AN: Sorry it's been so long, I had some stuff happen that's really not that bad in the grand scheme of things, but it rocked my planet of its axis and into another universe, so I toke some time off for myself and now I'm getting back to writing.
Chapter 3: WTH? Part 2
'Man, not again!' I thought as I woke up to another headache. 'I swear, if I've got gills or something, I'm gonna hurt someone!' I pulled myself out of bed and looked over at Is and Abbie, but they were still sleeping, so I left and got dressed. I pulled on a pair of dark wash, slightly distressed skinny jeans, a plain long-sleeved black T-shirt, and a slightly faded Fall Out Boy T-shirt.
"Good Morning," Ms. Martinez said to me when I walked in the kitchen. "I know I said I'd wake you up at 4 p.m., but you guys were so tired I opted to let you sleep."
"'Sokay," I slurred, still half asleep. "What time is it?"
"It's 6 in the morning," Ms. Martinez smiled. "Sleep well?"
"Yeah, some of the best sleep I've had in a while," I smiled. "So, what are you guys going to do today?"
"Well," Ms. Martinez dragged off. "The flock usually sleeps till around 10, so do you want to do anything?"
"Nah, I'll help with chores, though," I shrugged.
"That's fine," Ms. Martinez insisted.
"No, come on," I smiled. "With seven kids in the house you're bound to have a lot of laundry. I'll help."
"Okay," Ms. Martinez got up. "You fold?"
"Yeah," we walked into the laundry room. "So what's it like living with them?"
"It was nice being reunited with my eldest daughter," Ms. Martinez smiled. "Although they are going to eat me out of house and home!"
"One could imagine," I looked down at the shirt I was holding.
"So what's your story?" Ms. Martinez asked.
"I grew up as Samantha Nicole Mori," I shrugged. "My life was basically, 'Okay little genius what can you make to help daddy make money?' from my father and 'you stupid little girl, we can't take you out in public, can we?' from my mother."
"You should probably wait to explain to the Flock," Ms. Martinez smiled. "How about first thing after breakfast? Wouldn't want you to explain it twice."
"Thanks," I smiled. About an hour and a half later we were finished with three loads of laundry and had started the fourth. After we loaded everything Fang came down the stairs, silent as ever but me with my *cough* super awesome ninja powers caught him.
"Want food?" I asked Mrs. Martinez and Fang, moving over to the stove when they nodded. I pulled out all of the ingredients for my special pancakes. "How many do you guys usually eat?"
"A lot," Fang shrugged, pulling out one of the kitchen island stools and sitting down.
"Thank you for being so clear and precise," I rolled my eyes, planning to make food for at least twice the amount of people. An hour later I was almost done and Max was sitting at the island with Fang, probably talking with their eyes, like I've seen them do. "How long have you guys been able to do that?" I asked, very offhandedly, shocking them out of their non-verbal conversation.
"Do what?" Max asked.
"Talk with your eyes," I answered, turning back to breakfast. "I can do it with Is and Abbie, but I have known them for practically my whole life and we started when we were six. So, how long have you known each other?" I looked down at my pancakes and decided that they were ready and flipped them out of the pan and onto the plate that was already filled up with pancakes.
"We've known each other for as long as we can remember," Max shrugged. "What are you making?"
"My special pancakes," I smiled, rolling my eyes when Is and Abbie popped into the room.
"We smelled pancakes," Is smiled and sniffed around the room.
"What are you doing, guys?" I asked as Abbie joined her.
"Your pancakes smell so good!" they both exclaimed.
"Who's baking?" Iggy burst into the kitchen frantically.
"Me, Sam," I explained to him, raising an eyebrow when he calmed down. "Why?"
"Max wasn't in her room and I smelled food cooking, so I panicked," Iggy explained, sitting down by Max and Fang.
"Hey," Max poked him in the side. "I've gotten better, remember that time I helped my mom?"
"Calm 'er down!" I shouted. "I have the power to withhold pancakes!"
"Pssst," Abbie whispered to Is. "Plan Save-Mr.-Spencer-and-co."
"Oh, no you don't!" I cried, whipping out another spatula and smiled as they grabbed their own spatulas. "En garde!" at that we started fencing with the spatulas (two to one). "Muahaha!" I laughed victoriously after I disarmed both of them. "I am undefeated!"
"Canis Femina," Is muttered.
"Right back atcha, love!" I smirked.
"What did you just say?" Iggy asked.
"She just called me a bitch," I smiled angelically while Is and Abbie laughed. "Well, technically she called me a female dog."
"What language was that?" Max asked raising her right eyebrow.
"Latin," I gave everyone two pancakes. "Nerds cuss-slash-insult people in Latin."
"Nerds?" Max laughed.
"Not to be confused with Geeks," I explained in all seriousness.
"Meanie," Abbie pouted.
"EGO operor non agnosco English," I muttered back.
"She doesn't understand English," Is translated as my phone started blaring.
"You wanna know more, more, more about me/ Gotta know reverse psychology/ I'm the reason why you can't get to sleep/ I'm the girl you never get just quite what you see…" it continued as I leaned down to grab it out of my pocket.
"Salve (pronounced sal-way)," I smiled into it. (Hi)
"Salve," a deep male voice responded. "Quam es vos?" (Hi… How are you)
"Habitum in articulus," I looked up and excused myself from the table and walked into another room. "Ego sum inconditus." (Hold on a moment… I am confused.)
