/faint screaming in the distance/ I am so sorry guys. I swear I'm trying to update, but once I finally had time this week to update, I wasn't sure where I even wanted this story to go. /pulls out hair/ But that's not an excuse so my apologies, friends.
Thank you for sticking with me thus far, and thank you for following/favoriting/reviewing! I honestly never expected to have this one-shot spin off into a series.
Feel free to leave me a comment as to what you think so far and/or any suggestions for future chapters. Thanks for reading!
Cheers~
My ears are ringing. I struggle to get my bearings before something hard barrels into me, pinning me to the wall. My eyes are squeezed shut, and I crack them open to see that Nick had me, Fang, and Iggy pinned against the wall, bullets pinging against his metal back before clattering onto the floor. I vaguely wonder how he had appeared so suddenly. Nick had left the home two days ago and hadn't come back since.
The room is filled with armed men and women dressed in all black. The majority of them are holding guns, and I can see that some of them have more weapons hanging off their belts. They seem to be shooting at us, and a closer look at the ground tells me that they aren't bullets.
They are tranquilizers.
My stomach drops. No law enforcement group would crash through the ceiling and randomly start firing tranquilizers at a few teenagers.
I can't hear anything. My ears seem to have given up, a fuzz descending upon my mind. But my eyes still work. I see Nick's mouth open in what seems like a yell. Iggy has his fists clenched by his sides, and he's frozen up next to me. Fang is facing away from me, and I can feel his wings pushing against his clothing into me. There's a flash from our left, and several people wearing all black, collapse onto the ground, dear or unconscious, I can't tell.
Then I see Tara, merely a flash of colour, flitting around the room. Leo's on the far side of the room, pouncing on two men and knocking them out. One creeps up behind him. I'm about to let out a squeak when a tail flicks up from behind Leo and wraps itself around the man's neck. Within seconds, Leo's… tail releases the man. Leo's eyes glow an unnatural orange before pouncing on another man, his tail swishing about behind him. The man he was holding falls to the ground, presumably dead.
It seems like a lifetime later, but the last person finally falls to the ground, and Nick pushes off the wall, releasing us. "Report," he grunts.
"I'm good," Leo mutters, wiping bloody fingertips against a woman's arm. His fingernails have sharpened into claws, and fangs poke out from under his lips. As I watch, they shrink and become regular teeth and nails. His tail stays swaying behind him though.
"Good," Tara says, coming to a stop beside Nick, her form vibrating slightly.
Fang eyes narrow as he looks around the room, "How did you guys find us so quickly? We weren't going to meet until Wednesday." I realize that I don't even know what day it is.
Nick shrugs, "Tara was in the area and saw their van parked outside this place. She caught a hole of us and we just got here in time." He grimaces and reaches his arm behind him to dig a bullet out of his side.
Fang spies the movement and takes Nick's arm, leading the other teenager to the couch, "Sit. I'll get you patched up."
"How did they even find this place?" Iggy manages to mumble. I keep silent, waiting for someone to magically come up with an explanation.
"I don't know," Fang mutters. Well so much for an explanation. "This place hasn't been used in forever, and there are no security cameras, nothing in the area to track from.
Iggy whips his head to the side, and the movement draws everyone's attention to him. He strides over to one of the men, who is just starting to stir, and kicks the man's gun away from him. Leo comes up next to Iggy, and pounces on the man.
I wince a little as the man's scream pierces through the air. I hear Leo snarl, and realize that his claws must be unsheathed again. A shadow crosses Fang's face and he stalks over to the man. He crouches next to the man, and cocks his head.
"How did you find us?" The question is posed as a statement. Fang's voice is soft and dangerous. I find myself worrying for the man, out of all things. After all, Leo has him pinned to the ground, and Fang looks deadly.
The man blubbers something about a microchip, and he glances over at me. Microchip? Fang looks over with me, concern bubbling over.
Everyone else looks at me, Tara with slightly narrowed eyes, but otherwise, they all seem concerned for me, rather than for their own safety.
I guess I was right that I would hurt them.
Fang glares back down at the man, who looks like he'd like nothing more than to sink into the ground.
"Where did they plant it?" he growls.
The man visibly shuddered before shaking his head, "I don't-"
A quick punch to the face by Fang stopped the man's next words, and knocked him unconscious.
He turned to Iggy with a question on his face. I grimace and look down, knowing what was coming next.
Iggy stares at me, and he squints, his eyes narrowing. He shakes his head slowly before stopping short.
"I… I wasn't looking for anything metallic inside of her before. It was mostly just seeing the amount of chemicals still in her," Iggy says shakily.
Slowly and tenderly, Iggy takes my left wrist. And then I feel it. A tiny little pulse right above my elbow. My eyes lock onto my arm and I almost stop breathing. All eyes are on me.
"I told you I can't stay here with you." My voice is a guilt-ridden whisper, my eyes downcast.
Nobody says anything for a few moments. Fang sits by my side and Iggy crouches by my feet, his hand on my knee.
"You're not going anywhere," Iggy says firmly. I glance up to see Nick and Leo's supportive smiles, and Tara's wary glance.
Fang takes my hand, and I flinch. "I don't know if it'll come back," I mutter, trying to pull away. Fang just holds on, and his thumb brushes across my knuckles. The movement is so familiar that I stop. It is only when I stop trying to pry his fingers off that he speaks, so quietly that I know it's only meant for me to hear, "I don't care," he says simply.
I run my fingers up my left arm, brushing over the spot where I had felt the small pulse. A shock runs up my arm as I feel the barely-there ridges where the microchip is. An almost uncontrollable urge to rip it out of my arm washes over me.
Iggy seems to read into the sudden tension rushing through my body, and he squeezes my knee briefly before moving away. "We'll find a way to get it out," he says.
"Without hurting you," he adds, seeing my fingers start to curl into blunt claws. Fang takes my other hand as well and stops me before I can scratch furiously as the microchip.
Silence falls in the room before Nick speaks up.
"We'll catch you sometime later, Fang," he says, about to herd the other two in the direction of the door.
"Don't," Fang says, raising his voice just enough to let them hear. "Stay. We have enough space for all of you."
Iggy draws our attention to the shattered ceiling. Fang shrugs. "It's not supposed to rain until next week. That gives us enough time to find another place to live. Besides, they're not going to come after us again, not just after they lost so many people." He nudges one body with his foot in disgust, unconscious or dead, I'm not sure.
Nick nods, "Sounds good."
The boys spend the next hour or so lugging the bodies away from the building, the task made easy with Nick and Fang's superhuman strength. They made sure to take everything they could use away from them, whether it was a gun, knife, or something else.
Tara buzzes around the mountain of supplies left in the middle of the room. I bite my lip, hesitant.
"Hey, Tara," I start, my voice so quiet I wonder if she even hears it above her buzzing. She looks at me, still wary.
"I… I'm sorry about the chip in my arm. I honestly didn't know it was even there. I didn't mean to cause so much trouble."
Her facial features relax minutely, and a tiny smile appears on her face, "I know. It's okay."
I nod twice and stare into my hands. I can hear her buzzing around again. Then she settles next to me. Her left hand is shaking slightly, but her right hand is steady as she hesitantly places it on my arm. "Hey, it's okay," she says as reassurance.
Her features have softened and I can see the realness behind her words. There's a part of her that's still wary of me, but she means what she says, I can tell that much.
I nod again, and she continues buzzing around after slowly slipping her hand from my arm.
Everything will be okay. You're not going to hurt anyone. You'll get this thing out of you, and everything will be fine.
My thoughts are calming, but I wonder if I'll ever believe them.