Maximum Ride Fan Fiction / Maximum Ride Fan Fiction ❯ If I Asked You To, Would You Kill Me? ❯ Taken Under an Angel's Wing ( Chapter 15 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Chapter 15

Fang opened his eyes slowly, the grogginess still within him. The room he was in was dark and unfamiliar, but he could tell that it was late afternoon, from the light coming through some window, somewhere. It was a small room, sparse, concrete, and plain, but clean. It was fitted out with a small bed, a closet in the corner, a table covered in medical equipment, a chair, and an overhead lamp. Heart and breathing monitors were beeping away next to him, their sensors attached to his body.

He was lying on a bed, covered in sweat, and too tired to get up. So, he simply lay there, hoping that his mysterious benefactors didn't wear white coats or were genetic werewolves. He could see that his tattered shirt had been removed, and his abdomen was covered in bandages.

“So…you're up, huh?”

He suddenly looked to where the voice had come from, and was even more surprised to find that it was from right above him!

Leaning on the headboard, stood the tall young man leader from his fight earlier. He was no longer dressed in just jeans and a leather jacket. Now, he'd resorted to a pair of khakis and a black tank top, his uncut black hair pulled back with a small rubber band, and his sapphire eyes as brilliant as ever. He seemed to be watching over him, a light smile on his face.

Fang looked at him strangely, trying to put the bizarre scene together. “Where am I? How did I get here?”

The leader walked over to the edge of the bed and sat down. “You're at my home/headquarters—a little rundown abandoned museum we like to call: the Conservatory. I told Joaquin, one of the guys with me, to carry you here after our little episode in the park, and you plummeted to the earth unconscious. I treated your wounds to the best of my ability.”

Fang blinked as he slowly began to remember the events. He remembered his fight with this guy, he'd exchanged blows with him and had ended up knocked into a boulder, which in turn led to Blade being released…

Slowly, all the events after that, began to come him. He'd broken down and lost it. His carefully laid and preserved veneer of being cool, calm, and collected in any circumstances, had shattered and fallen apart.

Fang suddenly felt ashamed, humiliated that he had lost control like that. He'd always been in control. It was what defined him. Now, to be totally striped of that…and in front of total strangers, no doubt!

What was he going to do?

Looking at the leader he'd fought, he noticed several bandages lining the guy's arms. Had he…?

He looked ruefully at the wounds, “D-did—did I do that?'

The leader looked down at himself surprised, “Oh, these? No, I just wasn't careful when I caught you. Your wings are very sharp, made out of some type of metal alloy. Joey, our head mechanic, said it was probably iron mixed with silver.”

Fang relaxed understandably; glad he had been able to shut Blade away in time, before the monster had done some real damage. That's when he realized what the man had just said. “You know about my wings?”

The man nodded as he went to a table and picked up a tray that held a bucket of ice and a washcloth. “It was kind of obvious when you went berserk and flew up into the air. I would have never had Joaquin try to give you a dose of lorazepam if I knew of your ...issue, with needles. Now, I need you to relax now. I'm trying to get your fever down. I don't understand. I tended your wounds, why are you getting a fever? None of the wounds were infected.”

Fang flinched slightly as the man put the cold cloth on his head, “How high is it?”

“Almost a 103 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Reaching up weakly, the teen took off the cold compress. “That's too low. I knew I felt cold. My body is different than that of a normal human's. My metabolism is higher, and my heart rate faster. My regular temperature should be around 125 to 127 degrees.”

For a guy who found he was treating a genetically-engineered mutant, the leader acted pretty calm. He put away the ice, dug in the nearby closet and pulled out few blankets. He quickly put them around Fang's chilled body. “I wish I knew what was wrong. Your body slowly shutting down, and I have no idea why. Can you give me a little help?”

Fang looked at the man strangely with slight distrust. “Why are you helping me? I can't pay you.”

The man continued putting the blankets around him. “It doesn't matter. Few who receive my help can, but I wouldn't accept it even if they did. I'm not for sale.”

“Who are you? Are you some sort of doctor? You don't look like one, too young.”

The man laughed at this. He pulled up a chair by the boy's side, looking at him with his eyes made of blue ice. “I'm older than I look, I'm 23.”

Fang couldn't hide the surprise on his face. The man didn't look older then 18!

“It's not so surprising. I'm betting you look older than you really are.”

Fang nodded, but kept his age to himself.

“And no I'm not a doctor in the legal sense, but I have enough knowledge to take care of my men when they need it.”

“Who are you, exactly?”

“My name is Skylark Karinkov, but everyone just calls me Sky.”