"Quare es vos inconditus?" Nik continued. (Why are you confused?)
"Some crazy ass shit has happened to me, Nikolas," I sighed and sat down on a swing outside. "Since I know Hayden is there with you, can you put me on speaker? I might as well explain it to the both of you at the same time."
"Okay…" Nik trailed off for a moment. "It's on speaker."
"Hey, Hay!" I smiled.
"Hi, Hi!" he intoned back, probably sick at the same joke for 14 years.
"How are you guys?" I asked, trying in vain to put off the inevitable.
"Not so good," Nik sighed.
"Your parents are still pissed?"
"Yeah," they both sighed. "Well, it's moved beyond pissed."
"What did they do?" I braced myself.
"Well both sets of parents have kicked us out and are spending at least a mill each trying to keep it out of the papers," Hay sighed again. "Plus, they have deemed us unnatural."
"It makes no sense," Nik added in.
"Well, you have to understand their reasoning," I put on a mocking voice. "They must feel that openly socializing with homosexuals will cause them to magically become gay," I smiled, hoping my thinly veiled sarcasm was making the couple feel better.
"Like hanging around tall people will make you taller?" Hayden laughed.
"Of course, why do you think that I hang around you guys so much?" I laughed along.
"I thought it was my dashingly good looks and Hay's mean guitar playing!" Nik joked back. "Besides, you're tall enough!"
"Anyway, " I sobered up. "I have to tell y'all something."
"Does it have anything to do with the sudden alien energy that swept through your body yesterday morning? Or possibly the fact that your anatomy somewhat resembles a birds?" Hayden laughed. "We had taken a page from your book, unfortunately, that foreign energy sweep killed our bug, so we're screwed."
"I have taught you too well, young grasshoppers," I smiled, very relieved.
"So do you want to explain to us exactly what happened?" Nik asked.
"Yeah, but you have to promise that you'll believe me, no matter how crazy I sound, promise?" I almost held out my pinky before remembering that they weren't there.
"Is this sort of crazy like the time you wore that whack outfit to our performance or the type of crazy that actually will have us worried?" Nik sounded a little concerned.
"Well, if you watched the bird-kid Max's speech, then it will sound like the first option, but if you haven't, then it will sound like the second," I explained.
"Good," Nik sighed like he had been worried about me.
"Aww, you guys really do care!" I fake sniffed. "Either way (and this is a summary of my last few days in their bare bones), I was kidnapped two days ago while I was sleeping and I was injected with the serum that was concocted with a bit of Max's DNA, then when I got really made the wings appeared, the same happened to Is and Abbie, and then I met Max and her Flock, and now I'm gonna grab Is and Abbie and go to that super school that I told you guys about and see if I can the rest of my crew before the world ends!"
"That is a whole lot of crazy," Nik commented after a few minutes. "Now go back over the parts you skipped out."
"Okay, remember when we went on that trip to Japan?" I asked.
"The one where you kept skipping out on us for now good reason?" Hayden laughed. "That was a sucky trip."
"Well, I didn't really go just to spend more time with you guys," I started.
"We realized that by the fact that we never saw each other during the trip," Nik sighed.
"Don't interrupt!" I scolded. "Anyway, I recovered an ancient artifact that adopted me."
"What the heck does that mean?" Nik raised his voice a little bit.
"It means that I was appointed guardian of it," I paused. "The thing is that in essence it is the personification of mankind, so I'm technically the Guardian of Mankind, or as I am supposed to be called Curator Virorum (Guardian of Man)."
"…Dang…" Nik paused. "I really don't know what to say to that."
"Have you told Is and Abbie yet?" Hayden cut to the chase. "Never mind I already know the answer. You need to tell them. I'm betting that they are right there with you, so go march your little butt inside and tell them."
"I will guys, but there's one more thing," I paused. "The people who changed me are going to erase me."
"What do you mean by that?" Nik asked sharply.
"I mean that by tomorrow there's a good chance that you won't remember me," I told them, trying not to let my voice wavier. "Tomorrow you guys will never have known that I existed."
"Why?" Hayden asked, softly. "Why does it make any difference? Who would we tell? Why would we tell?" with every question his became more hysterical
"It's a safety precaution," I paused again, trying not to cry. "So you wouldn't wonder where I went and perhaps start to investigate."
"So, I guess this might be goodbye?" Nik sighed. "This sucks."
"I know," I choked back a sob. "I love both of you so much. I hope you have a wonderful life."
"See you soon Sam," they both said goodbye and we hung up. I sat outside for a few minutes trying to cheer myself up before walking back inside.
"Hey, guys," I forced a smile on my face and sat down at the table.
"What's wrong?" Is asked.
"They are going to erase us tomorrow," I sighed. "I just said goodbye to Hayden and Nikolas."
"Flippin' A's," Abbie sneered. "We should have stopped them before."
"I know," I sighed, my shoulders slumping. "I had the evidence, but when I told them about it they said they would stop all genetic engineering."
"Yeah, it seems like they really stopped," Is rolled her eyes.
"Anyway, I'm gonna go move all of my money into a separate account," I got up and pulled out a laptop. For the next four hours I transferred all of my money over to a central account under the name Samantha Wali. Since I had been staring at the computer for so long I decided to take a nap before going down and telling everyone my story. I completely erased my history, gave my computer a chance to reboot, and laid down to take a nap.