A/N: So I told you the updates would be quicker! Yeah :D I'm proud of myself. WE'RE ALMOST TO 200 REVIEWS! I'm so excited :)
By the way, I don't know if anyone here likes/reads/watches the anime/manga Bleach, but if you do, I write for that fandom too, so you should check out the stuff!
Disclaimer: JP is not me.. so I am not him, and since he owns the books then obviously I don't!
We sit in silence for what seems like hours. I feel like a sleepy kid on a school morning, not wanting to get up, leave this place of warmth and comfort.
Finally Max raises her head. "Should we –" She winces and falls silent, her hands leaving the pew to clutch her skull. I watch her anxiously, waiting for her to take a deep breath and open her eyes, cringing at the light in the cathedral and the worried expressions on our faces.
"Can you walk?" I ask her in a low voice.
She nods, and so we all stand and beat it out of there, walking as quickly as we can behind a group of Japanese tourists who can't stop taking pictures. As soon as we make it away from the crowd, she stops and rounds in on us.
"I saw Thirty-first Street, in my head," she says. "And a bunch of numbers." Well, thanks for clearing that up, Max…
"Which means…" Ig prompts, gesturing for her to keep going.
She bites her lip and avoids our eyes, staring fixedly at a crack in the sidewalk. "I don't know," she admits. "Maybe the Institute is on Thirty-first Street?"
"That would be nice," I say sarcastically. "East or west?"
"I don't know."
"Did you see anything else?" I urge.
"Well, a bunch of numbers," she repeats. "And a tall, kind of greenish building."
"We should just walk all the way down Thirty-first Street." Nudge is starting to get excited again. "The whole way, looking for that building. Right? I mean, if that's the building you saw, maybe it was for a good reason. Or did you see a whole lot of buildings, or a whole city, or what?"
I groan inwardly. Trust Nudge to make everything complicated. Thankfully, Max says "Just that building," and relief floods me. The feeling is temporary; soon being overrun by my nerves. My hands are shaking, my ears buzzing. On one hand, we were maybe about to find out about who we were, and God knows that we all wanted that more than anything. On the other hand, it felt like we were basically poking a sleeping dragon, knowing that if it woke up it would turn into a bunch of whitecoats and start experimenting on us again. And God knows that that is the last thing we want.
We start to walk again. Conveniently, as we pass a vendor selling Polish sausage, Gaz says, "So do we have money? I hope?"
"Maybe," Max says, digging in her pocket and coming up with the bank card. "What do you think?" she asks me, turning it so that it catches the light. "Should we try this?"
"Well, we need money, for sure," I say, unable to take my eyes of the glinting gold card. "But it might be a trap, a way for them to track where we are and what we're doing."
"Yeah." Max frowns and then falls into silence. Shaking her head, she takes a deep breath and swerves over to an ATM, the rest of us trailing uncertainly behind her. She punches in a passcode (with her middle finger, remember?) and we all hold our breath, letting out a disappointed sigh when it beeps in error at us.
She then tries our ages. I swivel around and watch the crowd, keeping an eye out, not wanting to see her disappointed face as she fails again and again.
Finally, the machine shuts down and beeps a couple more times. Gaz lets out a really disappointed-sounding sigh, glancing longingly at a vendor behind us. I shake my head fondly as Max spins on her heel and marches off to the next machine.
"What about, like, the first initial of all of our names?" Gaz suggests.
"Maybe it's something like 'givememoney,'" Nudge says solemnly.
Max smiles at her. "It has to be shorter than that."
At the next machine, she punches in the first initials of our names: MFINGA. I frown. Does it have to be in that order? I wonder. In my head, I rearrange the letters, then almost fall over in surprise when I realize that they can be rearranged to spell out I'M FANG.
Like a boss.
She drags us to three more ATMs before stopping in frustration, shaking her head. "I don't know what to do," she admits, sounding surprised at herself for even saying those words.
