I ran through the streets of New York, my brothers and sister right behind me. "I think we're fine." I said, turning to them. "It looks like we've lost them."
"Are you sure?" My sister, Aydan, whispered as she shifted our youngest brother, Bann, to her other hip. "Maybe we should head to the castle –"
"No!" my other brother, the eldest of my younger siblings, Barra snapped. "You remember what Dad said: We're not to interfere with them getting together."
"I know," She said, "But . . . I'm worried about mom."
"She's fine," I assured her, pulling out the phoenix gate. "As long as we keep this hidden from the Demona of both times, Mom, Dad, our Uncles, Aunts, they'll all be safe."
"I wanna go home," Bann wined, rubbing his eyes as he woke up. "I wanna see Mommy and Daddy!" He began to wail and we had to quiet him down.
"Hey, Bann," I said, improvising as I usually had to do with him. "You remember how Daddy used to tell us stories about his past that made us cry?"
"Because he had to stay away from everyone at home for so long to get away from Avalon."
"That's right. Now, we have to do the same thing. You, me, Aydan, and Barra have to stay far away from our Mommy and Daddy to make sure that the Mommy and Daddy here are safe."
"Does that mean we can't see them?"
I sighed. That was exactly what I was trying to decide. Dad had never told us stories about the time after the Big Sleep incident, so I had no idea where to go from here. Was there a way we could stay near them and not interfere with their future? Dad had always said that time was never able to change. Was it true?
"For now," I said, "Let me get us some new hoodies to hide ourselves. I'll be right back." I walked to the outside of the ally way just as I forced my brown hair in front of my face, hiding my most noticeable features. I yanked down the sleeves on my long-sleeve shirt to hide my hands and rolled my sholders to make sure I was comfortable hunching over for the next ten minutes. Without thinking, I walked into the nearest Hot Topic. I quickly grabbed an XL Nightmare Before Christmas hoodie for Aydan, an XXL Jack Sparrow hoddie for myself, a child's large Transformers hoodie for Bann, and a XXL Green Day hoodie for Barra.
I made sure to keep my head down ad I paid the guy at the counter and stretched my sleeves as far as they would go so he couldn't see my hands. He looked at me questionably before he took the money and handed me the bag with the clothes inside. "Thanks," I said, making sure my lips covered my moth so he couldn't see the teeth inside.
"Well," Barra said, taking the bag from me as I ran back to our temporary hideout in the allyway. "What you get me?" He smiled. Barra was the toughest of us all, usually cold and silent, but, when no one else was looking, he was a jokester with family.
"Oh my Dragon! You got me a NBC one," Aydan was beyond herself. "I love you, Alena!" She ran over and hugged me before taking Bann's over to him. I tuned them out as I quickly shoved myself into the hoodie. I pushed my hair back into its proper style before lifting the hood to cover me. "Okay. I think we'll be fine here until –" I was cut off my a voice at the other end of the ally way.
"Until we come home."
We all looked up to see six guys stalking towards us. "This is our hide out, see, and we don't take to strangers."
Pushing Bann and Aydan behind us, Barra and I got ready for a fight. "Leave us alone," I growled, holding back from the primal instinct that told me to tear this guy apart. I would protect my family.
"Nahh. This is far too much fun." The leader signaled the others and they all rushed at us at once. Before anyone could get one hit in, Bann did the only thing a five-year-old thinks they can do in a situation like that.
He screamed. That boy screamed in a way which, had we been in our time, would have brought about a swift death to them all. "DADDY! MOMMY!"
Had this been our time. Mom and Dad would have come out of no where and taken these guys out, maybe Dad would have killed one for hurting Bann. It was known to happen, but we weren't in our time, and we'd have to take care of ourselves.
That is, until the cops showed up.
"FREEZE! POLICE!" A red headed guy I barely recognized pointed a gun at the gangsters and I saw movement to his side. His partner. "Step away from the kids," he said, his voice steady as if he did this every day, which he probably did.
"You should listen to him," I said, seeing the tip of a shoe on the other end of the ally and hearing the faint but familiar sounds of a pair of wings against the air. "You never know what could be watching." Remembering what Dad had said about people being afraid of gargoyles at the time, I made sure to look up into the sky, as if I knew exactly where the owner of the wings was.
