A/N: So I'm going away for a week w/o internet. But here is Chapter 15.
Diclaismer: I bet JP has one of those phones that gets internet anywhere.
There's a long, long moment of silence. Max looks extremely surprised for a moment.
"I've seen people drive on TV," she says. "How hard can it be?"
She glances down at the controls, taking a moment to figure out how to shift the stick around. Finally she edges it into D.
"Okay, guys," she says louder. "Here goes nothing."
She presses the gas. The engine revs loudly. But the car doesn't move. Max presses harder. The engine coughs.
"What's happening?" she says.
"It doesn't like us," Iggy volunteers from the backseat.
"Shut up," Max snarls. Iggy raises his hands in surrender.
"Fang?" Max mutters, as Gazzy breaks out into "Eat It" by Weird Al.
"Um... Isn't there a parking brake or something?" I say, glancing down by her feet. I sound a lot smarter than I actually am: I wouldn't know a parking brake if it danced naked in front of me, singing.
"Just eat it," Gazzy howls in the backseat, reminding us all of how hungry we are. Nudge crawls up to the front seat and finds the parking brake within two minutes, releasing it quickly.
"I'm a genius," she sings, clambering over my head and back to her seat. Max stares after her.
"How did you know that?" she asks, astonished.
Nudge shrugs. "I used to read Jeb's old car magazines all the time," she says briefly. Gazzy continues his song in the background.
"Okay, okay, we're doing okay," Max says a few minutes later, when we finally get on the road. She swerves around a corner, and the car goes up on two wheels. It comes crashing back down, and my head, already brushing the cab roof, hits the top of the car with an almighty bang. I gingerly rub it and look back to see Iggy checking his own head. I look at Max, and she meets my gaze.
"What?"
"Could you take it easy on the hairpin turns?" I ask cautiously.
"I'm getting better," she says defensively. "I just had to practice."
"I didn't know a van could go up on two wheels like that," Nudge says, breathing heavily. "For so long."
"I don't want to barf in a borrowed car," Gaz announces.
Max presses her lips together and looks at the road. I smirk. "We need to turn east in about five hundred yards," she mutters, sticking her head out the window for a moment.
She's such a soccer mom.
Half a mile later, she pulls over and looks at the side of the road. There is no road there. "Where the heck is the road?" she yells. "There's no freaking road there!"
"You're going by your own directional senses," I say, because I'm a genius. That was the smartest thing I've said all day, besides "Get cash" earlier.
"And there can't be roads everywhere you feel like there should be a road," Iggy points out.
Max grinds her teeth. She pulls a tight U turn, muttering to herself. I turn back and hold up my hand, Iggy slapping it after only a small, well, nudge from Nudge. Max's eyes narrow in anger and frustration at the slapping sound, but she keeps her eyes firmly on the road.
After another turn that tells all of us that we're going in the wrong direction, Max starts yelling. She pulls over and starts beating the crap out of the steering wheel. Then she hunches over and clutches her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut.
"It's okay, Max," Gazzy frets.
"Is she hitting the steering wheel?" Iggy asks incredulously. Nudge glares at him.
"Look," I say, pointing. Max raises her head weakly. "There's a town up ahead. Let's go there, get something to eat, and find an actual map. 'Cause this wandering thing ain't workin'."
Max shakes her head, clearing her thoughts. Then she spins the wheel and the car crunches away.
When we get to the town, Max sits up straight and adopts a serious expression. I crack a smile. I'd be better off driving - Iggy and I are both so tall that we could pass for adults - but oh well. Max pulls into a fast food restaurant, backing carefully into a spot well away from everyone else. Almost immediately, the three in the back scramble out of their seats and spill out onto the pavement, stretching. "We're alive!" the Gasman yells.
"Wait!" Max shouts from her seats. "Look, we're really close to the School," she says, dropping her voice down. "This might feel like the middle of nowhere, but really, Erasers could be anywhere and anyone. You know that. So we have to be careful."
The whole lecture flies right over Nudge's head, apparently, because the next words out of her mouth are: "We have to eat."
Max sighs. "I know, Nudge," she says. "We're going to. I'm just saying be really careful. Be on guard, be ready to run, okay? Anybody we see could be an Eraser."
Everyone nods. Max flips down the visor and shrieks.
I look up at the mirror first, afraid that she's scared of her reflection. But then I follow her eyes to her lap, where a key ring has just fallen. I pick it up and shake it. Max stares blankly.
"Well, that'll simplify things," I say.
Max climbs shakily out of her seat and we walk across the parking lot, Nudge and Gazzy chattering in the back. The second we open the door, Iggy stops dead, raising his head like a dog and sniffing. Max makes her way past him, and I put his hand on my shoulder to guide him.
"I want my room to smell just like this," Ig announces. I not-so-gently push him on.
"That would be an improvement," Max agrees, reading the menu. Somebody jostles me in line and I sidestep, almost tripping over Iggy's huge feet. I glare at the little kid who tripped me and he bursts into tears.
Glad to know I've still got it in me.
Nudge informs Max of her new vegetarianism while I step up and order three double cheeseburgers, a chocolate shake, a soda, three apple pies, and three fries.
"Feeding a crowd?" the woman behind the counter asks me.
"Yes, ma'am," I say. Max's glare burns my back.
Iggy steps up next, just saying, "Uh, I'll get the same thing as Fang." The woman gives me as strange look at the name, but types in the same order. I wait for Iggy to get his food and, balancing my tray on one hand, put the other hand on his shoulder and guide him to the back. One glance behind me shows the woman's horrified face as she slowly realizes that Iggy is blind.
