When The Birds Fly

when the birds fly {chapter 6}

chapter 6

            back at the house, I was reading in bed when I heard an explosion. i literally felt the air vibrating. I put down my book, got out of bed, and carefully walked to the window. I was still a little shaky from my bite, but I could still walk. I opened the window and looked out, only to dive back into the bedroom in order to prevent getting pelted with eraser bits. Shocked, I looked out the window again. I saw the mushroom cloud, and I hissed under my breath. Gazzy is going to pay... I thought as I walked downstairs.

            "max! You shouldn't be out of bed!" angel exclaimed, trying to stop me. I stopped and looked at her.

            "i need to see if the flock's ok. I won't take off, since in my current condition, I won't be able to fly that skillfully." I said. angel hesitated, then she stepped aside. I nodded, then I walked to the front door. As I stepped outside, I heard flapping, and I turned around to see the flock, or... the flock and two others. When they got closer, I could see they were returning from a battle. Crap, if Gazzy blew up something important, I will kill him. I thought. From here, I could tell that the flock was carrying 2 new kids. Before I knew it, they collapsed on the front yard in one big bird kid pile. I rushed up to help untangle. I was able to help get everyone apart. The flock looked all in one piece, and the kids fang and gazzy were carrying were out cold. Ooh, that's gotta suck for them. I turned to fang.

            "what happened?!" I practically screamed at him.

            "eraser complication." fang replied. I glared at him, then I did a head count.

            "uh, fang? Why is nudge missing?" I asked. Fang looked around, surprised.

            "I don't know. She was with us when we fought the erasers..." fang said, then paused, listening. I listened too. It was faint, almost nonexistent, but the muffled screams were there. Nudge was in trouble. But, we had kids who were unconscious and were probably needing more attention than nudge does, so I made one of my famous split-second decisions, the ones that turn out to be either the greatest idea ever, or the stupidest.

            "fang! Take iggy and go get nudge! Everyone else, stay with me!" I said, and fang nodded, tapping iggy's hand twice, then fang and iggy took off. angel came outside, and The Gasman and angel helped me and got the two kids inside. One was a girl and the other was a boy. The girl had, c'mon, you can guess, red hair. The boy had more of a brown-red hair color. It looked like his hair was highlighted both those colors. Whatever it was, it looked cool.

            "let's put them on the couch." I said, and we brought the kids to the couch and laid them down. I felt for a pulse, and it was still there, and it seemed faster than a humans'. It was the same speed as our own. The kids were mutants, like us. Just then, the kids started moving.

            "uhnn. What...where am i?" the girl asked. She was rubbing her head, while the boy was looking around.

            "you're in my, well, our house." I gestured to angel and the gasman. "the other members of our flock caught up with you while you were flying away from the erasers."

            "erasers?" the boy asked, confused.

            "the hybrids that were chasing you?" I clarified.

            "oh, those. We call them, well, Lola calls them Puppies, since they have lousy impulse control." The boy giggled.

            "sorry. We didn't introduce ourselves. I'm Lola, and this is my brother Jacob." the girl said.

            "I'm max, and this is angel and the gasman. The others should be back soon." I said.

            "the 'Gasman'?" Jacob asked.

            "just stay upwind." Angel said, and I snickered. Lola and Jacob looked confused.

            "the Gasman has something weird with his digestive system. Don't ask." I clarified. The two nodded. Suddenly, the front door banged open, and fang, along with iggy, came in, defeat on their faces.

            "nothing?" I had to ask. Fang shook his head. I gulped and held back tears. "this is Lola and Jacob." I introduced Lola and Jacob to fang and iggy.

            " I'm fang. This is iggy." Fang said, gesturing to himself and to ig.

            "what did you guys look for?" Lola asked, yes, fang.

            "nudge. She's another one of our flock." Fang said. Lola looked at fang with a major interest, and I was about to hurl. What was worse: fang was showing the same amount of interest.

            "well, um, what's your story? Like, how did you get here?" I asked, really hoping to change the subject from awkward, gushy silence to something, anything else.

            " well, we came from, what's it called, New York? And we escaped this lab/prison and we were on our way to get as far away from them as possible, but then the erasers came after us. We would dive into forests and make very confusing paths, but they would still be chasing us. We were able to stop for about 20 minutes overall, the erasers were on our tail the whole time, and we barely had time to eat! Then we saw you guys, and we knew you could help us, since you guys were like us. we couldn't trust anyone without them being a possible eraser, and even you guys were iffy. And here we are." Lola said. I nodded and listened. Angel next to me stiffened, and I looked at her.

            "angel, what's wrong?" I asked. Fang and the others stopped talking to each other.

            "it's... nudge. She says she's all right, and she's on her way back." Angel said. I freaked when I heard nudge's name, then I breathed a sigh of relief when angel said she was ok. I looked over to fang, who nodded and left to find nudge. I turned back to angel, but she had a line of confusion on her face.

            "ange?" I asked again.

            "nudge is... I don't know how to word it. She's...losing strength. Like she's hurt." Angel said.

            "tell fang." I said. Angel nodded and concentrated. Then her eyes focused again. Angel nodded, then she turned to lola and Jacob.

            "She'll be here soon, don't worry. fang will get her." angel said. when she looked at lola's shoes and said, "those hot topic shoes are great, but they don't last that long. I'd recommend Columbia sportswear. oh, and I didn't know you guys were siblings. that's cool." Angel said, and I almost laughed at the confusion on lola and jacob's faces.

            "angel can read minds. If you're smart, you won't play poker with her." I said.

            "we can...well, it's not exactly reading minds, but we can talk to each other mentally. like it's our own talking channel, like the ones on walkie talkies." lola said. I smiled to angel, and Angel smiled sweetly, the one that makes my mutant heart go aflutter. well, except whenever fang looks at me with those dark, black eyes..., but that's different.

            That's because you love each other. Angel said mentally. I shot her a look, then I cursed under my breath for thinking such thoughts 3 feet from a mind reader. Way to go, ace. I was stopped from my self-inflicted torture when the door opened again, and in came fang and nudge. I stood and helped fang take nudge upstairs to rest. All the while thinking about lola and Jacob and how they were going to become part of our flock.

            "how is she?" i asked.

            "she's fine. Just tired." fang said. of course, that was pretty much an unspoken paragraph there. you had to read between the lines, but then, it's hard to do that with fang.