Angel looks up tiredly, sadly. "Why don't you try 'mother'?" she asks, her voice dejected.
"Why do you think that?" Max asks, watching the younger girl trace a crack in the sidewalk with the toe of her sneaker. Angel shrugs, her arms moving to hold her little bear and then falling emptily at her sides.
I glance at Max, shrugging. What had we got to lose? If they were trying to track us, then we'd given them enough of a lead with our wandering from machine to machine. She turned to the ATM and swiped the card, slowly and accurately punching the numbers. I held my breath, keeping my eyes on Max's face, which was suddenly flooded with shock.
Quickly, I looked at the screen.
WHAT KIND OF TRANSACTION DO YOU WANT TO MAKE?
Speechless, Max takes out $200 and folds it carefully into her pocket. We move speedily away from the machine.
"How did you know that?" I ask Angel, struggling to keep my voice under control.
Angel shrugs again, her whole body drooping. "It just came to me," she says quietly.
"In a voice?" Max asks warily, and I glance at her.
Angel shakes her head. "The word was just in my head. I don't know why."
Max looks back at me, this time, and worry is clear in her eyes. I know what she's thinking. When Angel was at the school for those few days, what exactly had they done to her?
We turn onto Thirty-first Street. I feel like I've just drank a Grande from Starbucks, infused with extra caffeine. All my senses are hyperaware, and nerves are making me feel a bit nauseous. Did I really even care about my parents? I mean, my mom… I swallow hard.
We walk and walk, examining the buildings and glancing at Max for confirmation. With every shake of her head, we become wound tighter and tighter, and everyone knows what Nudge does when she's nervous.
"I wonder what the Institute is like," she says, sounding jittery. "I guess it's like the School. Will we have to break in? How do they hide the Erasers from all the normal people? What kind of files do you think they have? Like actual parent names, you think?"
"For God's sake, Nudge, my ears are bleeding!" As demonstrated, when Iggy gets nervous he gets mean.
Max puts her arms around Nudge's shoulders as her face droops. "I know you're worried," she says, "I am too."
Nudge smiles at Max, but it's lost on her. The older girl stops, staring up at a building in front of her. I look too, my eyes taking in a tall, old-fashion-y, greenish building.
"Is this it?" Ig asks, feeling Gaz stop.
"Yep," Max says, trying to sound strong. "Are we ready?"
"Aye, Captain!" Ig shouts, and salutes her firmly. She rolls her eyes as we march up the stairs and push through shiny gold revolving doors and into the dark-wood lobby filled with obnoxious tropical plants. A woman is seated at a desk on one end, typing rapidly on her laptop; across the way a security guard was also seated with his feet propped up, munching on Dunkin' Donuts.
"Here." I gesture to a directory near the wall, listing each business housed in the 45 story building. We walk over and scan the sign.
There is no Institute for Higher Living, or any institutes of any kind.
Well, that was rather anticlimactic. I feel all the adrenaline rush from my system. Gaz deflates like a balloon; thank god he didn't feel the need to actually let out the air.
Max walks over to the woman receptionist, who looks up, an irritated expression passing over her face. "Excuse me," Max says politely, "are there any other companies in this building that aren't on the board?"
"No," says the receptionist shortly, and goes back to typing. All of us now irritated, we turn and make to walk out when the lady makes a sound of surprise. Max stops and turns back, so I did too.
The lady's computer screen has cleared. Where once there was something that I'm sure was incredibly important, there is now a message in big red letters. There's A Pot of Gold Beneath Every Rainbow, it says, before the message breaks up.
The woman can only stare at her computer in shock while Max looks into the distance with a calculating expression on her face. "Does this building have a basement?" she asks.
The lady looks us over again, harder this time. "Who are you? What do you want?" she asks angrily. She lifts her chin and catches the eye of the burly security guard, who swings his legs down from the desk and wipes his mouth.
"Never mind," Max mutters angrily. She herds us towards the doors, and as we get through and the guard catches up, she jams a ballpoint pen into the door and the guard smashes into the glass.
