Insanity Chapter Sixteen

Insanity

Chapter Sixteen

~Downtime~

Day Twelve

Fang lay in bed with a scowl on his face. It was nearly noon and he was growing tired of waiting for Shifter to show up. He had several people to take care of, including who was left of the Dancing Dragons that resided in his locked basement. Fang looked in a little notebook that he had near by. It was a list of everyone’s name and a check by them. Alister’s name was the only one unchecked. Fang sighed and sat up. He walked out of his room and walked down the hallway to Alister’s room. Fang knocked and there was no answer. He sighed and opened the door.

Alister’s room was decorated with posters of guns and the smell of weapons was thick in the air. Fang stood by Alister’s bed and looked at him. Alister was still sound a sleep, nearly for twenty four hours now. Fang understood and hadn’t woken him up. But it was getting late and Alister hadn’t even woken up to eat anything yet. Fang walked into Alister’s own bathroom gabbed a rag and soaked it in cool water. He walked back into the room and dabbed Alister’s swollen face.

The swelling had gone down immensely than what it had been before but the swelling was still obvious. At the touch of the wet rag, Alister winced in his sleep. His bruises still hurt him. Fang thought about visiting the Undertaker in case he had anything that would help with the pain. But of course he had to wait until Shifter got here.

A shadow loomed in the door way. Fang looked up and saw Shadow.

“How is he?” Shadow asked.

“He hasn’t eaten,” Fang answered, “I’ll wake him up tonight for dinner.”

A thought came to Fang, “Shadow, go to the Undertaker’s and see if he had anything for bruises.”

Shadow nodded and left.

When Fang was done, he looked at his notebook and checked it off. He took the full cup of water by Alister’s bed, emptied it, and then refilled it with fresh water. Fang looked Alister over again before leaving his room. He looked down the hallway. There were two other occupied rooms and their doors were opened and welcoming. Blue’s room was on the left, Shadow’s room on the right. He walked to Blue’s room and knocked on the door.

Blue’s room a neat and organized. Blue looked up from his desk and looked at Fang.

“I was going to check on Arisa. Would you like to come?” Fang asked.

Happily, Blue stood up and followed. Normally boys weren’t allowed in the girl’s hallway and vice versa except for Fang that is. They walked into the hallway. Fang stopped at Raven’s room while Blue continued onto Arisa’s. Fang knocked and was allowed in. Raven had her cloak off and was changing her bandages.

Fang was relieved when they got home late last night and found the two girls there in the living room playing a game of Scrabble. Raven told Fang that the ambulance brought them to the hospital first. There they were interviewed by the police. A nice officer offered to give them a ride home. Earlier in the evening the Undertaker had stopped by to cook for them, amazingly he was pretty good, and gave them the game. Then Fang and the others came home.

Raven looked back at Fang. It looked like she was having trouble tying her bandages. Fang tied them for her.

“How are your wounds healing?” Fang asked.

“They're fine,” she said quietly.

Fang nodded and walked out of the room. He visited Penelope next. She was staring at one of her computers in the dark as usual. Her glasses were on the desk beside her. Fang flipped on the light. She looked at her with her narrow angular eyes. Then when she realized who it was her features softened.

“H-h-hello,” she said.

“Are you feeling alright?” he asked.

“Y-y-yeah,” she said, “W-w-why do you ask?”

“Just making sure,” Fang said and walked away.

In Arisa’s room, Fang saw Blue and her talking. Well, more like Arisa was talking and Blue just nodded occasionally to show he was listening. Arisa looked fine so Fang just walked back down the hallway. He was about to go back to his room when the doorbell rang. Fang stopped at the top step. He thought he knew he who it was but he was in an irritated mood. But he went to go answer the door.

“Well hello! How are you doing today?”

Fang stared at the person in front of him. The man had brown hair under a company hat that said ‘we know gardens’. His brown eyes glittered. Three others in tan uniforms stood behind him. A van that had the logo Rewot’s Gardeners was parked in front of the house. Fang stared at his guest with a blank stare.

The man sighed, “You don’t recognize me do you?”

Fang said nothing.

