It was late afternoon. A girl ran as fast as possible from her predator, though running was never a problem for her. She was always naturally fast.
She veered right and turned onto her street. Quickly looking back, she jumped onto her porch, then made a superhuman leap to her roof. Her predator turned onto the street and looked around. When he saw that no one was there, he scowled and stalked off.
The girl sighed loudly, sitting down on her roof. "Damn it, Thorn," she said to herself "Why can't you control your temper more?"
She slid her backpack off and took her second T-shirt off of her long-sleeved one. Thorn unfurled her black wings and let them soak in the Key West sun.
Remembering that she was on a roof with her wings unfurled, she quickly folded them back in and slid her T-shirt back over her other one.
Thorn took her backpack and jumped down from the roof, making not a single noise. Man, she loved doing that. She turned the knob on the front door, stepped in, and shouted, "I'm home!"
A middle-aged woman standing in the kitchen look at her and gasped. "Thorn! Your face!"
On Thorn's face was a big blotchy bruise, resting right under her left eye. "Huh?" she said. "Oh. Yeah. Jeremy really pissed me off today. Final straw that broke my back." She shrugged. "I got into a little fight with him after school."
The woman sighed, rubbing her temples. "Thorn, I have no choice but to ground you. No internet for two week." She eyed Thorn's clothes. "That's not your blood, is it?"
She shook her head.
"Well, get changed into some other clothes and I'll wash those."
Thorn went to her room and dropped her bag at her feet. She strode over to her mirror and observed herself.
She had dark brown hair, sometimes mistaken as black. Her hair was straight and fell to her shoulders. As for her eyes, they were hazel when she was young. Then they went to grey and brown to just grey. She was tall for her age—5'9"—taller than most boys at school. Today she wore a black shirt with "Gir" on it over a white long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and a pair of black chucks.
Thorn shrugged and changed into her black jeans that hugged her calves and a grey long-sleeved shirt under her black Beatles shirt. She rolled up her sleeves and put on her checkered wristband and bracelet with three-row pyramid studs. Yup. That getup would definitely land her with being called "emo." She didn't care. She got that crap too much to care at all.
She took a pencil and put it in her mouth. Thorn gathered up her hair, twisted it, curled it around, then took the pencil and stuck it through, down, and up again.
There, she thought. That's better.
Though her hair was up, her bangs still fell over her right eye. She shrugged again, still not caring.
Thorn brought her dirty clothes down to Mary, her foster mother, and said, "I'm gonna go take a walk."
"Got your cell phone?"
She held her black Katana up to show Mary.
"Alright, be back by dinner."
With a nod, Thorn left the house with her headphones on and iPod playing. She got her skateboard from under the back deck and set it on the street. Then she jumped on and coasted down the avenue, blasting some Green Day to drown out any outside noises.