"No, Dylan, absolutely not."
"But Fang is doing it."
"That's exactly why I'm not going to do it." I said, folding my arms and trying to fight that irresistable urge to kiss the perfect bird kid in front of me. "No new flock members."
He stepped closer to me. "Please?"
"No!"
Another step. "Please?" I could feel his breath, softly blowing against my skin.
"Absolutely not." I stepped backwards. Then again. Three more steps and I was pressed against the edge of the balcony.
"Please?"
I heard myself saying yes. Dammit…
x-x-x-x-x
"I'm Brittany." The swan girl said. I still couldn't believe I'd been talked into interviewing and auditioning mutants, like it was a job or role. The worst part was, we'd rented an auditorium to hold it. For flying and skill demonstrations, you know.
"Can you survive without lipgloss?" I asked. "If not, get out."
Her smile faltered and she flounced off in a cloud of perfumed white feathers. One down, seventy one to go.
A kid with a turtle shell walked in next.
That would be a huge problem in a fight and no one could carry him to fly. "Nope, sorry kiddo."
I said "No!" a lot that day.
The very last person walked in: a tall, willowy girl with short, spiky black hair and dull, cloudy amber eyes. "According to the laws of irony, I as the last person you're interviewing must be the solution." She said.
"Got a name?" I asked.
"Yes, it's shut up and get moving because I can hear whitecoats and helicopters."
Right on time, fifty or so whitecoats poured in. She had pretty good timing, actually. And excellent hearing.
"Thanks!" Dylan said.
I punched a whitecoat in the stomach and pushed him off the stage when he doubled over. The girl was getting over powered by three whitecoats. It seemed she wasn't the solution. She was more of a liability as of now, and she would be in any fight if she joined the flock.
She headbutted one over and over until his colleague tried to hold her head still while the third readied a hypodermic needle. The mutant sunk her teeth into the second guy's arm. He held onto her head for a moment, but then staggered away. The other whitecoats looked at the arm and let go of the girl, backing away slowly like they'd suddenly realized they were attacking a bear or something.
"I have DNA from opilinids and from latrodectus mactans." She said calmly. Now all of the whitecoats started moving away from her. "I think you should have read your files a little better."
Fast as lightning, I kicked the guy who'd been bitten in the small of the back and slammed the heel of my hand into the needle-holder's temple.
The bite victim fell flat and didn't move. It hadn't been a particularly hard blow…
Black widow. My Voice said helpfully (wow, what a novel concept!). You know, the ever-so-annoying Voice in my head? If you don't know, learn how to put books in chronological order.
The girl closed her eyes and I watched as one by one the other whitecoats collapsed.
"I can't do that very often. I can stop one person a day or ten in one day but I'll be wiped out for the next month." She said as she dusted off her tight fitting black clothes.
I stared at her. "What was that?"
"I kind of melted their brains. Well, I burst a blood vessel in the brain. For those with superhuman healing, like stab them in the chest and two minutes later they're doing curl ups, it causes a mind-numbing continuous migraine."
"I heal fast." Dylan offered.
She grinned. "Don't tempt me, pretty boy." She said.
"What's your name?"
"Willow. I'm all long and lanky because of the opilinad DNA and Willow sounds like Widow. Latrodectus mactans is better known as the black widow spider."
"And opilinad?" Dylan asked. "What's that?"
"You'd call it a daddy longlegs spider, but in all actuality they aren't spiders. The abdomen is distinctly separate from the—I'll leave it at 'they aren't spiders'."
I looked at Dylan. He was grinning smugly. No, no, no. Not someone this dangerous. Absolutely…
"Come on. Let's get back to the house. We have to introduce you to the rest of the flock."
"So I'm in?" She asked excitedly.
"Yeah." I replied. "You're in."
She punched the air in celebration before calming down. Dylan started explaining the roles of the different flock members. As he detailed my general history, he grinned over his shoulder.
"Shut up, Dylan."