We hit the ground running. Lungs burning, we raced for a couple of blocks before slowing and checking for cops or anything.
Without warning, Gaz turns and punches a mailbox. "This sucks!" he shouts. "Nothing ever goes right! We get hassled everywhere! Max's head is busted, Angel lost Celeste, we're all hungry – I hate this! I hate everything!"
Shock passes fleetingly across my face. Max picks her jaw up from the floor and goes over to Gaz, putting her hand on his shoulder, but he pushes her away and bursts into tears. Shifting uncomfortably as the rest of the flock gathers around, I turn away. Max steps forward and gathers him up into her arms, smoothing his hair back from his forehead and resting her head on top of his, just holding him tightly. It's so sweet, I think I'm going to get diabetes.
"I'm sorry, Gazzy," she murmurs. "You're right. This has really sucked. I know it's hard sometimes. Listen, what would make you feel better right now?"
He sniffs and straightens, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "Really?" he asks, sounding very small.
"Really."
"Well, I just want – I just want to, like, sit down somewhere and eat a lot of food. Not just get food while we're walking. I want to sit down and rest and eat."
Max looks solemnly at him. "I think that can be arranged."
"This looks great!"
Gaz is so excited he's nearly hopping up and down, Nudge style. Just looking at it is making me paranoid.
We're standing outside a restaurant, called Garden Tavern. It's big, flashy, expensive-looking and very conspicuous. It's the kind of place that you dress up for, bring the whole family, have a wine list longer than the actual menu. And this is where Gaz wanted to eat.
I glance at Max. She's grinding her teeth, but she can't complain. She promised him anything he wanted, and this is what he wanted, and now she's stuck with it.
"Uh, okay," she says. I step forward and pull open the door, heavy and solid.
"Whoa," says Nudge.
Three rooms are visible from the reception area where we're standing, each more extravagant than the last. The first is the Prism Room, which is basically dripping with crystals. We'd end up breaking something for sure, and I cross my fingers that we won't get put there. The second room is the Garden Room, which is basically a richie version of the Rainforest Café. And the last room was the Castle Room, which is regal-looking and has an open fireplace big enough for Hansel, Gretel and the witch. All three have ceilings that soar above us, similar to Saint Patrick's Cathedral, but somehow less impressive and awesome.
"May I help you?" asks a blond woman with the body of a supermodel. She smiles at us and then looks to see who we're there with. "Are you waiting for your parents?"
"No," Max says sweetly. "There's just us. Can we have a table for six, please? I'm treating everybody with my birthday money." She smiles sweet enough to give me a cavity.
"Um, okay," says the hostess, and leads us to a table in the Castle Room. Too close to the fire, in my opinion. Well, if we get attacked by Erasers I guess they can add roast wolf to the menu.
The hostess passes us menus; large, fancy, mostly just for decoration. "Jason will be your server today," she says, giving us one more uncertain glance as we scramble into our seats with the ungainly air of pigs in a king's court, before leaving.
"Max, this is so, so great," Nudge gushes, opening her enormous menu. "This is the nicest place we've ever eaten!"
Miserably, I begin to read off things to Ig, who is looking just as awful as me and Max. The younger three are so happy it's like someone had announced that Christmas would now be twice a year. Us older kids know better. This place is too crowded. We stick out like the pink patch on the butt of Nudge's blue jeans. And it's so loud.
"Are you waiting for your parents?" Case in point - our waiter, Jason, had arrived and I hadn't even noticed. He now stood next to Iggy, with a pad in his hand. I didn't miss the fact that he was a ginger with half a bottle of grease in his hair.
"No, there's just us," Max says.
He frowns a little bit and gives us a once-over. "Ah. Are you ready to order?"
"Anyone know what they want?" Max asks the table in general.
Gaz looks up. "How many chicken tenders are on a plate?" he asks innocently.
A pained expression crosses Jason's face. "I believe there are four."
