An: we just got back from Cumberland Island on a class camping trip! There was no hot water, beds, decent drinking water, privacy, clean clothing, and I got a second degree sunburn on my shoulders - in other words, we had a blast. Sorry I took so long to update-I was OOT. OUT OF TOWN. HAHAHA I LOVE CAPS LOCK.
**!**
"So where's Max?" Iggy asks, after everything has settled down a bit.
"I don't know," Nudge blabs, getting geared up. "I mean, the last time we saw her, was, like, two days ago. She went down to do something and she didn't come back. Me and Fang went to look for her but we didn't see her. So we just got some food instead. And then - then some other stuff happened. And then you came."
Nudge falters and fails in the middle of her sentence, glancing at me worriedly. I think back to the exploding feeling of the Erasers beating me into a pulp and hold back a shiver. Iggy raises his head in my direction, his sightless eyes trained on me, and I tap his hand, indicating that I'll tell him later. Gazzy picks up handfuls of sand and watches it slide between his fingertips with glazed eyes.
I cross my arms and lean against the wall. The sky outside is the same color as a robin egg. It almost distracts me from Nudge's blabber.
"Ari beat up Fang," she announces to the boys. "And also Fang got shot in the arm. And some other stuff. I was hoping you could look at it, Ig."
I glare at her. "I'm fine," I say. Iggy, however, doesn't look convinced.
"Let me see it, Fang," he insists, so I sigh and tug off my T-shirt. I walk over to him and sit cross-legged on the floor, bringing his long, white fingers to my chest. They stand out.
His fingers skim sideways over my stomach, and then they find the bruise. He traces the outline with his finger and closes his eyes. "This is huge," he informs me.
Gazzy and Nudge are sitting stock still, their eyes glued to my chest. Nudge's hands are covering her mouth, and the Gasman just looks really scared. So I tell Iggy, "I know. But it doesn't hurt at all."2
"It will," he tells me grimly. "Let me see your arm."
I sigh again and unwrap the bandage. The stick clatters to the floor. But I'm looking at the bandage - discharge has stained the white gauze a dark yellow, and the smell is terrible. Ig's back gets stiffer and stiffer as the bandage falls away, so I shift my body position so that the Gasman and Nudge can't see it.
Finally the yellowish bandage is off and lying on the floor. My arm is disgusting. The gashes are filled with pus and raised above my arm, and the edges of the bullet hole are dark red and also raised. The whole area is sticky with pus and blood.
"I'm not asking you to touch this," I tell him right off the bat.
He doesn't listen. Already his fingers are feeling my bicep, so I move them down to my forearm. They skitter and slide over the stickiness like white spiders and come to rest on the hole. The skin over it looks stretched and pulled and shiny.
For a moment no one says anything. Iggy rests his hand on my arm, feeling the gashes with his palm. I wince.
"What happened?" he asks me, barely breathing the words so that the younger kids won't hear.
"Back at the house," I breathe back. "I got shot. By an Eraser. Who decided to just finish me off."
Iggy grunts. His hands shift over, trying to find the ends of the wounds. One is up near my hand, and the other is about three inches shorter than that. They both start at my elbow.
"Okay," Iggy says finally. He pulls the first-aid kit toward him and opens it, finding the bottle of disinfectant and stack of cotton balls with ease. I watch him uneasily as he pours the disinfectant on the little cotton circles. Then he dabs at one of the gashes with it.
It feels like he just doused my arm in gasoline and then held a match to it. With the sound of my arm igniting in my ears, I jerk away from him. A little moan escapes through my lips.
"Sorry!" Iggy cries. He grabs my arm back, and I relax and try to ignore the fact that he's lighting my arm in fire or the fact that my arm is sizzling. Sizzling! It's so disgusting I can't watch. I turn my head around to make sure that Nudge and Gazzy can't see what's happening.
Finally the burning stops. Iggy wraps the arm in clean white gauze. But before he can finish, more - stuff - has leaked through.
I spring to my feet.
"I can't take this anymore," I tell the crew. "I'm going for a fly."
I sprang off the ledge, unfolding my huge wings and catching the wind like a current. The hawks shriek as I approach them in welcome and move over so I can glide with them.
I glance down at the rest of them as we wheel around. Nudge and the Gasman are shading their eyes to look up at me, and Iggy's face is also angled upward. He says something to Nudge and she nods happily, then says something else to him and leaps off the cliff. Gazzy and Iggy follow.
Nudge soars up to us and joins the formation. Iggy and Gazzy flap clumsily up to us as well, so different from Nudge and the hawks that we've been studying. Gazzy watches a hawk for a minute, then straightens out his wings; Iggy, sensing the change, tenses and then copies him.
We wheel around in huge loops. I cradle my arm to my chest, carefully tucking in the loose edge so it doesn't come unraveled. Then movement at the corner of my eye has me glancing down.
"Max," I whisper, and just like that, I dive.
About one foot into the dive, I reconsider and pull up sharply. Max flaps toward us, grinning hugely. Gazzy and Nudge have these huge, toothy smiles plastered on their faces, and Iggy boasts an extremely confused expression. I catch Max's eye and jerk my head in the direction of our cave; then, without waiting for her response, do the hairpin wheel and zoom into the cave long before the rest of them.
