Always alone

Chapter 12, Part 3

The map!

"Fang, d'you have the map?" He shook his head, and I groaned. "Well we can't do jack without it." Nudge fumbled around in her jacket, and shoved it at me.

"It's kind of wet, but that's like... Like, I mean, we were just in a flood. Nothing else I could do." I took it from Nudge and unfolded it.

"So.. What now?" Gazzy asked as I studied the map. "I'm tired. " I didn't respond, just kept looking. "Max?" I reached back and slicked down his blonde hair, but stayed silent.

The map had a ton of areas around the school, and even a couple that weren't around here. I pointed and moved my finger across a blue line that I guessed was the stream. "What are you doing?" Angel asked me, but once again I didn't answer. I thought I was on to something.

"Max." Iggy's annoyed voice startled me slightly. "I'm blind. I don't know what you're doing. Tell us what you think you're doing, at least."

"Okay, so there's the stream." I said, dragging Iggy's finger tips along it. "There's the cave that we were out." I pushed his finger over there. "And the.." I licked my lips and looked over my shoulder. The barn was gone. "The barn is right here on the map."

"Your point is..?" Angel asked again, laying on her stomach and staring at it. I shot her a look, and jabbed my finger near the cave.

"My point is that whatever came and got us must be that way." I told her, rolling my eyes. These people were so dense. "So what ever we have to do must be that way." Fang made a clicking sound with his tongue.

"It sounds too easy." He murmured, running his hand through his long hair. I briefly remembered when I gave everyone hair cuts a few months ago. In a barn. I huffed, shaking my head, and annoyingly noticed the long strands of hair in my face.

"We need haircuts soon." I grunted, pushing my hair back again. Fang stared at me, and blinked a few times.

"Did you not hear what I said? We should take precautions! We aren't talking about haircuts." I nodded, but continued to blow the hair away absentmindedly.

"We need food first." I told him, and I heard Gazzy sigh in relief.

"Thank god!" He said, and scrambled onto his feet. "I thought you guys were going to starve us!" Gazzy grinned and spun around at Angel. "I was about to eat you!" He clomped towards her, and Angel faked a scream of horror.

I was about to tell them to stop, when I slowed myself down. They should have their fun while they could. Angel giggled while hiding behind Nudge, who shoved Iggy in front of her. Their yells and laughs mixed with the air, and I sat back and watched. It was getting dark and I glanced over at Fang pleadingly. I didn't want to be the bad guy this time.

Fang sighed, and got up. "If you want something to eat, we have to eat now." He said smoothly. The kids slowed down, and looked over at the backpacks. We had a little bit of food, just enough to keep us running.

****

We ate quickly. I wanted to get this done before it was to dark to do anything. We were up and flying in no time. As we followed the map, I looked over the flock like I did after any life-threatining crisis.

Everyone's hair was getting to long for my liking, like I had said before. We still had tons of different bruises and cuts everywhere. We were still in the sky though. We had our freedom and our lives. We still had Iggy, who had nearly died. Correction: Did die.

We eventually landed, and started walking through a thick undergrowth. Fang was holding the map, his dark eyes narrowed in thought. "So.. It should be like, right he-" His voice was cut off, as Fang suddenly disapeared from sight.

"Fang!" I flung myself to my knees, and managed to grab Fang under the arms. I looked past his shoulder's and dangling feet, and saw a deep, dark, hole. It was so deep that even I couldn't see the bottom, and I can see for miles at a time.

"Fang? Are you okay?" Nudge sank to her knees next to me, and I was worried she'd fall in. To my surprise, she laughed. "Ahaha! He- You look like Simba!" Fang glared at her, and my arms were being strained. "Guys! He looks like Simba!" Who the hell was Simba? My arms were getting really sore.

"He does!" Gazzy and Angel both said, and joined in laughing. Fang's weight tugged at my arms, and forced me onto my stomach not to drop him.

"Stop laughing and help me!" I finallly snapped, and Nudge tried -and failed- to wipe the smirk off her face.

"And hurry!" Fang roared, and Nudge grabbed leaned over and grabbed Fang as best she could, trying to pull him up. "You guys suck at rescue missions."

"Simba..." he muttered, once he was finally on ground. "Simba." Fang reached down and grabbed mud in his hand. He threw a glob of it at each of them with perfect accuracy. Iggy managed to duck, although the other's got smacked in the forehead.

I was bracing myself for Nudge's yells of anger, probably having to do with her hair, but they didn't come. Nudge had shrugged it off. Her hair. I blinked a few times, and then just got it out myself. She looked at me strangely, and I tried to not seem phazed. This was weird.

"Attack!" Gazzy grabbed as much mud as he could hold, and dropped it over Fang's head. "Run from the emo one!" Fang rolled his eyes, and shook his head.

"We have better things to do, right now. Cut it for a bit please?" I asked, my voice tense. They looked at me, and I added a very hesitant. "Please?"

We lit a match, and set fire to a stick. I threw it into the hole, watching it light the small cavern looking thing up with light. "What is this?" Angel murmured, trying to get a better look at it.

I had no idea. But the only thing we could do is find out. They wouldn't create something just to kill us, right? Whoever they were. I lit a few more sticks with a match, and handed them off. "Try and decend slowly, okay?"

I slipped in first, pulling my wings out. I struggled to just glide down, and in a few moments my back was aching from tension. I didn't even know how long we tried to get down, but it took forever.

Finally, we stumbled and landed. "Finally!" Angel groaned, pulling her wings in. "That took so long..!"

I opened my mouth to agree, but instead a sigh came out. Water. Rushing water. I could hear it, and it was coming for us. Why wasn't I panicking, you ask? Because this had happened before.

Although, we hadn't been trapped in a cave the last time, I thought as the last bits of light were covered but something above. I let out a stream of colorful words, and the roaring started to get louder. "Max?" Iggy yelled, and I screamed the one word I've been having to use way to often.

"Run!"