"I better have two orders, then," Gaz says decisively. "And this fruit cocktail. And two glasses of milk."
"Two orders for yourself?" Jason asks disbelievingly.
"With fries. To start." Gaz nods.
"I want a hot-fudge sundae," Angel says eagerly.
"Real food first," Max says with a little frown. "You need fuel."
"Okay." Angel agrees readily, then blinks and looks at Jason. "We're not spoiled rich brats," she told him peaceably. "We're just hungry."
Jason jumps, then looked uncomfortable. Angel didn't notice; she returned to her menu. "I want this prime rib thing," she says, reading the list. "And all this stuff that goes with it. And a soda. And lemonade."
"The prime rib is sixteen ounces," Jason says, sounding irritated. "It's a pound of meat."
"Uh-huh," Angel says, wondering what he's getting at.
"She can handle it," Max says, trying to hurry it along. "She's a big eater. Nudge? What do you want?"
"The lasagna primavera," Nudge says, still scanning the menu. "I might need two. It comes with salad, right? And bread? Some milk. Okay?" She glances at Max for confirmation, and Max nods reassuringly.
Jason just stands there like he doesn't know what to do with himself. "Two lasagnas?"
"You might want to start writing this stuff down," Max suggests, waiting until he's written down everyone's orders before telling him what she wants. "I'll start with the shrimp cocktail. Then the maple-glazed roast pork loin, with the cabbage and potatoes and everything. The house salad with bleu cheese dressing. And a lemonade and an iced tea."
Jason writes it all down as if he's enduring an hour-long eye poke.
"The lobster bisque," I say, scanning the menu. "Then the prime rib. A big bottle of water."
"The spaghetti and meatballs," Ig says.
"That's on the children's menu," says the waiter impatiently. "For our patrons twelve and under."
Ig looks ticked off.
"How about the rack of lamb?" Max says quickly, trying to salvage the situation and save the man from Ig's awful temper. "It comes with potatoes and spinach, and a merlot-rosemary sauce."
"Fine, okay," Ig says, his irritation clear in his voice. "Plus a couple glasses of milk and some bread."
Jason doesn't even write it down. He just lowers his pad and stares at us. "This is a great deal of food for just the six of you," he says. "Maybe you've over ordered."
"I understand your concern," Max says, a hint of frustration showing through her voice as she struggled to keep up her polite façade. "But it's okay. Just bring it, please."
"You'll have to pay for all of it, whether you eat it or not."
"Yeah, that's usually how a restaurant works." Her words are slow and exaggerated, as if she's talking to a cranky three-year-old.
"This is going to really add up," he persists.
"I get it," Max says, finally letting her anger get the best of her. "I get the concept. Food costs money. Lots of food costs lots of money. Just bring us what we ordered. Please."
Jason glares and walks away toward the kitchen on stiff legs.
"I love this place," I say with a straight face.
"Did we order too much?" Angel asks, worried.
"No," Max reassures her. "It's fine. I guess they're not used to hearty eaters."
An underling brings us some bread and olive oil, setting them skeptically down on the table. Anger rises inside me as she leaves and a man with a suit and tie appears beside Max, Jason at his elbow.
"Good afternoon," he says politely.
"Hello…?" Max says warily.
"I am the manager. Is there something I can help you with?" he asks pleasantly. I roll my eyes. Wow, we're special enough to bring out the manager?
"Well, I don't think so," Max says, obviously confused. "Unless the kitchen is out of something we ordered."
"Yes, well," says the manager, a vein throbbing in his temple. "You seem to have ordered an unusual quantity of food. We wouldn't want you to be wasteful with it, or present you with a shocking bill because your eyes were bigger than your stomachs." The laugh he gives is as artificial as a cherry lollipop.
"Well, that is just so sweet of you. But we're pretty hungry. It seems like we should just order and get what we ordered, you know?"
"Perhaps you would be happier in some other restaurant," the manager says, struggling to keep a patient face. "Broadway is nearby."
