Author's Note: Once again, I did say how much these next few chapters were going to suck, but it all does lead to something awesome I assure you. But I wouldn't mind reviews on how I can make it better (because seriously, it really needs some work lol. I was in my 'I dont feel like writing but I have nothing else to do mood and this was the resultant...yeah, bad idea XD).

So yeah. Reviews. Need. Please lol.

Chapter 21: Paging Dr. Iggy

The next day, when I woke up, I wasn't feeling too well.

Okay, maybe that's an understatement. I felt like crap.

Every time I took a breath, no matter how small it was, my chest started to hurt. But it wasn't like I was going to stop breathing all together just to stop the pain. This wasn't the first time that I had broken something in my body. But I still stayed in the room for most of the morning, only coming downstairs to eat about 3 plates of bacon and scrambled eggs with six slices of bread with butter and two cups of hot chocolate.

Hey, a girl's gotta' eat.

After that, I went to take a quick shower in some cool water, which felt nice against my skin. Even though the pain in my chest seemed to worsen, I didn't say anything to anybody about it and holed myself up in my room again. I kept my mind busy by actually picking up my mom's diary and reading it from the very beginning, getting to know her. I learned why we had left our home in England; apparently, Jake's parents were really into scientific experiments.

And I'm not talking about little chemical play sets or trying to find a cure for cancer. More like "putting fish and dog DNA together and seeing if the product can hiss like a snake" kind of experiments.

They were crazy, but sane enough to try and recruit my dad in with their weird ideas. I was also engaged to their son, Jake, and who knows what would have happened if that actually had went as plan. The thought sent shivers down my spine, but I continued to read. After several years, good old mom found out about this and thought that the only way to solve the problem was to leave and start a new life so that they wouldn't find us. We moved to Ohio and only kept our first names the same because they were so common in the U.S. Mom thought that if we kept moving every 2 years or so, we would be fine.

She was obviously wrong because we were found in a matter of months.

I tried to continue reading, but I was interrupted by Fang, who knocked on my door before walking in without waiting for my approval. I had totally tuned out the pain in my chest while I was reading, and now that Fang had snapped me back to reality, I realized just how much pain I was in. He just stood there asking if I was ok, and each time I answered yes, his frown would grow deeper.

I actually had to throw a pillow at him before he decided to leave.

Only minutes later, everyone started coming up to my room one by one, and it was really irritating, not only because I was in pain but I couldn't read the stupid diary in peace. First, Angel poked her head in and gave me a cute little get well card with a picture of a stick figure girl with lines jutting out of her sides; I guess to serve the purpose of wings. I smiled, thanked her, and told her to go play with Gazzy and that I'd be fine.

Melody came in and continuously apologized for hurting me and I had to ensure her that it wasn't her fault; a total bold-faced lie, but I had to make her feel better, didn't I?

Nudge came in with my laptop and a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips. She asked me if I had drawn any more pictures, and when I said no, she walked dejectedly out of the room. I chuckled to myself, making a mental note to draw Nudge as a famous model on a runway or something.

I turned on my laptop and decided to go play a computer game for no apparent reason since I didn't want to research anything at the moment. The first thing to come up as I clicked the Internet icon was my homepage, which happened to be Yahoo. Not only was it a good search engine and Web page with several links to other cool websites, it also had small articles that you could read; usually about ways to save money and things that are "good" to maintain a diet. Those kinds of things really cracked me up.

Well, today of all days when I needed to be distracted from the continuous pain coming from my chest, I decided to take a quick look at the articles that they had on the homepage today. The first three articles were a waste of my time; how to get tax relief from "the man", the things that you should recycle, and how many calories were in the Top 10 desserts of America. Boring. I wasn't even going to look at the last article, but of course, curiosity got the best of me, and I ended up scrolling over the preview to see what it was about. It was an article about blind people, and how their senses seemed to become more acute, especially their senses of hearing and touch.

