Critical Condition

Chapter 1

Max POV

The monsoon season of Arizona was in full swing. Rain poured down from the dark sky as giant gusts of wind pounded us to the ground. Currently, the kids and I were grouped together underneath a large tree, finding some form of shelter. Iggy and Fang were outside watching the area as well as talking about the plan. It had been raining like this for over two days; we were grounded until the storm let up. To make matters worse, Angel was sick. Sicker than a dog kind of sick. She was dry heaving, running a high fever, and was exhausted. I didn't know if she had caught something or if being on the run for so long was catching up to her. She was the youngest, the weakest of all of us. I looked up at Iggy as he nodded to Fang and then turned to walk toward us. He sat down next to me and reached out to touch Angel, who was laying her head in my lap.

"The storm isn't letting up, Max." He said quietly. The other kids were trying to sleep; he didn't want to wake them up.

"We have to get her to my mom's house, what if she does have something?" I said and Iggy sighed, rubbing Angels head.

"Either we walk or we wait." Iggy said, laying back onto the ground and stretching his arms above his head. His shirt rode up his stomach, flashing his obvious ribs. He groaned and folded his hands over his stomach as a loud growl resonated through him. "I'm huuuungry."

"We all are." I sighed, knowing all too well how stuck we were at the moment. The storm had grounded us, and with Angel being sick, we couldn't really move on all too well. So we had all agreed to stay in one place till the storm let up and by that point, Angel should have recovered.

I looked out towards Fang as he stood about 25 feet away from us. The rain water dripped off his dark hair and down his soaked body, but he stayed out there, keeping watch. He slowly extended one wing, testing the wind lightly. He then extended the other wing. I watched as he then jumped into the air and unfurled his wings out hard, the wind snatching him up instantly. He managed to stay in one place though, back beating his wings hard in order to hover just above us. He coasted in a large circle and then dipped down closer to the ground. He couldn't land properly with the huge winds, so instead he got as close to the ground as he could; about 15 feet, and folded in his wings tight. He dropped out of the sky and landed hard on the wet sandy ground, falling to his knees as the shock of the impact hit him. He stood up, brushing the mud off himself and walked over to us.

"Still too stormy out, there's no way we'll be able to fly out of this with Angel's condition." He said, panting hard. He glanced down at me and I nodded, sighing deeply. It was getting colder out as well, we'd need a better shelter than just this old tree.

"I'll stay here with the kids, take Iggy and look for a place to spend the night." I told him and he nodded, wiping some water from his eyes. Iggy stood up and followed Fang as he walked down into the wash behind us.

Fang POV

"Fang, I thought this was a desert. Since when do deserts get this kind of storms?" Iggy asked behind me. We trudged through the semi running wash, it was the easiest form of travel at the moment.

"Arizona gets something called a monsoon season where it rains for three or four months out of the year a ton, then stops the rest of the year. It's how all the plants don't dry up." I explained and Iggy chuckled to himself.

"And we just happened to get caught in the middle of it." He sighed. I nodded and continued walking. I kept feeling really light headed and tired, but it may just be from all the work we'd been doing. We had been stuck here for two days, none of us had eaten since Tuesday night which was three days ago. We were on our way to Max's moms house and planned to eat there, but the rain put an end to that. Now we were running on empty in the cold and rain. I had been getting sharp hunger pangs all day.

"This looks good." I said, stopping by a large drainage pipe running through the wash wall. It was high up enough off the ground so no water could get in, but it did have two open ends. We'd just have to bundle up tonight. At least it was 6 feet wide and 6 feet tall, plenty of space inside for the six of us.

Max POV

Fang led us to the large drainage pipe and we all filed in. We got close together, conserving everyone's body heat. Fang sat down next to me, his body lightly shivering from the cold. I leaned my head on his shoulder, hearing his rapid heartbeat thudding against his chest. We'd all have to eat soon; even Fang was starting to show signs of fatigue. I could feel his ribs just underneath his thin T-shirt and jacket as he leaned on me. Everyone's bodies were working overtime now to keep us warm and functioning properly, but that required a lot of energy, something we were critically low on at the moment. I needed to come up with a plan fast or we'd all get so far downhill we wouldn't be able to recover.