"No freaking duh," Max snaps."But we're in this one and we're hungry. Now, I have the money, and we brought our appetites with us; are you going to give us what we ordered or not?"
The manager's face twists. "Not, I believe," he says, signaling to a security guy. Max groans and robs her forehead.
"This is stupid," Ig says furiously. "Let's just split. Gasser, we'll go somewhere that isn't run by Nazis, okay?"
"Okay," says Gaz uncertainly.
Angel looks at the manager with wide eyes. "Jason thinks you're full of hot air and that you smell like a sissy," she says innocently. "And what's a himbo?"
Jason turns red and chokes. The manager turns to glare at him.
"Fine," Max says, throwing down her napkin and pushing back her chair violently so that it falls with a bang. "We're going. The food's probably lousy here, anyway."
It's around that time that the cops show up.
They just can't get enough of us today, apparently.
I look around; all the entrances and exits are blocked by the boys in blue. Reluctantly, I realize that the only way out is up. "Up and away," I say, not bothering to keep my voice down, and Max nods. Gaz looks excited, grinning.
"Right, kids," says a female cop, weaving her way through astonished diners, "you have to come with us. We'll call your folks down at the station."
Jason smiles smugly, sending Max over the top. She snatches up the bowl of olive oil, overturning it on his ginger, greasy head. His mouth opens in shock as the dressing streaks down his face.
Max throws down the bowl and jumps on a chair, to the table, and snapping out her wings, soaring above the heads of the onlookers. Angel joins her next, followed by Ig, Gaz, and Nudge. I make sure that Max isn't looking and then raise my middle finger with feeling to Jason's shocked face, before opening my own wings and joining the others.
"Jerk!" Gaz yells, and pelts the manager with bits of bread. I circle the ceiling, not wasting my time laughing at the dumbstruck people in the restaurant below, searching for a way out.
"Up here!" I yell, pointing to a stained-glass panel in the ceiling.
"Come on, guys!" Max says. I look down – and see flashes going off from cameras. SHIT. "Let's go!"
I duck my head, cover it with my arms, and give a powerful swoop with my wings, straight up towards the stained glass. It shatters beneath me, leaving shallow cuts all over my arms and glittery dust in my hair and on my wings, and I shoot straight up into the sky.
The rest of the flock soon follows, one after another, through the hole that I made and out into the foggy afternoon.
"To the trees," Max says, and I nod and wheel around in a circle north.
"Dang it," Gaz says dejectedly. The three of us boys are in the front, with the girls a little bit behind us, out of earshot.
"It's okay," Ig says loudly. "He was an asshole, anyway."
Gaz grins delightedly, like he does whenever Ig or I swear.
We drop down in a tall maple tree, breathing hard from excitement.
"That went well," I say conversationally, brushing off my shoulders. I bend over and ruffle my hair, watching glass dust fall from it with interest.
"It was my fault," mumbles Gaz. He has chocolate on his face. When did he get chocolate? Why was I not offered any? "I'm the one who wanted to go there."
"It was their fault, Gazzy." Max reassures him. "I bet those weren't even real cops. They had an eau de School air about them."
"You didn't think before you dumped the olive oil on the waiter, did you?" I ask, earning myself a glare.
"I'm still…" Nudge lets her voice trail off. Thank you, Nudge, for growing a brain; now is not the time to mention your hunger.
"People were taking pictures," Ig says.
"Yeah," Max agrees miserably. "As an unqualified disaster, this ranks right up there."
"And it's getting worse," says a smooth, gravelly voice.
I jump and look down. My heart picks up a pace as I see what's down there on the ground.
Our tree is surrounded by Erasers. And get this! One of them is Ari.
This is one of those moments that's so awful that you kind of have a large desire to laugh at the horrible irony of your life.
"You keep showing up like a bad penny," Max says jauntily.
