Nudge the Quileute2
Attempting to rescue Angel, finding out the truth about my past, getting separated from Max, returning to the School, rescuing Angel, and telling Angel the truth, well technically summarizing the truth
Nudge's POV
Max yelled over at me and Fang, "Are we clear on Plan B?" Fang silently nodded and I said, "Uh-uh. If we get separated somehow—though I don't see how we could unless one of us gets lost in a cloud—do you think that could happen? I haven't been inside a cloud before. I bet it's creepy. Can you see anything inside a cloud—...?" Then Max glared at me, and I quickly said, "We meet up at the northmost point of Lake Mead." Then she nodded at me and said, "And where's the School?" "In Death Valley, eight miles due north from Death Valley." Max said, "Good work, Nudge." Then I opened my mouth to say how it was ironic where the School was located and everything, but Max shot me her shut-up-now-Nudge look, so I did. Then Max and Fang started joking around and then I caught up with them. Turning my bright, intelligent, brown eyes toward Max, I said, "Max? I was thinking—I mean, right before we left? I just looked at Jeb's old files, you know? And some of them were about us. Or me. I saw my name on a page, my real name, Monique Amanda Black, who knew my name really was Monique Amanda Black, I'd just made that name up when I was arguing with Sam Uley—the other Alpha wolf from La Push, the tiny Quileute Native American Reservation down on the coast, fifteen miles south of the wet and rainy town of Forks, Washington—and then, like, some people's names, and then — Tipisco, Arizona. Tipisco is right on the Arizona-California border — I found it on the map. Real tiny town, it looked like. Anyway, I was thinking, none of us ever knew our real parents, and you know, we've always wondered, or at least I mean I've always wondered, but I guess the rest of you have too, like, whether they gave me up voluntarily or whether—" Max looked at me and said, "Nudge. I know how you feel. But those names might not have anything to do with you. We don't know if we were just test-tube babies or what. Please. Let's focus on rescuing Angel." Frowning, I thought about what Max had said, but I still wanted to know anyway. Then she said, "Nudge?" Sighing in reluctant defeat, I said, "Yeah, okay. I was just thinking." Max knew that I was probably going to still try check out that address. Then she said to me, "Nudge why did Ed obey you when you told him to stay with Iggy and Gazzy?" Taking a deep breath, I said, "Yes, he is older than me, but I have the Alpha gene. My great-grandfather, Ephraim Black was the last Alpha, and I got the Alpha gene from him. Now if I was 100% human and I'm in my wolf form and I say something and really mean it, Embry, I mean Ed, can't just ignore me. But since I'm 48% human, 50% Quileute, and 2% bird, apparently, I can also carry the Alpha's double timbre over to my human form as well. So that's why Embry, Ed, had to obey me." Fang's eyes kind of widened and Max stared at me and then she said, "Whoa." I shrugged casually and acting like it wasn't all that important, I said, "Can we just get to the School and rescue Angel and then get home?" and then we continued to fly ten or twelve degrees southwest. Then Max asked me, "So, Ed's real name is Embry. Embry what?" I sighed and said, "Embry Call. It's a Quileute thing, but apparently he's Sam Uley's half-brother, but his mother was a Makah and he took her last name, instead of joining the Uleys as Sam's half-brother." Angel woke up and was sore all over. What had happened to Max and everyone else? The last thing that Angel consciously remembered was the flock fighting to save her. Then the awful scent filled her nose and she knew where exactly where she was—the dreaded, hated, School. Then she heard the thoughts of a couple nearby kids and she tried to become friends with them, but she ended up scaring them instead and the whitecoats took her to Lab 7 for experiments. Iggy, Gazzy, and Ed began to plan ways to eliminate the Erasers, once and for all. I kept flying, even though I was really hungry and wanted to stop for food. Finally, I said, "Max, I'm starving." Max groaned and said, "Okay, okay. We need food." Then she said, "Fang, we need food. We need to refuel." They thought for a little while and then we stopped at someone's ski vacation home. We spent the night there and Gazzy, Embry, and Iggy set up an oil slick on one of the old abandoned logging roads that ran near our house. The Hummer was almost completely wrecked and Angel was sore from getting blood drawn and being shocked during a running experiment. Gazzy, Embry, and Iggy also set off a bomb, Big Boy, in the old rotten cabin that served as our playground, killing the two Erasers that had followed them. The next morning, Max rushed us out the window of the vacation home where we'd stayed and we flew towards the School, again, to rescue Angel. Then she left us and went to be Supergirl, defender of the weak. She got hurt and stayed with the girl who she