Chapter 7: Getting Aquainted
It's been a week since the girl, now known as Ember, started hanging out with us. The flock seems to like her a lot, especially Angel, Gazzy, and Total. They basically cling to her; going flying with her, learning tricks to make them better flyers. I often watched them, just out of curiosity. But sometimes, I'd catch myself staring at her; the small smile that would appear on her face, the glint in her eyes that she would get when she watched the others fly. I would notice her glance at me a few times, but she always looked away without a hint of an expression on her face. Angel still kept a loose watchful "eye" on Ember's thoughts, and it seemed that she was opening up a bit, even though there were some parts blocked off to Angel. Of course, when she brought this to my attention, I started to wonder what went through Ember's mind when she sat alone with her head in that notebook.
It's too quiet, so now you have too much time on your hands . . . I thought to myself as I watched the rest of the flock getting fish. I glanced at the computer, took a deep breath, and walked toward the tree that she was in.
"Yes?" she asked without looking up from her book, as if she could hear every step that I took.
Which is really hard to do.
Even Iggy has a hard time trying to pinpoint where I am at times, and he's the listening master.
"Could you turn on the computer . . . " I mumbled, looking at her fully extended wings; the dark golden brown feathers gently merging in with the darkening red, like raging flames, and then settling into a midnight black at the tips, as if the smouldering flames gave way to the overclouding smoke.
Her wings were so majestic, so beautiful, so mesmerizing, and when she flew ever so gracefully, she held them up proudly . . .
Stop that! I thought, mentally giving myself a slap across the head.
She finally glanced at me from over her shoulder and in seconds she was in front of me, her wings curling under her shirt. I blinked once,trying to keep the shock from my face, but she was already at the laptop by the time I had composed myself. I watched silently behind her as she typed in a password on the keyboard. The screen came to life with a background of a group of kittens staring back. I raised my eyebrows and stifled a laugh.
"Shut up" she said, a threatening tone entering her voice. I silenced myself as she opened up a file that said "hell". More files flashed on the screen, each having something to do with Itex. "I'm guessing this is what you wanted to see..." she said, looking at me as she stood up. I nodded to her before planting myself in front of the laptop; scanning, reading, and memorizing anything and everything that would be useful to use.
"Hey" I heard her mumble beside me. I looked up at her, noticing how tense she was; how her jaw clenched and unclenched. "I don't know about you, but this is the longest that I've gone without seeing at least one sign of an Eraser. They could be up to something..." she said before she walked away towards her bag and grabbed something out of it;it looked strangely like an Ipod.
She's right. This week has been way too quiet. I thought it was just me on edge, but she can sense it, too. Iggy isn't not too worried about it, but he knows something's wrong... I thought to myself.
And that's when my eyes landed on her notebook; the thing that she never let out of her sight was laying half opened on the branch where she was previously.i I looked around and saw her down by the lake,watching the flock with Ipod buds jammed into her ears.
This could be my only chance... I thought as I rushed up, quickly grabbed it, and went back to the laptop. I took a deep breath, as if expecting something to jump out at me and rip my head off. When I opened it, I realized that it was more a diary than anything. I read the very first entry to myself.
"Date: I don't know.
Time: Can't tell.
Dear diary,
Been about two weeks since I escaped from hell. Can still see images in my head every time i close my eyes. Picked up this pen. Realized I could write with it. Can't exactly read what I'm writing. My thoughts. Can't find my sister. Lost her during escape. I cry every day. Learning to garbage. McDonalds. Ate food. Tasted bad, but I ate. Really hungry. Head hurts. Sleep."
I skipped through most of the first couple of pages, either because the writing looked like chicken stratch or the language was so bad that i couldn't even understand it. But as i got farther into the middle, I started seeing drawings;beautiful drawings that captured a scene and made me feel as if I was actually there. I decided to read one of the more recent entries, just for kicks.
"Day? Don't know.
Iime? Night.
Place? Woods maybe, near a beautiful lake.
Dear diary,
First, I was watched, then my mind was manipulated by a little girl, and now my head hurts! And yet this girl, I guess her name is Angel, she's trying to read my thoughts! It's bad enough that she made me run into a tree...oh yeah, did I mention that she can manipulate and read minds? Yeah well, with my head already hurting, it's really hard to concentrate on keeping my mind shut off from her.