“Sky…” Fang tried it out on his tongue. The name suited the guy. His eyes were definitely the color of the sky. “And what is it exactly that you do?”

“You're not getting anything else from me, until you tell me something in return. Like your name for starters. And know that if you give me crap answers, I'll do the same. So let's start off with a clean slate okay? There's no use trying to hide anything. I know you have wings, you're not like the normal human population, and that you are probably on the run. I've taken you into my home, so I don't think of you as a threat. However, my patience runs thin with liars.”

The avian-boy thought about it. Sky was right, if he knew about him this much, telling him his name wouldn't matter.

“My name is Fang.”

“Are you hungry, Fang?” Sky suddenly asked, off topic.

He was more than hungry, he was more than famished—he was starved! His body felt if it could just get some food, the pain and weakness in his body would be relieved. However…

“I don't think you have my type of food.”

Sky smiled laughingly, “What? Birdseed?”

Fang had to laugh at that, “No, I wish it was that easy.”

“Well, right now, my goal is to get you well so I won't have a dead body on my hands. I get enough of those from time to time.”

Fang looked up at Sky. I'm in the same room with a killer, and I don't even have enough strength to get up, much less run away from here. What I'm I going to do?

I—you—need blood… His is as good as any…

Fang totally ignored Blade's words. There was no way he was going to communicate with that cold-blooded killer.

That's a cold-blooded killer on the inside of you…

Sky picked up his leather jacket and looked at his house guest. “I hope you know, that everything you're thinking is plastered on your face right now. No, I'm not some kind of psychopathic serial killer. Any dead people I find my way across, are far from innocent. So, don't be concerned about your safety, you have nothing to fear from me. And as long as you are under this roof, my men understand you are under my seal of protection.”

Fang sank further in the bed. He hated getting sick. It was so much harder to control his emotions that way.

He noticed as Sky reached for his jacket, that the back of his right shoulder was tattooed with a pair of unfurled, pure white wings, with a halo in their center surrounding a jeweled dagger. It wasn't the design that caught his eye, but the ink that was used. It was sharply iridescent that seemed to shift with the light, creating the astounding mirage that the wings moved, and that the dagger's blade sparkled.

That's when the colors began to slowly swirl. Fang blinked his eyes. Wiping the sweat from his head, he began to realize he was totally dehydrated. He had flown through some sort of desert for a while and he had started feeling dizzy and fatigued. He could no longer keep up with what direction he was going on how long he flew. He eventually got too tired to fly and fell to the ground, where he staggeringly walked on, just desperate to get away.

He hadn't drunk anything since he'd stop taking that IV stuff they were dripping down his throat. His eyes were beginning to swim as he reached out to Sky. He asked “H-how long have I been asleep?”

Sky continued to slip his jacket on, heading for the door, “Almost a day and a half, I guess. Why? Got somewhere to be?”

Fang would have laughed if his body was doing corkscrews on him. His whole body was in pain, and his head was pounding. He hadn't been hit this hard, since he'd had that horrific nightmare a couple days ago. “Can I have some water…?”

Turning around to hear the bird-teen's request, Sky was suddenly greeted by the sound of a shrill beep from the heart monitor.

Running toward it, he quickly read the read-out. “Your blood pressure is dangerously low. I need to know what you blood type is, and now. I'm going to have to do a transfusion. Fang, I need you to…Fang? Fang?!”

The strange winged boy opened his eyes drearily, trying his best to try to keep awake. However, as hard as he struggled, he could feel himself slipping away. “I'm sorry…”

Suddenly the boy's body began to buck and convulse. Sky rushed over to the boy to try and hold him down.

Knowing there was some men still outside the room, either stationed as guards if the boy got violent again, or as medical hands in case the kid's trypanophobia kicked up again while he had to use a hypo, he called out, “Joaquin! Whoever's out there! I need two of ya in here, stat!”

Par his call, two of his men instantly entered the room. He vaguely identified them as Jackie and Luke, two of his med aids.

“You two, hold him down.” He ordered as he headed over to the closet. Opening it, he pulled out an IV drip, and then unlocked and opened a freezer also situated inside. He quickly searched the shelves, looking at the different containers. He quickly selected the one labeled “O”, and grabbed packs of the stored plasma, as well as a few FFP (Fresh Frozen Plasma) vials.

Jackie grabbed Fang's legs, while Luke went to hold down his torso. It turned out that the later was having the harder time, as most of the boy's strength was in his upper torso. “He's too strong, Sky! Ahh!”