To most people, this wouldn't even seem remotely interesting and they would continue on their merry way. But this gave me an idea. Iggy was a blind kid and all of his senses were enhanced more than I thought was even possible. And even though this was a far-fetched idea, maybe he could feel with his hand if I had taken more damage than I thought I did. I was surely in a lot more pain than I thought I would be. I got up from my bed and instantly felt pain but tried to not show it on my face, because I'm just stubborn enough not to show weakness.

I walked out of my room and looked out over the banister, watching as everyone was doing their own thing. Angel and Melody was coloring on pieces of paper while laying on their stomachs and swinging their legs in the air. Gazzy was in the other room playing video games; I could tell by the heroic music and the way he yelled, "Die you stupid aliens!". Nudge was sprawled over a Lay-Z-Boy chair; where she got it, I don't know. Iggy was tinkering with something mechanical; I assumed it was yet another bomb, and Fang was sitting on the couch with his back facing me in front of the not lit fireplace doing something with Total right beside him. My idea seemed to shrivel as I thought twice about it, but my mouth was already moving before I could chicken out.

"Hey, Iggy. Could you come up here for a sec? I need your help" I said. Total, Angel, and Melody looked up at me with smiles on their faces, obviously glad that I seemed ok. Fang glanced at me before looking over at Iggy with a slight confusion as Iggy stood up.

"Yeah, sure" he said as he walked toward the stairs, and I noticed how he paced his steps so that it would match up with his memory of the place. I took his hand as he reached the last step and led him to the bathroom, feeling Fang's eyes fellow us until the wall blocked his view.

I tried to stay calm as I opened the bathroom door, brought him inside with me, and locked the door. My mind may have been revolving around pain all morning, but I wasn't stupid. I knew that I could be making a huge, gigantic, enormous mistake and embarrassing myself to no apparent end, not to mention subject Iggy to something that probably didn't have to be done, but I had to try something. Iggy turned his head from right to left, as if he could actually see his surroundings.

"Are we in the bathroom?" he wondered, feeling the cool tiles on the wall.

"Yep" I said, but it was a bit muffled considering I had my shirt over my head, exposing my black training bra. I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible, not because we were cramped in a bathroom; believe me, the bathroom was huge, probably the size of a walk-in closet that a rich model would want to have. The real reason was because it was just so awkward being in a bathroom with a guy, especially with Iggy, someone I barely knew.

"What are you doing...?" he asked, his voice guarded as I put my shirt on the counter.

I grounded my teeth together in frustration. How the hell was I supposed to tell him this? 'Oh, I just need you to touch my chest to see if your sense of touch could see if something was abnormal about my ribs?'

... Yeah, I guess I could tell him that. I had nothing else to say up my sleeve.

"Are you gonna try and molest me or something? 'Cuz I can assure you that I'm not into you or anything..." he stated, a blush coming over his cheeks as he took a small step toward the door. I couldn't help myself; I busted out laughing so hard that I was doubled over, both in pain and because I couldn't stop laughing.

"Ow, ow, ow..." I began to say as I struggled to compose myself again, the pain now winning over the laughter. Iggy's face instantly changed into one of confusion and concern as he took a step closer to me.

"You're in pain?" he asked. I stood up to my full height, taking a breath, which caused even more pain. "I think I broke some ribs or something; I can't tell. And I know that this is so far-fetched and I shouldn't get any real ideas from the internet, but I was hoping if you could try and see what's wrong" I said.

"Ok...?" he said uncertainly, obviously confused because he didn't know how he could help my situation. But despite all of that, I took his hand and placed it near my body where it hurt the most.

"Touch anywhere besides this spot and I will rip your arms off" I warned. Iggy gave me a nervous smirk, and I swear I could see his mind start to tinker away.

What a pervert.

I brought his hand near the bottom of my rib, but as soon as I did, he drew his hand away from me as if he had been burned and his unseeing eyes grew wide.

"What?" I asked, now worried.

"That was freaky..." he mumbled to himself.

"What, what?!" I asked, now a bit frustrated that he wouldn't tell me. But Iggy only brought his hand back to the lower part of my chest and kept it there this time, his mouth slightly open in awe.

I was about to slap him if he didn't say anything. "What's going on?" I asked again.

"I...can see..." he mumbled.

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