I slide into the booth and Iggy sits down next to me. We both dig in, taking up the entire side because we're so big. As Iggy chomps down on his burger and I slurp up the chocolate shake, I think out loud.
"What's up with Max, you think?"
Iggy shrugs. "I dunno," he said around a mouthful of food. "She seemed kind of..." He trails off and takes another huge bite, polishing off his first burger. When he comes up for air, he adds, "All I know is that I could live off the smell in this place. You know?"
I groan. "You're such a boy."
"It's just hormones, don't worry about it." He grins. "Wait, are you suggesting that you're not a boy?"
"No, I-"
I'm saved by the arrival of Max, the Gasman, and Nudge. They sit down opposite us, and Iggy shoots me a grin, which I ignore. Everyone starts eating, and someone's giving little whimpers. Wonder who?
Iggy catches my eye and we both begin eating as fast as we can. He has a head start - he's already eaten all three of his burgers, but I've eaten my fries AND pies. He has so much food in his mouth he can barely breathe. But I can chew faster, ha ha.
I'm in the middle of eating something - I've lost track of what it is - when something makes all the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I glance up and see that I've been so busy trying to beat Iggy at our eating contest that I didn't notice that everyone that was in here had disappeared. Instead, all the tables around us have been replaced by really good-looking guys in business suits.
Right at this moment, all the fat and cholesterol that's been newly acquired in this food decides to clog up my veins. My blood starts pumping sluggishly in my veins, but harder. I look down at my chest and see my heart beating.
I watch Max for a little while, continuing to stuff my face with as much food as I possibly can. Her neck and shoulders slowly tense up without her noticing, until she looks at me. Then she glances around, realizing.
She looks back at me and nods before muttering to Nudge and Gaz. I tap Iggy's hand. No one shows that they noticed or heard her.
Then, Nudge bounds over Iggy's head with Gazzy right on her tail. They crash through the fire exit. Max leaps over us as well, and then Iggy and I follow her. Everyone scrambles outside and in the van, while Max jams in the key. We reverse, Max giving a little cry when an Eraser gets plowed under the wheels. We shriek over the curb and through some bushes before careening out into traffic, a tidal wave of honks following. Max soars into a gas station, cutting through a light, and then soars back into traffic.
"Max!" Nudge screams. Max swerves violently to avoid a semitrailer which had loomed out if nowhere. Our van screeches against the metal trailer and the rearview mirror is torn off.
"Well, that'll be an extra thousand dollars back at the rental," I mutter to myself. No one hears me.
"It's so bulky!" Max yells in frustration as she zips around another corner and the van goes up on two wheels again. The flock leans violently the other way and we teeter back down.
"It's a van," I remind her.
Max races out of town. Slowly the city turns into suburbia. But the van is too slow.
"I'm gonna stop!" Max screams. "Jump out and get into the air as fast as you can!"
Affirmative screams in reply. Max glances in the remaining mirror and then grits her teeth, deciding not to stop. Instead, she swings left into a random field of corn. She zigzags crazily back and forth while I try to decide if the corn field had an ulterior motive for being here besides our immediate convenience. I decide that it doesn't.
A road appears in front of us, and we swerve out onto it. As soon as we right ourselves, Max revs the motor again-
Just as a huge black car jumps out in front of us.
We hit it at sixty miles an hour.
Airbags slam into my chest, knocking every drop of oxygen out of my lungs and then some. My seat belt almost slices through my neck. My injured arm slams into the door, making me bite my cheek to prevent myself from howling in pain.
"Report," Max calls weakly, her hand over her nose. Blood squirts from between her fingers.
"Okay here," I reassure her, rubbing my neck. I think my seatbelt tried to decapitate me.
I head a peeling sound from behind me. "Okay here," Nudge says, pulling her forehead from the back of my seat.
"It's just my nose," Max reassures her. "Head wounds always bleed a lot. Look, it's already stopping." It's not. If anything, it's getting worse.
"I feel like, like pudding," Iggy moaned. "Pudding with nerve endings. Pudding in great pain."
"I feel sick," the Gasman whispers.
CRASH!
The windows smash all around us. Everyone covers their heads. Hairy hands reach eerily through the windows and grab us. There are no opportunities to get any fighting back in - Max and I are hauled out and thrown to the ground.
"Run!" Max screams. An Eraser socks her in the face. I look up to see Iggy and Gazzy spread their wings and soar upwards. Some Erasers point guns up and take a couple shots, but they miss. Iggy and Gazzy get away.
Nudge gets yanked out if the van and thuds to the ground next to Max. Max's arms go straight around her. Someone kicks Max in the ribs. My gaze travels up the fancy boot to cargo pants, a tight under armor shirt, and a half-mutated face.
"Tag. You're it," Ari cackles. The Erasers laugh as well, a creepy chorus of backup singers. They dance around like we're at some sort of ritual campfire native sacrifice.
"It's almost like you don't want to go back to the School," Ari croons. We're outnumbered three to five, and each of us has a heavy boot pressed against his chest. I want to buck them off, but Ari will kill Max at a second's notice. She meets my eyes, and then Nudge's. Then we all glance upward, seeing a helicopter. The Erasers start jumping up and down and waving their arms.
"What a touching scene," Ari spits. "We're all going home. Just like the old times."
You know the drill. Review!
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