I'm shaking. Half of me wants to catch her up in my arms and hold her tightly. The other half, the larger half, wants to grab her by the hair and shake her for making me and Nudge worry about her. She's two days late, for God's sake. I just want to scream.
The rest of them land in a heap and scurry to the back of the cave, which is getting a bit crowded. Nudge squeals some more and gives Mad a huge hug, the kind that would crack ribs on a normal person. Max grins and wheezes and strokes Nudge's back.
"Max!" Nudge says. "We were so worried!"
A tiny crease appears between Max's eyebrows. I can see her fighting an urge to look up at me, and I have a stone-cold expression waiting for her.
"I didn't know what happened to you, and we didn't know what to do, and Fang said we were going to eat rats, and-"
"Okay, okay. Everything's okay," Max interrupts. She looks up at me and mouths, Rats?
Unfortunately for me, a tiny grin crosses my face. I curse inwardly and pull it back in for a good beating. Dammit, she saw.
Then she turns to Ig and Gaz and I prepare for a bomb. "What are you two doing here?" she demands of them angrily. "Why didn't you stay home?" You can hear the accusatory Like I told you to after it.
"We couldn't," Gazzy begins eagerly. Innocently. Uh-oh. "There were Erasers all over the mountain. We'd be dog meat by now."
Wait a second. Why are they wearing dark clothes? Iggy in black is almost as rare as me in any color besides black. (I'm going to tell you later about that.) As I'm thinking this, Iggy adjusts his black baseball cap – make that MY black baseball cap. I snatch it off his head and he grins sheepishly at me.
"When did they start hunting for you?" Max presses. "Right after we left?"
"Noo," Gazzy says, drawing it out. Now he looks nervous. He looks to Iggy for help, but Iggy just brushes dirt of his dark pants. MY dark pants! God, Iggy stole all of my clothes! I wouldn't be surprised if he was wearing my underwear too. But I'm not checking.
"What?" Max narrows her eyes. "When did they start coming after you?"
Although now that I think about it, Iggy's wearing his shoes. But wait a second. We only have one pair each. I glance at my tall boots, and then at Iggy's scruffy white sneakers. Yeah, he'd steal mine if I wasn't wearing them. That dirty little - !
"Was it – was it after the oil-slick Hummer crash?" Gaz asks Iggy nervously. Iggy rubs his chin, rolling his eyes upward. Max looks shocked.
Hang on. That's my favorite sweater! Oh, that boy is gonna PAY. His light gray wings are folded behind it, not tucked in. But you know what? I am NOT admitting that it looks good on him. BECAUSE IT DOESN'T.
"Or maybe it was more – after the bomb," the Gasman says softly.
"Yeah, I think it was after the bomb," Iggy agrees. "That definitely seemed to tick them off."
Wait a second. BOMB? Whoa. I think I checked out of this conversation a LONG time ago. Last thing I remember was –
"Bomb?" Max screeches. "Bomb? You guys set off a bomb? Didn't that tell the Erasers exactly where you were? You should have stayed hidden!"
Yeah, Gazzy, I think. You told me that you weren't going to blow up the house. Seriously, dude, can I trust anything anyone says anymore?
"They already knew where we were," Gazzy protests. "They'd seen all of us – they knew we were in the area."
"It was a matter of time," Iggy pipes up.
Max puts her hands on her hips and opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. She closes it again quickly, her teeth clicking bewilderedly. After an extremely awkward pause, she says, "Well, I'm glad you're safe."
I think I'm cracking a rib from trying not to laugh.
She hugs Gazzy, bending over, and then hugs Iggy, stretching up to wrap her arms around his neck. His long, pale arms, encased in MY sweater, wrap around her midsection and squeeze quickly before disengaging gently. I stiffen.
Then she folds Nudge into her arms. Nudge promptly starts sobbing, and Max strokes her hair and comforts her. Gazzy runs to me and throws his arms around me. I bend over.
"I thought you agreed not to blow up the house, G-man," I murmur into his ear, and I feel him smile. Then he lets go and I straighten back up in time to see Max turn for me.
Instantly my back goes ramrod straight. I cannot allow myself to do what I really want to – i.e., melt into her arms. I'm very aware that the whole flock is watching.
Max looks me up and down, an unsure expression on her face. Sizing me up. Then, hesitantly, she steps toward me and puts her arms around my waist, her palms resting on the small of my back. Her head rests on my chest.
I clench my jaw and my right hand. My left hand hurts too much. Max holds me for a second too long, then steps back and looks me square in the eyes. Her eyes are the color of milk chocolate.
Then she breaks contact and looks away, leaving me feeling dizzy. She holds out her fist, and the others stack on top of her. Everyone looks at me, and I jam my fist into the pile. We tap and throw our hands into the air.
"To Angel!" Max screams.
"To Angel!" we scream back.
"To Angel! To Angel! To Angel!" the cliffs scream back over and over.
Then, we jump from the edge and soar toward the School.
THERE! Finally done.
Me: Hey, Fang, you're that obsessed with clothes?
…
Me: …Fang?
…
Review!