Sky turned from what he was doing to see that Fang had sprouted his claws again, slicing Luke's arms. The little mutant teen was totally unconscious, and his body was going into shock, reactions becoming instinctual and erratic. His retractable claws were going in and out, his wings were trying to unfurl then furl up again, from the niche in his back, and his pupils were beginning to dilate heavily.

As he pulled the supplies to the bedside, he began to set up the IV as he pulled a small radio from his pocket. Switching it on, he spoke into it hurriedly as he worked. “Tyler? How many men you got just millin' around?”

“Well boss, all the men for the hit are being outfitted as you ordered. I think that—”

“I don't have time for chitchat Tyler. I need two more guys up here in sickbay—now. I have—”

THOOM!

Sky was suddenly stopped by the sight of Jackie getting thrown against a wall, overpowered by Fang.

He spoke back into the radio, “Better make that three guys, and I need them on the double.”

Tyler laughed and answered back, “Already sent boss, I'm your personnel manager remember? It's my job to think ahead.”

As if on cue, three more of his men came through the door. A redhead named Kurt, looked at the convulsing boy, “Alright Sky, tell us what to do.”

“Hold on to him, and hold onto him tight. Jackie, you too. Luke, you can let Ron take over. Put some pressure on those wounds, I'll get to them after I finish here.”

Luke kept his hold until the auburn-haired Ron came and switched positions. He quickly wrapped his arms in some nearby towels. “It's alright Sky, I know how to stitch myself up.”

Sky hardly heard him however, as he began to fill a fresh hypodermic with 10ccs of lorazepam.

“Hold his right arm tight!” He quickly swabbed, then jabbed the needle into Fang's arm, shooting the anesthesia into his bloodstream.

The teen's body instantly began to relax, responding to the fast-acting drug. Sky then quickly swabbed the crook of his arm, sticking in the IV needle, he then taped it down. Squeezing the plasma to get the flow going, Sky then checked the boy's eyes with his penlight. “Good, he's eyes are returning to normal. He was losing too much blood, and I have no idea why, his wounds were healing, he didn't lose that much on the site, I don't know what's up.

Jackie looked up at him, “Maybe he was losing it in a way we couldn't see? I mean, he's not exactly normal.”

Sighing, Sky pulled the plastic gloves from off his hands and threw them in the trash. “Well, I'll figure it out later. Right now, we've got a schedule to keep. All of you, get downstairs and get suited up. All accept Luke and Troy, you two stay outside this room, and make sure he stays stable. You okay Luke? Sure you don't need any help?”

Busy stitching the gashes on his hands and arms, the man nodded. “I'll be fine.”

The gang leader smiled back, then quickly picked up his jacket and headed out the door. Jackie, Ron, Kurt, and the fifth guy, Jonas, followed close behind.

“You're late.” Tawny smiled, holding out an AK 47 handgun.

“Had a little medical emergency, how are we?” Sky replied, taking the gun and holstering in his side.

“The targets are moving south, ETA 20 minutes. Our surveillance work paid off, they're definitely Stockholm's men. After tonight, I doubt he's going to go into human trafficking again.” Joaquin answered, handing him an armored-vest and some replacement ammo.

“What about you, Shawn? Got it ready to go?”

The hazel-eyed techie, spun around from his computer. “You got it, Sky. All the evidence is ready to be emailed to the police as soon as you give me the green light. And ol' Stockholm-y will get our calling card as usual. And everything is, as always, untraceable.”

“Well, then let's get a move on. Shall we Angels?” Sky ordered, leading his men out into the night, like a captain and his army.

Some might think that one who had just saved a life, and then carried and used a weapon of death, would be doing total opposites. But in Sky Karinkov's case however, it was the exact same thing…

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Fang open his eyes slowly, expecting to see either a room of bloody dead bodies, or the cold city streets.

He had known when he passed out, that Blade would come loose. However as he looked around, he noticed his surrounding had not changed. He was still in the small room, alone now, with an IV strapped to his arm.

He ignored it, knowing that if he began to inspect it he'd find the—needle.

His body felt better, though still very weak. A sudden smell caught his nose, and he turned to look at where it was coming from. Turning, he looked at the blood vials that had been left on the table.

Well, I guess it can't hurt. They seemed as if they were going to use it for me anyway. And I sure am hungry…

His mind made up, he weakly reached for one of the plasma vials and used claws to break of the top.

Downing the whole thing in one gulp, he sighed in relief as the chilled liquid went down his throat. His energy was suddenly heavily reenergized, and he had enough strength to sit up.

Grabbing another vial, he broke the top, this time thinking, I wonder, how I will explain to Sky, why his plasma's missing?