saved, and rejoined us, three days later. Fang and I went to Lake Mead, stayed there for a little while. While we were there, we learned how to fly like a real hawk. Then we circled back to find Max, and then tried to find my parents. He tried to talk me out of it, but I ignored him. I told him that if there was a chance that my parents wanted me back, I would take it, but as I thought about, I realized that they would freak out, because I had died eleven years. Then Ari, and a couple of other Erasers attacked, right behind the house where my parents might be. I shot to my feet and then said, "Ari, you were just a little kid. What did they do to you? I'm sorry, Ari." Of course, he rejected my compassion and concern, and told that us that everyone else in the flock was dead. I felt myself shaking, trembling violently, could feel my human form shifting, feel the need to shift to wolf coursing through my veins. One thought ran through my mind, "Iggy, my Iggy, he can't be dead. He can't just be dead. I love him. I need him." Tears streaming down my face, I shook my head back and forth, fighting the phase and I attacked the nearest Eraser. After that, Fang and I returned to our cliff home, that we shared with the hawks. We were discussing what to do next, when three unusually large and clumsy hawks flew toward us. When they landed and I saw that it was Iggy, Gazzy, and Embry, I was thrilled. "You're not dead." Iggy rolled his eyes and said, "No. You're not dead, either. How about just hello?" Gazzy grinned at us and said, "Hi, guys. We couldn't stay home, there's Erasers all over the mountain. We'd be dog meat by now. So I figured we'd come here. Anybody got a problem with that?" I flung myself at Iggy, tears, not of sadness this time, but of happiness, streaming down my face and hugged him, hard. I kissed his cheek, his neck, and clung to him. He hugged me back and whispered, "Shh, Nudge, shh. It's okay. It's okay. I'm fine, I'm fine." I slowly calmed down, but I continued to hold Iggy's hand. Then we all started flying around and then Max came back. We paused for a few brief seconds at Lake Mead and then flew off, towards the School. Max stole money from a jerk's bank account, and then borrowed some random guy's van. She was terrible at driving it, but we stopped in a little town called Bennett to get some food. Max reminded all of us that even though we were in the middle of nowhere, pretty much, Erasers could be anyone and anywhere. We stopped at a restaurant and we all got some fresh food, not out of a Dumpster. Fang, Iggy, and Embry all got three double cheeseburgers, a chocolate shake, a soda with caffeine and sugar, three fries and three apple pies. Max ordered for me, Gazzy, and herself. She stepped up and said, "Um, let's see. Can I have two fried-chicken sandwiches, two double cheeseburgers, four fries, six apple pies, two vanilla shakes, one strawberry shake, and then two triple cheeseburgers, only hold the hamburger?" We got the food that Max ordered and joined the others in the back. Then we had to run, because Erasers were on the attack. Max. Fang, and I were taken back to the School, but as I was dragged out of the van, I screamed, struggling to get the double timbre into my voice, "Embry, get Iggy and Gazzy out of here." Then those three escaped and probably went back to Lake Mead. When I saw that Angel was still alive, thankfully, I was suddenly confused. How to explain? How did I tell her that she and the rest of the flock were more human than me? How did I tell her that I was a protector, that the Erasers were only one of my enemies and that there were these people, called the cold ones, who were traditionally my enemies? Angel heard all this and leaning towards me, asked, "What's that all about?" I shrugged innocently and then thought at her, "I'll explain later." She nodded and Max, Fang, and I all found out that Jeb was alive. I shook my head back and forth, to keep from exploding into a wolf, and concentrated on remaining human. Max learned that she was designed to save the world and then we were taken to the yard in the back of the School. Max bit Ari and then freed Angel, and Embry, Iggy, and Gazzy attacked the School with their hawk army. We all escaped and raced back to Lake Mead. Then we had a reunion and then slept for a little while. Then it started raining and while we enjoyed the feeling of the rain running down our faces, I went over to Angel. She said, "Nudge, I'm sure you or Ed, won't think I'm crazy, but one of the whitecoats went to this place, Forks, Washington and met this family, the Cullens, and she didn't think they were fully human and I don't know why. Can you tell me?" I grimaced slightly and then said, "Yes, if you promise not to freak out." She nodded. I asked, "Do you know any of our old stories, about where we came from — the Quileutes, I mean?" Angel quickly and honestly said, "Not really." I shrugged and said, "Well, there are lots of legends, some of them claiming to date back to the Flood — supposedly, the ancient Quileutes tied their