Before I could say anything, he’d whipped out his cell phone and called 911.
9
I looked down at Fang, then glanced over at Iggy’s tight face. In a second I realized we had to suck it up—Fang was hurt bad. We needed outside help. Everything in me wanted to grab Fang, get the flock, and tear out of here, away from strangers and doctors and hospitals. But if I did that, Fang would die.
“Max?” The Gasman sounded scared. In the distance, the obnoxious wail of an ambulance siren was drawing closer.
“Nudge?” I said, speaking fast. “Take Gazzy and Angel and find a place to hide. We’ll go to the hospital. You stay around here, and I’ll come back when I can. Quick, before the EMT guys get here.”
“No,” said the Gasman, his eyes on Fang.
I stared at him. “What did you say?”
“No,” he repeated, a mulish look coming over his face. “We’re not leaving you and Fang and Iggy.”
“Excuse me?” I said, steel in my voice. Fang’s blood had soaked the cloth and was seeping between my fingers. “I’m telling you to get out of here.” I made myself sound cold as ice.
“No,” Gazzy said again. “I don’t care what happens—you’re not leaving us again.”
“That’s right,” said Nudge, crossing her arms over her skinny chest.
Angel nodded next to her. Even Total, sitting on the sand by Angel’s feet, seemed to bob his head in agreement.
My mouth opened, but nothing came out. I was stunned—they’d never disobeyed a direct order.
I wanted to start shrieking at them, but it was already too late: Two paramedics were running across the sand, holding a body board. The flashing lights of the ambulance made intermittent rosy stripes across all our faces.
“Goveryou,” I said tightly, using a secret language that went back to when we were kept in a lab. It was used in cases of extreme emergency when we didn’t want anyone to understand us. “Allay. Todo ustedes. Egway.”
“No,” said the Gasman, his lower lip starting to tremble. “Neckerchu.”
“What’s happened here?” One of the paramedics dropped down next to Fang, already taking out his stethoscope.
“Accident,” I said, still glaring at Gazzy, Nudge, and Angel.
Reluctantly I removed my hands from the soaked pad. Fang’s face was white and still.
“Accident?” repeated the paramedic, staring at the injury. “With what, a rabid bear?”
“Kind of,” I said tensely. The other paramedic shone a small flashlight into Fang’s eyes, and I realized Fang was truly unconscious. My sense of fear and danger escalated: Not only were we about to enter a hospital, which would freak us all out, but it might end up being for nothing.
Because Fang could die anyway.
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.