Apparently shaken up, the gang members made a run for the other exit before a woman stepped out of her hiding place. "I do believe the nice man back there told you to freeze," She said. Even younger, I recognized the voice at once. Bann seemed to as well as he finally calmed down and stopped screaming.
They looked like they were going to try and rush her like they'd done us (did they actually have a tactic at all?) but a roar in the distance shut them up. After begging for the officers to take them to a nice, safe jail cell, they easily walked away with the other officers who had just arrived on the scene.
"Maza," a man said. "We're short on hands. You mind talking to the kids and getting a statement before calling the rents? I'll owe you big time."
Crap. Parents + Cops had never been anywhere near good before, and now was not the time to test if it would be good. Perhaps if we gave a statement and ran? Maybe give no statement and run now?
"Don't even think about it," Maza said, looking right at me. "I can tell you're thinking of running and don't, otherwise you and your family might be mistaken as part of the gang. You want that little kid taken away?"
I made sure to look down as I spoke, my hood covering my head and top of my face. "Look," I said. "We'll give you a statement, but you can't call our parents."
"Sorry, kid," she said. "Circumstance has put you in the middle of one of our boss's rants on making sure things go by the book. Besides, I'm sure they must be worried about you."
"I'm sure they are," I said, not seeing any point in lying, "But they'll only worry more if they get a call from the cops, no matter who was at fault."
"Why don't you take the hood off, huh kid? Let us see your face." The red haired detective reached for my hood, but Barra, not thinking at all, shot his hand out and grabbed it before he could touch me and growled. "Leave her alone."
Maza and Bluestone gasped as they starred at my brother's talons on Bluestone's arms. Barra, realizing what he'd done wrong, quickly yanked his hand away, but the damage had already been done.
"Nice going Bar," Aydan said, hugging Bann closely to her. "Real nice."
"Are we gonna have to run again?" Bann asked, looking up as his hood fell from his face.
His skin, like mine and Barra's, could have been mistaken for a human's, though his was a bit too pale sometimes. His ears, like all of ours was tipped and many people, on Halloween of course, asked if he was pretending to be an elf. His hair was white at the base, but gradually became a dark blue at the ends, not a result of dye, but completely natural. Had he had it his way, his wings would have been out, which were white on the inside and blue on the outside. His clawed talons were barely sharp enough to cut butter, but I'd seen people pale when they'd seen them. His eyes were a bluish gray. His horns still hadn't grown in.
Barra took his hood down as well, not seeing any point in hiding anything. "Sorry, little guy. Don't worry, though. We don't have to run." Barra's skin was a bit more believable than Bann's. It was a palish-tan and looked a bit like someone who only saw the sun when nessisary. His brown eyes looked to me apologetically, knowing this might cause more problems than just flying away when those guys showed up. His wings, not as well hidden as Aydan's or Bann's because they were the biggest of us all, were brown on both sides. His horns were relatively small, but not easily hidden by the thin strands of hair he called bangs.
"It'll be fine," Aydan said, smoothing Bann's hair as she pulled off her own hood and shook the red locks. She hated the hoodies most, but she needed them, as hers was the most unbelievable skin color ever: Dad's violet. Her eyes were a matching lavender and rarely ever became the flashing red mine almost always became. Her wings, carefully hidden in the expance of her big shirt and hoodie, were purple on the inside and outside. Her horns, like her skin, refused to be anything that could be hidden in human society and shot right out from the middle of her forehead.
"Look officer Maza," I said, pulling down my own hood. "I think now you understand why calling our parents might not be the best idea." In her eyes, I saw the shock, and maybe a hint of recognition, but all she would be able to tell is that she'd known someone who looked like me at one point in her life. No need to tell her who.
My skin was the closest to normal that any of us got, so if something came up, I was the one who went shopping. My skin was tan, almost the same shade as Maza, but a shade lighter. My hair was a dark brown as were my eyes. My wings were a dark brown on both sides. My own horns were more easily hidden, as the most noticeable two were right at my hairline, while my ears could be covered by my hair as well. I was the eldest of four, so I would probably be talking to her the whole time.
"Okay, no parents," Maza said, "But you are coming to meet my friends."
"Who," Barra asked suspisously.
"Me," a voice said, as the largest gargoyle I'd ever seen landed right next to Maza.
Shit, I thought. It's Dad.