“Come on, Fang,” the man said, “I only dyed my hair. Well, and bought some color changing contacts. Luckily the Tower reimburses me for that.”

Fang started to see familiar features in the man’s face. He ventured to say a name.

“Shifter?” Fang said slowly.

Shifter smiled, “Oh, great, you remember!”

Fang nodded.

“Well, we’re here to pick up our merchandise,” Shifter’s brown eyes shined, “Now, don’t get thrown off about my appearance. It happens often. A week rarely goes by when I don’t need to change my appearance. Longest time without going undercover was two weeks. But enough about me, how about those prisoners?”

“Right,” Fang said, he looked at the three men standing behind Shifter, “They’re in the basement.”

The three nodded and walked inside. Blue had come to see what the commotion was about. Arisa was close to her best friend. Fang looked at them.

“Show them to the basement,” Fang asked.

Blue nodded, took Arisa by the hand, and showed the Tower workers to the basement. Shifter stepped inside and stood by Fang. There was a moment of silence between them until Shifter spoke.

“So I hear that your team is out of commission,” Shifter said.

“Only temporarily,” Fang said.

“I also hear you let the leader get away,” Shifter smiled, “What a shame.”

Fang stared at him, “What does the Tower want with the leader?”

“In other words, you’re wondering if that effects your pay,” Shifter avoided the question, “the answer is no. You will still get paid the agreed upon price.”

“That wasn’t what I was trying to ask,” Fang said.

Shifter turned to Fang, “I think you should let sleeping dogs lie. That information is classified and on a need-to-know basis. You, my friend, do not need to know.”

Fang backed off on the subject; it was obviously a sensitive open case. He shrugged it off. The others came up with the rest of the Dancing Dragons. Shifter smiled.

“All right, boys, put them in the back,” he said.

The three Retrievers nodded and led the line of criminals outside. When the truck door slammed, Shifter nodded.

“Well, that’s that,” he said brushing his hands together.

One of the other men walked up with a large bag of potting soil. He set it down and waited for Shifter.

Shifter smiled, “Well, there’s your payment. It’s in cash of course.”

Fang nodded.

“We best be going, I’ll see you later,” Shifter smiled.

They left and Fang heard the truck drive away. The door opened again and Shadow came in with a bag in his hand. He looked at the bag of potting soil.

“What’s this? Getting the planting bug, are we?” he asked.

“Shifter came over,” Fang answered, “What do you have there?”

“A bruise ointment,” Shadow answered, “Undertaker said just to rub it on and it should decrease the swelling and numb the pain. I’ll go up to Alister’s room right now.”

“Good,” Fang started walking up the stairs.

“What are we going with this?” Shadow kicked the ‘potting soil’ bag.

“I’ll deal with it later,” Fang said as he walked to his room, “I’m tired.”

“Tired?” Shadow smiled, “Or are you already tired of being around people?”

Fang ignored him and continued walking.

“I’ll take your annoyed silence as a yes,” Shadow concluded.

Still Fang stayed silent. He walked into his room and locked the door. Truth was that he was a little annoyed but it wasn’t due to being around people. It was an underlying annoyance that had lasted nearly three days now. He looked at a small calendar on his desk. A few days from now the date had a little circle on it symbolizing the full moon. In about two days the full moon would be upon them. Fang growled deep in his throat. Yes, he had no powers but he had one annoying situation after he had come back to life. He sighed.

“Two more days,” Fang said to himself, “I guess that isn’t so bad. We don’t have to go anywhere or do any missions until the others get better, especially Alister. I should be fine,” Fang said thoughtfully.

All he had to do was stay away from to many people so they wouldn’t notice the slight changes. After the full moon passed everything would be just be fine. So yeah, all he had to do was survive the next two days and two nights. That wouldn’t be too hard.

Fang tapped his growing nails on the desk. He thought about what he had to do over the next few days. Depositing the money could wait, that was actually preferred by the Tower, or he could have Shadow do it. Shopping for food, the pantries were growing empty, but poor Shadow could do that too. Penelope needed more spare glasses and unless she broke the five that she had now in two days, that could wait too. That was pretty much it. Fang nodded, confirming the information in his mind.

“I might make it through this,” Fang said quietly.