The Seraphim Project

Chapter Seven

We set off immediately. For days, I woke the misfits just after dawn, and we traveled almost nonstop until the sun went down. We were always exhausted by then, so we’d go right to sleep only to repeat the next morning.

We didn’t talk a lot. All I could think about was Hawk, and what might be happening to him. I felt an odd sense of urgency drawing me towards him, and I didn’t fight it. But the others were getting restless. They doubted my direction. We’d been traveling for close to a week with no indication that we were heading in the right direction.

We’d fallen asleep in the woods on the night that they found us. I felt an odd sense of déjà vu when I woke up, screaming for the others to run. They fell from the trees, only to be surrounded by humans. For a moment, I was still panicked, until I realized that that was all they were. They weren’t from the Labs.

“The rest of you, come on down from those trees,” one of them said. I dropped to the ground, and he winced. A fall of that sort would have hurt a human, but I hardly even felt it. I didn’t really feel anything anymore. Falcon landed beside me, and many humans’ eyes widened at the sight of his wings.

“This is a park. You can’t sleep here. Where are your parents?” The man said. He was wearing a police uniform, and I assumed he must be in charge here, so I spoke directly to him.

“We don’t have parents. I’m sorry, we didn’t know we couldn’t sleep here. We’ll just find somewhere else.” I gestured for the misfits to follow me and strode toward the weakest part of the circle. I tried to act like I knew what I was doing, but I was so exhausted and I think they could tell. They bared my path. I wanted to beat their heads together and run away, but these were humans. I couldn’t just kill them because they were in my way.

I didn’t notice that the policeman had come up beside me until his arm slipped around my shoulders. I stiffened beneath it, but he didn’t seem to notice. “How old are you, sweetheart?”

I shrugged his arm off. “15.”

He sighed. “Then I can’t just let you go. Did you all run away from your folks?”

I glared at him, pondering his question. “I suppose you could say that.”

He glanced around at Beast, Falcon and me, with our very visible deformities. “And the Halloween costumes? Halloween was two days ago.”

Beast hung her head, trying to hide her features. I knew how she felt about how she looked. I looked from her to Falcon, who held his head high, but I knew from the look in his eyes that he was terrified. We were freaks, and humans didn’t understand that. But I could either cooperate with these people and try to escape later, or kill them and live with that for the rest of my life.

With a sigh, I said, “Not Halloween costumes. There’s a reason we ran away.”

The officer gave me a weird look. “I think we need to go to the station. And maybe call the FBI.”

I followed him silently to his car. I gazed longingly at the sky, but I couldn’t get away and leave Beast, Russ, and Sunny behind. They would have to at least injure some of the humans to escape, and I didn’t want to have to do that.

When we reached the cars, the officer gestured to a couple of vehicles. “Two of you can ride in that one, three in this one.” He climbed into the driver’s seat of the one he told three to get into. The misfits gathered around me.

“What are you doing, Kite? We can’t go with these people!” Falcon whispered. He hadn’t been himself since we lost Hawk, and I think it was because I was so adamant about going after him.

“What do you want to do, fight our way out? We don’t exactly have a choice! You think I want to waste time with this?”

He glared at me for a moment, but he didn’t say anything else. Finally, I sighed and said, “Falcon, Sunny, take that one. Russ and Beast, you’re with me.” I couldn’t deal with Falcon right now, and putting him in the other car was the best way to keep him away from me.