Chapter 2

Freedom

"Freedom! Freedom! I can't move
Freedom, cut me loose!
Singin', freedom! Freedom! Where are you?
Cause I need freedom too!"

A few weeks later Tanya and I are unpacking our things and I show her my clawed feet, expecting her to be excited like she usually is about our small rebellions, instead she completely freaks out.

"Phoenix that's not good, what if my parents just show up one day and see that? You're going to get me in trouble too."

"I'll buy some slippers and wear them around the house. What's your deal Tanya? You usually love rebelling against your parents."

"Not when it's something like that, Phoenix first it's the claws, what next? Are you going to stop taking your medicine too? Stop going to see Mr. Johnson when your wings are growing in? Are you going to become a savage like the rest of your dying species? Have my parents not done enough to show you how dangerous you can be? How selfish can you get?"

I'm momentarily struck speechless by her ranting, but then I get angry, shouting, "I just want to be able to be myself without being judged!" Before storming out of our apartment. Even though I have been taking my medicine that suppresses my phoenix abilities, I can feel steam seeping from my pores and I need to calm down. I'm walking around the school campus that Tanya and I are supposed to be going to together and I start to wonder about my life.

Everything I've done has been next to Tanya. I've never had any other friends, never felt like I needed any until now. Now my whole life just feels like chains. I got a tiny piece of freedom, but I'm supposed to be under everyone's control still. Still supposed to listen to the rules I hate to feel like crap all the time to make other people feel comfortable. I wonder if any of the other rescued orphans feel this conflicted, but we're not encouraged to speak to each other, and most of us are too shy to initiate a conversation. Maybe I should leave… just not go back to the apartment and wander to a new town where nobody knows me. Or I could head to the mountains, stop taking my medicine, and live like a true phoenix. Amongst the trees and the snow.

I'm just turning to leave the campus and go back to the apartment to actually plan this out when a group of men turn from behind the building I just passed. I pause and turn to look at them in confusion, they can't be after me, right? When from in front of me step another group. They look different. One has green eyes that look like mine and unruly dark hair, he looks familiar… another one has short, spiky hair and violet eyes; I'm shocked to find that she's a girl. All the girls in stairway to heaven and the surrounding families keep their hair long and wear a lot of makeup. This girl is as natural as I am and she's got very pixie like features. The girl standing next to her isn't wearing makeup either, but her hair is long, down to her hips, and is woven into what the humans call dreadlocks, she's tall and slender, and her skin is dark like Mr. Johnson, and I'll bet that if I look closely, she's got reptilian pupils. Behind them is a couple, the girl is small with amethyst eyes and long brown hair and the guy is tall, like really tall, with green eyes and black hair. They're bickering quietly, and I can only make out words like, "supposed to stay home" "dead body" "kill me" and "men" muttered like a curse.

Possibly a phoenix, a gorgon, and… I let my senses loose a bit and have to bite back a curse of my own. Two shifters and a Valkyrie. What are they all doing together?

The familiar guy looks at my face and gasps out, "Clarissa…" I look around like an idiot, because that's definitely not my name, when one of the men behind me yells, "get them!" and I run. Because not even my training prepared me to fight ten people at one time. The familiar looking guy yells at the couple to come after me, and then him and the other two girls lunge at the group of five ordinary looking men who have pulled out guns.

I don't wait to see who wins, I just face forward and run as fast as I can, zig zagging between buildings and trying to lose the two shifters in the school so I can go back to the apartment.

"Hey!" I hear a feminine voice shout. "We're here to help you dammit!" I don't stop to even respond to such a ridiculous statement, I just try to run faster. Suddenly from my right, I'm tackled by… a tiger? In the middle of Los Angeles? The tiger morphs back into the green eyed shifter and I let my training take over, punching him in the throat and wrapping my legs around his neck, using the leverage of pulling him backwards off of me to stand and keep running. I hear his companion laughing.

"it's not funny Amaya!" I hear growled out far behind me. All of a sudden, flames burst out in front of me and a scramble to stop, not sure if I'm immune to the flames or if the medication I've been taking has negated that.

"watch out!" the girl, Amaya, yells before tackling me to the ground. I hear a pop and a whiz right next to my ear and realize I was almost shot in the head, but this shifter saved me. Why? I'm more confused than ever as I push her off of me and run to one of the nearest buildings, kicking in the door, and running up the stairs. The alarm is blaring and I'm trying to get to the roof so that I can hide and I hear running footsteps coming after me, and all of a sudden Oberon steps out of the shadows in front of me.

"Oberion?!"

"Phoenix. I hear you've been hiding things from me." He looks down at my feet and I look down to see that my claws are tearing through my shoes. I swallow my spit and refuse to look up even though I feel his stare boring into my face. "Well?! He snaps. "Do you have an explanation?"

I sigh, suddenly exhausted, feeling older than I probably should at nineteen. "I just wanted some part of me to look like a real phoenix."

All of a sudden Oberion is in my face and my cheek is stinging. "We've done everything that we could to stamp that which is phoenix out of you! Your hair is more manageable, your eyes are like ours, your skin no longer looks like dirt, and we have taken you in and educated you! And yet you hide things from me and you want to look phoenix? Fine. You want to be like your dying race? Then go be with them!" And he pushes me through the glass and out of the window. I'd made it to the seventh floor.

My last thought before hitting the ground, "tanya can suck it."

I awaken hours later tied to what looks like a hospital bed. The familiar looking phoenix boy is sitting in a chair next to me. I instantly start to struggle to get out of the ties on my wrists, wondering where I am and what… all of a sudden I remember what happened and I stop struggling. Oberion pushed me out of a window. I look down at my body and realize that one of my legs is in a cast. So is one of my arms, and I'm pretty sure some ribs are broken also, because now that I've stopped struggling and the adrenaline is wearing off, they hurt.

"Where am i?" I ask the boy. "Who are you?"

"You're safe. That's all you need to know. Oberion, is that what you called him? He's dead. And I'm Jonathan. Your brother."