we need more.
I unfold my wings and leap into the air. The breeze is soothing against my bloody face, and I hope I can get something to eat in just a few minutes. I don't want to leave Nudge alone for too long, in case the Erasers come back. But I don't know where I can find anything she'll eat. I hope she gets off this vegetarian kick soon.
After a few minutes of flying, I see a small campground below me. Swooping down closer, I spy a tent. There's a young couple barbequing kabobs. The smell manages to make it up to me, and I feel dizzy with hunger. I need that food.
The couple just put the kabobs on – they're still raw, and haven't even been doused in BBQ sauce. So I loop around to the river, planning on cleaning up my face a bit. And shirt, hopefully. So I head over to a deserted section and hover above the tree level, preparing to land.
Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work that way. Naturally. Because this is me we're talking about.
Over the sound of my wing beats, I hear it. The chopper. I guess they didn't cover this area yet. Anyhow, there wasn't going to be any time to make a practiced landing. I quickly eye the river, judging it to be about twenty feet deep, take a deep breath, and fold my wings.
I drop toward the surface of the river at a hundred miles an hour, my body curled like a cannonball. At the last second, I think that maybe this wasn't such a good idea.
Too late. I hit the water at a hundred miles an hour. Most people would break just about every bone in their body. I just get more bruises.
The water slows my body, and I relax a bit out of my tight ball. My hair floats upward. Hopefully I can still hold my breath for two hundred seconds.
I feel blood floating off of my lower face. I open my eyes. The water is surprisingly clear, and I can see almost everything.
Including the huge snake inches from my face.
My eyes bulge. Bubbles stream from my mouth and nose and I give an almighty yell. I pump my wings and rocket out of the river as fast as I can. Then I remember the copter and freeze.
I guess it's gone, because I can't hear anything. But God, I need to calm down. My heart is pumping crazily, and I hope that the kabobs are done by now, because I'm getting the hell out of here, whether or not they're still raw. I am taking those kabobs and going back to the cave, right now, because I am freezing.
I make a hairpin turn and fly back to the campsite. The man is just putting on the barbeque sauce, which means they're done. Then the woman comes up behind him and puts her arms around his waist. He sets down the bottle on the grill and they start totally making out. I make a face, then realize that this is my chance.
I rocket down to the campsite, my hands outstretched. I snatch a pack of aluminum foil and the kabobs and the bottle of BBQ sauce and zoom away.
When I'm safely back up, I look back down. They're still sucking face! I rip out some aluminum foil and drop the pack down to them. Then I cover the kabobs and stow them in my pocket.
I look back down in time to see the pack hit the ground. They don't even look up, probably thinking that it just fell or something. I laugh out loud and fly away.
When I make it back to the cave, Nudge visibly relaxes. I land silently on the ledge and put my hand in my pocket, pulling out the shiny silver package.
"Can I interest you in a bit of desert rat?" I ask her, shivering. It was cold in the air, and my sopping wet body doesn't help that.
Her expression goes from relieved to horrified in about .02 seconds. "Oh, no!" she exclaims.
I brush some dust from my dripping T-shirt. At least it's not bloody anymore. I pop a piece of the kabob in my mouth. It's even better than it smelled. "Can't get any fresher," I console her.
"Ugh!" Nudge says, paling and turning her back to me. Her back is ramrod straight and her hands are clenched.
"Okay, then," I say, sighing loudly and wringing out my hair. "How about some kabobs? You get the vegetables."
She whips back around. I unfurl the wrapper. The smell of the kabob fills the air, smoky and tender. She regains her color and hurries over to me, plopping down on the dirt. I pass her a kabob with hands shaking from cold.
"Kabobs!" she says. "Where did you get them? You didn't have time to go all the way to town. Oh, my gosh, they're still hot."
I push the image of the couple out of my head and give a dry laugh. "Let's just say some campers are going to be a little surprised." I push the meat off some kabobs, sitting down myself, and put them on the foil. Then I make a small pile of smoked veggies next to it.
"Now, this is food," Nudge says, chewing with her eyes closed.
"So I guess we have to decide whether to keep looking for Max or go try to save Angel," I say, dousing about five pieces of beef with the sauce and stuffing them in my mouth. They're still warm, and the heat spreads through my achingly cold body like fingers. It feels amazing.
"But the Erasers said everyone else was dead," says Nudge, her shoulders slumping. "Does that mean Max and Angel too?"
Amazing. Even though that girl is desperately upset, she still manages to eat everything she can get her hands on. I pick up more beef.
"No way to tell," I say calmly, nibbling on another chunk. "The thing is, if Max isn't here, is it because she's dead? How would they have found her? Angel…" I pause for a moment, trying to find the right words. "Well, we knew they had Angel. That's probably all over by now."
I feel like I'm choking on the words, but to make Nudge feel better, I force down the rest of the piece and pick up another one.
She drops her head in her hands. "I can't think about it."
"I know. But what are your –"
Something catches my eye in the distance. I break off my words and squint past the hole. Erasers? No, it's definitely flying. Max? My heart thunders in my chest.
Nudge looks out too, then returns to her food.
The thing that's flying has become two things that are flying. So, not Max. They're getting bigger. One is bigger than the other one, and suddenly I know what they are. I dig in my pocket for the small metal mirror Max had given me in case we got split up. I stretch my arm out to the entrance of the cave and flash the mirror in the last rays of sun.
I stop, flash, stop, flash.
The things veer off course and head for us. Nudge looks alarmed. Then her mouth drops open as Iggy and Gazzy skid to a stop in front of the cave, Iggy almost bashing his forehead in on the ledge before Gazzy pulls him down.
"You aren't dead," she informs them, shocked.
"No. You aren't dead either," Iggy says, sounding cranky. "How about just 'hello'?"
Nudge throws her arms around him.
"Hi, guys," says Gazzy. He brushes off his filthy sweater. "We couldn't stay home – there's Erasers all over the mountain. So we decided to come here. Anyone got a problem with that?"
Just to let you guys know, this is the longest chapter I have ever written in my entire life. I want at least 10 reviews before I post chapter 12. You've done it before. Do it again. I know you can.
If you can't tell, I made up most of the chapter. Let me know how you like it.