canoes to the tops of the tallest trees to survive like Noah and the ark." I frowned at Angel, abruptly and uncharacteristically, to show her how true all of these stories probably were. "Another legend claims that we descended from wolves — and that the wolves are our brothers still. It's against tribal law to kill them. Then there are the stories about the cold ones." Angel asked, "The cold ones?" I nodded and said, "Yes. There are stories of the cold ones as old as the wolf legends and some much more recent. According to legend, my own great-grandfather knew some of them. He was the one who made the treaty that kept them off our land." Angel wondered, "Your great-grandfather?" I sighed and said, "He was a tribal elder, like my uncle. You see, the cold ones are the natural enemies of the wolf — well, not the wolf, really, but the wolves that turn into men, like our ancestors. You would call them werewolves." "Werewolves have enemies?" "Only one. So you see, the cold ones are traditionally our enemies. But this pack that came to our territory during my great-grandfather's time was different. They didn't hunt the way others of their kind did — they weren't supposed to be dangerous to the tribe. So my great-grandfather made a truce with them. If they would promise to stay off our lands, we wouldn't expose them to the pale-faces." I grinned at Angel, suddenly, and then she asked, "If they weren't dangerous, then why...?" I sighed and launched back into my tale. "There's always a risk for humans to be around the cold ones, even if they're civilized like this clan was. You never know when they might get too hungry to resist." Angel said, "What do you mean, 'civilized'?" I nodded and said, "They claimed that they didn't hunt humans. They supposedly were somehow able to prey on animals instead." "So how does it fit in with the Cullens? Are they like the cold ones your great-grandfather met?" "No," I said, and then I took a deep breath, before I said, "They are the same ones. There are more of them now, a new female and a new male, but the rest are the same. In my great-grandfather's time they already knew of the leader, Carlisle. He'd been here and gone before your people had even arrived." Angel sighed and asked, "And what are they? What are the cold ones?" I shivered and in a cold voice, said, "Blood drinkers. Your people call them vampires." Then I brightened and said, "I'm sorry, if I scared you Angel." She merely smiled sweetly at me and then said, "It's fine, Nudge, but thanks for telling me, but what are you acting like I should take all of this so seriously?" I sighed and then remembered that I'd been expecting this. "I'm half-Quileute, Angel, remember? Those legends are my stories, are a part of who I am. That's the not the worst of it though. The truth is, all of those stories are probably, if not actually, true." "What do you mean, Nudge?" "I mean, that, since I'm half-Quileute, and my great-grandfather had the wolf gene, I have it, and since he was only half-human, I'm less human than you or Fang or Max or Gazzy, or my soulmate, Iggy, I'd imprinted on him, and my enemies are more than the just the Erasers—they include the cold ones now." Angel crossed her arms over her chest and then said, "Then the cold ones are our enemies too, an enemy of two members of the flock is everyone's enemy." The next day Angel said, "The main files on us are at a place in New York, called the Institute, The Living Institute or something like that, I think. Nudge, the whitecoats told your parents that you died." I frowned and said, "So that's why Sam said I'd died eleven years ago." Then Angel told Iggy that his mother died and I felt the familiar tremors that meant I needed to phase and instead of fighting it, I said, "Guys, I'll be running patrol, if you need me ." Then after I'd finished running patrol and informing Angel that no cold ones were near, I returned, in my wolf form and Iggy walked over to me and I thought, "Can I take Iggy running? Please, oh, please, oh, please, Max? I'll protect him and it'll help him cheer up somewhat and we really need some us time." Angel looked up and said, "I'll translate for you, Nudge. Can I take Iggy running? Please, oh, please, oh please, oh, please, Max? I'll protect him and it'll help him cheer up somewhat and we really need some us time." Max nodded and I ran over to Iggy. He scrambled onto my back and I crouched down and then I thought, "Hang on tight, Iggy," and then Angel said, "Iggy, she wants you to hold on tight." The two of us streaked off into the forest and then later we returned. Then she said, "Embry, your mother..." He interrupted and said, "Knows I exist. She had never believed the whitecoats, anyway." Then Angel told Gazzy that their parents had given the two of them away to the School for money, before she told Fang that his mother thought he had died and there was nothing about Max. We all went to sleep, but I curled next to Iggy, still in my wolf form and slept peacefully, knowing that my family was safe and that I was with my soulmate.