Two Schools Out - Forever

10

The ambulance felt like a jail cell on wheels.

The antiseptic smell inside made my stomach knot with nightmare memories of the School. In the back of the ambulance, I held Fang's cold hand, which now had a saline drip taped into it. I couldn't say anything to the flock, not in front of the EMT, and I was too upset, scared, and mad to come up with anything coherent anyway.

Is Fang okay? I silently asked my Voice. Not that the Voice had ever once answered a direct freaking question. It didn't break the pattern now.

"Uh-oh-he's fibrillating," one paramedic said urgently.

He pointed to the portable EKG machine, which was going thump-thump-thump very fast. "Get the paddles."

"No!" I said loudly, startling everyone. The paramedic held the shock paddles, looking surprised. "That's always how his heart is. It always beats really fast. That's normal for him."

I don't know if the paramedic would have used the paddles anyway, but just then we roared into the hospital emergency bay and all was chaos.

Orderlies ran out with a gurney, the EMT guys started rattling off Fang's stats to a nurse. And then Fang was wheeled out of sight, down a hall and through some doors.

I started to follow, but a nurse stopped me.

"Let the doctors see him first," she said, flipping a page on her clipboard. "You can give me some information. Now, what's his name? Is he your boyfriend?"

"His name is... Nick," I lied nervously. "Nick, um, Ride. He's my brother."

The nurse looked at me, my blond hair and fair skin, and I could tell she was mentally comparing me with Fang-who had black hair, dark eyes, olive skin.

"He's all of our brother's," said Nudge ungrammatically.

The nurse looked at Nudge, who was black, and at the rest of us, none of whom really matched, except Angel and Gazzy, the only true siblings among us.

"We were adopted," I said. "Our parents are... missionaries." Excellent! I mentally patted myself on the back. Brilliant! Missionaries! "They're away on a... short mission. I'm in charge."

A doctor in green jammies hurried up to us. "Miss?" he said, looking at me, glancing at all of us. "Could you come with me, right now?"

"Think he noticed the wings yet?" I heard Iggy barely murmur.

I tapped Iggy twice on the back of his hand. It meant, You're in charge till I get back. He nodded, and I followed the doctor down the hall, feeling like I was on death row.