Fang

Backtrack! My mind thought. But another part of my mind was yelling back, no you can't lie to her! She's going to see right through you! This was bad. What could I tell her? My mind was just starting to warm up from our make-out session.

"Abby," I decided to start with that. Here goes nothing, "I'm not going to lie to you."

"Like hell your not." He said her voice tense. She knew something was coming. "Is your name really Nick?"

I looked down. "No" I said. "It's not. We use fake names when we go to school so we don't attract attention."

"We?" She noticed my plural like I had predicted.

"Jeff, or as we know him, Iggy. The 6 year old is Angel, the talkative one is Nudge, and the weird one is the Gasman." I said. Her face went blank. She was processing this well so far.

"So you use fake names. I get that." Her voice was composed. I barely noticed that Angel had ignored us now because she knew something was up. Good thing she was a mind reader. "I have another question. I was afraid to ask before because I didn't want to be rude. But this seems like a good time. Where are your parents…Fang?"

This was good I thought. She was getting used to this. "We don't know. We are just a group of kids that ban together. We mostly do that for protection in numbers."

"So they just abandoned you guys then?" She was looking at me again. Good. I thought.

"Kinda." I said. I don't know why I was doing this.

She's just some girl.

No she's not! I don't like lying to her. I don't like the horrible feeling I have when I have to confront her and know I'm putting on an act. That is wrong. And I need to make this right.

"Abby," I demanded. She turned to me again, noticing the hard edge in my voice. "God, Abby. I can't keep doing this to you. I need to tell you something important about me."

"Tell me." She whispered.

"I love you." She looked like she was about to faint. Her face spread with surprise.

"That's not what you were going to say was it?" She replied after a moment. "But, in any case, I love you to." She gave me a faint smile.

"You always see right through me don't you?" I tried to keep the mood light.

She gave me a look. "Explain." She demanded.

"Look. I think it would be in your best interest to sit down." I led her back to the rock. She looked at it for a little bit and decided in sitting. I kissed her quickly, nervously. "Abby, baby. You need to be open minded. You're the only person outside of everything that will know about us. This must stay between you and me. Oh and probably Emily. Angel told me that he really likes her too. She understands him. Angel heard him say that, in his thoughts." I let that sink in for a moment.

"Oh." She said. "So she can read minds. That's interesting. So are you telling me this all about reading minds. Can you read peoples minds too?"

"Shhh. You must let me finish. No. That's only Angel. Iggy is blind but he can feel colors. Nudge can hack computers and attract metal to her. Then Gazzy can imitate voices perfectly."

She nodded a weak nod. "And what can you do?" She wasn't looking at me again.

"And I can blend into any background." She looked at me with a surprised look.

"Can I see?" I was a little confused but I agreed anyway.

"Fang?" I had faded into the background. I moved and I was seen again. Her face lit up a bit.

"Oh, that's cool. What is weird about that? I understand why you need to hide though. The government scientists would like lock you away…" She stopped when she saw me flinch. "You're not done with your story are you." It was more of a statement than a question really.

"No." I replied quietly. "We haven't gotten to the worse part yet." I stared deep into her eyes before I finished. "The reason we don't have parents is because ever since we were babies all of us lived in dog crates, in a laboratory. They made us run, and, well, to put it bluntly, get poked around with sticks so they could examine us. But it wasn't just our amazing eye sight, unbelievable strength, special skills, or even raptor hearing. The part they were most interested in was our… wings." I turned to look at her. She was staring at me. Just staring. And looking for my wings. I don't think it was anything bad, but it is a lot to take in at once. Honestly, I think she's handling it well.

"When we were babies they mixed our DNA with avian DNA. So we can fly."

She turned to me. "Can I see them?" She was barely audible for any human ears. I nodded once and started to unzip my jacket.

But right before I took my sleeves out to reveal my wings I spoke carefully. "I love you Abby." And I took off my jacket and shook out my stiff, dark, big wings.