"I was about to say the same thing about you," Ari replies with a crooked smile. And not the crooked, lovely, attractive smile of Edward the Meyerpire. An awful, chills-down-your-spine crooked smile.
"I remember back when you were three years old," Max says with fake cheer. "You were so cute – before you got huge and wolfy."
"Like you ever paid attention to me," he says, his voice coated with sincere bitterness. "I was trapped in that place too, but you shut me out."
Max's jaw drops. "But you were normal," she blurts. "And Jeb's son."
Fuel on the fire. "Yeah, Jeb's son," Ari snarls. "Like he even knows I'm alive! What did you think happened to me while you were off playing house with my father? Did you think I just disappeared?"
"Okay, there's one knot unraveled," I mutter under my breath.
"Ari, I was ten years old," Max says, sounding like she's trying to understand. "Is all this back history why you're tracking us now? Why you're trying to kill us?"
Ari spits on the ground. "Of course not. I'm tracking you 'cause that's my job. The back history is helping me enjoy it."
Max flips him off.
Ari grins and begins to morph, his smile stretching, breaking in half like a dog's. He pulls one furry, taloned hand – one furry, taloned paw – from behind his back and shows us what he's holding.
"Celeste!" Angel cries, and begins to scramble down the tree. At the same time, Max and I yell, "Angel, no!" and "Stay put!" But she ignores us and jumps lightly to the ground. The second her feet touch the grass, the Erasers behind Ari start to move forward, but Ari holds them back. All their eyes are glued to Angel.
Ari shakes the bear in his hand, like he's playing with a puppy, and Angel steps forward. Max is on the ground in a heartbeat, making the Erasers surge forward again; but again, Ari holds them back.
"Touch her and I'll kill you," Max vows, fisting her hands.
Ari smirks and shakes Celeste once more.
"Give me the bear," Angel says, her voice dark and more than a little bit creepy. Ari, however, just laughs, and Angel starts to take another step before Max grabs her collar.
"Give. Me. The. Bear." Angel's voice sounds strange, not like herself at all. Her blue eyes are locked on Ari's wolfy ones, and as I watch, his smile slips off of his face like melted butter, and his whole face looks confused.
"You're –" Ari stops, seeming to choke, and his hand goes to his throat. "You're –"
Is she now Darth Vader?
"Drop the bear now," Angel says, her voice dead.
Without his permission, the clawed hands struggle open, and the bear falls to the ground. Quick as a wink, Angel darts forward, grabs it, and then is back up in the tree with us.
A second later, the Erasers spring into action, but Ari holds them back yet again, his face half irritated and half surprised.
"You have your orders!" he – literally – barks at the rest of the Erasers as one crashes into his arm. "Don't ever question them!" He turns and looks back at Max, still talking to the team, but staring right at her. "You can't question them. Even if they seem stupid. Even if you'd rather just rip the flock apart."
One of the Erasers makes a hungry-sounding noise that makes the hair on the back of my neck rise.
Ari leans in close to Max, who freezes. My whole body goes tense. "Your day is coming, bird girl," he whispers in her ear. "And I'm going to finish you off myself."
"Don't sharpen your fangs just yet, dog boy."
Ari narrows his eyes and opens his mouth as if he's going to say more, but then he tenses and presses a long finger to his ear as if listening to an implanted headpiece. "The Director wants to see us," he says to his team, backing away from Max. "Now!"
And just like that, they were gone.
Max rejoins us in the tree, looking harried and stressed. She settles down and leans back with a sigh, closing her eyes.
"I heard them mention the Director at the School," Nudge says. "Who is it?"
Max shrugs. "Some big, very bad person." She tries to look nonchalant, but I can see the worry eating away at her eyes.
"You okay?" Ig asks tensely, his hands gripping the branch tightly, making his knuckles go white. Max stretches out her boot and gives him a gentle tap on the shin with her toe.
"Hunky-dory," she says. "But I want to get out of here right now."