But joy, she's not the only one!
There's her, another girl who's a bit darker than me, a blind boy who looks like he could find his way anywhere, a smaller boy who looks to be related to Angel, and a boy my age with dark hair (who I have to admit has some charm to him) but that's not the point. The point is THEY TOOK MY LAPTOP AS A FLIPPIN' HOSTAGE!
Well...technically, it's not mine, but I stole it from the School and I claimed it, therefore IT'S MINE! (I also don't like the idea of going back there again to get another one so yeah...).
The only amusing thing about this is when they tried to sign in. The black girl, Nudge, she almost went crazy trying to figure out the password.
Teehee! They don't know that I change the password on a regular basis. It's still a good thing that I took that precaution and decided not to type using my hands. It seems that Nudge can sense peoples' feelings or whatever.
And here's the best part.
They have a talking dog!"
My mind whirred with thoughts as I flipped through some more pages.
How could she change the password without using her hands? I thought to myself as I looked through some pictures of the flock,which were amazing. Angel petting Total, Iggy and Gasman doing a cannonball into the lake with their wings extended, Nudge looking quite stuffed after eating more than half a basket of fish, and finally, a picture of me,sleeping against a tree trunk one night around the fire. I fought back a fluttering in my stomach as I looked at another picture of me, looking out over the lake with a far-off gaze in my eyes.
Jeesh, she's obsessed with me, I thought with a smirk appearing on my face.
I was about to try to read the other entries when the pages suddenly flipped to a clean sheet, as if the wind suddenly picked up, or like in one of those Harry Potter movies where someone writes to Harry with a book. Anyway, as I sat there, frightened out of my mind, words started to appear on the page.
"Time? Don't know, don't give a crap.
Day? As long as I'm alive does it matter?
Place? Somewhere.
Dear diary,
I'm so wound up right now it's not even funny. I can practically hear a leaf fall off a tree right now I'm so alert. It's been about a week since I saw a Flywolf or an Eraser. I'm so freaked out I swear if I saw an enemy right now, I'd probably be screaming for joy while kicking their asses. No one else except maybe Fang feels as tense as I do. Itex must be up to something. Speaking of Fang, I finally signed on to the laptop and I could hear him trying to hold back a laugh because of my background.
Note to self: make sure to hit him across head.
Just because he has deep,thought-filled gorgeous dark violet eyes and magnificent wings, doesn't mean I won't kick him to next fall if I didn't have to.
Get it,next fall?
Oh God, I'm making puns now.
Not even my music is distracting me...wait a second...why does it feel as if someone is touching my book?"
I froze, my already tensed muscles starting to ache as I clenched my jaw and drew in a breath.
How did she know?! I thought to myself, unable to move.
"Hm...if it's an Eraser, they should keep reading so that my rage will grow to an enumerable amount. Hey, then that would make for a wonderful fight. But, of course, if it's anyone else, I feel sorry for you *insert evil smirk here*".
And then, the writing stopped, as if it was a regular diary entry. The only problem was that I was scared shit less.
Yes, the emotionless Fang was indeed scared shit less.
I was even more frightened than that time Ari basically shredded me with his claws and I thought that I was going to die, or that time when Total accidentally went free-falling in the air and almost plummeted to his death.
What made this different was that I could feel Ember's ferociousness rolling off of her and the notebook; the fear that she might actually rip my head off or worse if I didn't get rid of the ticking timebomb in my hands. I finally managed to swallow, feeling the burning sensation in my parched throat.
"Fang,whats going on? Are you OK?" I heard Angel ask me through her thoughts.
I blinked once to get out of my daze and turned around to look at Angel, who looked stricken sitting on the bank at the lake. I gave her a slightly reassuring smile, even though I knew that I didn't look convincing enough. I turned away from her gaze and looked back down at the notebook, which sat wide open at my feet. I felt better now that I wasn't touching the demon book.
What would make her so mad that she's willing to kill over? I thought to myself.
I was so tempted to pick it back up and look through it again, but something in the back of my mind sent me bad vibes, so I decided against it and put the notebook back on the branch, just the way I had found it, before going back to the laptop.
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