We all stretch and then take flight again, soaring above the now-dark city before settling on the top floor of a skeletal apartment building, still under construction. Ninety stories up, it's as close to sleeping while flying as we'll probably ever get. As soon as we get there, Angel, Nudge and Max split to grab some groceries at a grocery down the street, leaving us three boys alone in the apartment.
"God, what a day," Ig says, lying back on the plywood floor and folding his hands behind his head.
"I know, right?" Gaz says cheerfully. "We got chased by cops, like, three times! That's got to be some kind of record, guys!"
"I feel like I'm on a TV show," I say tiredly. "This stuff doesn't happen in real life, right?"
"Apparently, it does," Ig says, closing his eyes. He lifts his feet and props them on Gaz's back. We sit in silence for a bit, until…
"Hey, Fang!" Gaz says deviously. Uh oh.
"…Yes?"
"You still don't have a shirt, right?"
Jesus Christ. "Not this again," I say, irritated. "You aren't going to make me 'fess up again, are you? Wasn't once enough?"
"Once is never enough," Gaz says eerily. He stands up, making Ig's feet fall to the floor with a loud thump. Advancing towards me, he says, in a perfect imitation of Peter Lorry, "I'm coming for you. I will make you say it again and again!"
I quickly pull off my jacket, wad it up and throw it at him. He ducks and the article of clothing goes flying back into the corner.
"I'll get it later," I say, lying back and folding my arms behind my head. I close my eyes, peacefully enjoying the silence.
"FANG HAS ARMPIT HAIR! ! !"
"Excuse me?"
Crap. That's Max's voice. I sit up so fast that my vision goes black for a second, to see Gaz grinning evilly and the girls standing framed by the skeletal walls.
"GAZ~!" I lunge for him, but he dodges me. Ig's laughing so hard I'm worried he's going to throw up. Or I would be worried if he hadn't humiliated me so bad in front of Max.
"Fang has what?" Max says, sounding interested.
"Fang has nothing!" I say.
"Fang has armpit hair!" Gaz cheers. He scuttles away and hides behind Nudge, peeking out to see my enraged expression.
"Where's your shirt?" Angel asks.
"I burned it," I say shortly. "A while ago."
There's a short pause in which Max sets down her groceries and sighs. "Well, all armpit hair aside," she says, and I can see that she's struggling not to blush, "we have food. So everyone can chow down now, and um, Fang…" She avoids my eyes.
"Okay," I interrupt her, "let's eat, everyone."
I shoulder my way past the other girls and open the grocery bag, peering inside to see what food we have. On my way back to my spot, I kick Ig, whose shoulders are still shaking in silent laughter.
"Shut up," I hiss. "I bet you have even more armpit hair than me."
He stops laughing and looks at me seriously. "Of course I do."
Then he collapses again.
Needless to say, it's one of the most awkward meals I've ever partaken in. I really want to go get my jacket and burrow deep inside it, but that's like accepting defeat. Damn you, Gaz! He did this on purpose!
"I'm tired," Angel says at some point. "I want to go to bed."
"Yeah, let's try to get some sleep," Max says, still avoiding my eyes. "It's been a long, relatively yucky day." She holds out her fist, and we all stack 'n' tap.
Then she and Gaz clear away construction debris while Ig and I begin to move heavy drywall to block the wind.
"Oh, my God, Gaz. You're right!" Nudge drawls from across the room. Without even looking, I know what she's talking about and resist the urge to clamp my elbows to my sides. A slow grin is spreading across Ig's face, and I lock my jaw and grind my teeth.
"Fang, when'd you get so ripped?" Gaz sniggers.
I drop the drywall abruptly. "What is this? Pick on Fang day?" I exclaim. I storm over to the corner where my jacket lay and huffily zip it up over my body, ignoring the laughter that follows me as I angrily drag the rest of the drywall into place, and then lay down.
In a couple more minutes we're all fast asleep.
"Fang! Fang! Look at this!"
Nudge's shriek propels me from awake to asleep with painful accuracy. Déjà vu, much…? I blink groggily and raise my head from where it was resting on my arms, taking in the scene.
Nudge, Gaz, and Angel have obviously been out and about. Ig and me are both bleary, just waking up; and Max is still completely asleep. I spare her a quick glance before turning my attention to Nudge, who has thrust something into my face.
"We went to get breakfast and we saw these papers - !"
"Wait. Hold up." I raise a hand and sit up. "You three went out by yourselves?"
"Uh…yeah?" Nudge says, wondering what I was getting at.
"Max is going to kill us!" Ig groans, letting it sink in.
Nudge's face falls. "Oh, no…"
"Okay. We were with you. Right, Ig?" I glance at him to see him looking relieved. "Right." I now turn my attention to the papers in Nudge's hands.
She has four different newspapers. Plastered to the front pages of each one are large, grainy pictures of us swooping merrily above the Castle Room under screaming headlines. "MIRACLE OR ILLUSION? SUPERHUMANS OR GENETIC FREAKS?" is just one of them.
I laugh drily and toss it aside. "Well, we're really up the creek now."
"Wha'…?"
I grab a muffin and take a bite as Max blinks awake. "We got breakfast," I say, shooting a glance at Nudge to see her grateful expression. "You were out for the count."
She blearily grabs a muffin for herself, taking a bite before pausing. Crumbs dribble down her chin. "What else?" she asks, sounding more alert.
I nod toward the newspapers.
"I figured you got 'em for the comics," she says, her voice interested as she pulls the pile closer and studies them. Her face drops; she looks like she's been punched in the stomach.
"Saw them when we were out," I say, draining my juice. "Guess we better lie low for a while."
"Yes, thank you, Tonto," Max says, irritation and strain running through her voice. Finally she sets the papers down, sighing, and picks up her muffin again.
"The upshot is, we might as well glow in the dark in terms of staying inconspicuous," she says, sound really frustrated. "So it looks like it's ix-nay on the Institute, at least for a while."
"Maybe we could wear disguises," Gaz suggests.
"Yeah, like glasses and funny noses," Angel adds.
Max smiles tiredly at them. "You think?" she says, and ruffles Angel's hair.
After that she stops pretending and finishes her breakfast in a sullen silence. We stayed up in the apartment until around noon, when we had to leave again to get some food. Unfortunately, we hadn't managed to get our grubby little paws on any funny glasses with noses, so we went as-is.
Venturing into a deli, we basically grabbed as much food as was physically possible to carry before walking back out into the sun. "So I'm thinking we should leave the city as soon as it gets dark," Max says to me.
I nod. "Where to?"
"Not too far," she says, looking off into the distance. "I'm still bent on getting to the bottom of the Institute, so to speak. Maybe upstate a bit? Or somewhere by the ocean?"
"You!"
Max recoils, Nudge bumping into her. I freeze and turn slowly towards the voice, which was coming from a young guy with a Mohawk, lots of facial piercings, and tattoos. "You guys are perfect!" he says excitedly, waving his arm.
Yep, definitely gay.
"Perfect for what?" I say with deadly calm, following his arm. He's waving toward a store with a sign out front reading, U 'Do: Tomorrow's Styles Today.
"We're having a makeover fest!" says the guy, still sounding over-the-top excited. "You guys can have total makeovers for free – as long as your stylist gets to do whatever he or she wants."
"Like what?" Nudge asks, eyeing the store with interest.
"Makeup, hairstyle, everything!" vows the guy. "Except tattoos. We'd need a note from your parents."
"So that's out," Max mutters.
"I want to do it!" Nudge squeals. "It sounds so fun! Can we do it, Max? I want a makeover!"
"Uh…" Max stops when her gaze lands on something and an enlightened look comes over her face. "I'm up for it," she says briskly. My surprise must be evident on my face, because she catches my eye and says, "We'd love to be made over. Make us look completely different."
O.o…FANG HAS ARMPIT HAIR! :D R&R