Web of her own

CHAPTER FOUR: "String Theory"

It started like most of the weird things do-with panic.

Dr. Verma was late. First time ever. I waited twenty minutes in the lab, pacing, stretching, testing my grip on the ceiling. I even ran the climbing wall twice out of boredom.
Nothing felt off, except me.

My fingers had been twitching all day. Not the "I'm-nervous-before-a-test" twitchy. More like... buzzing. Like there was something underneath my skin, crawling toward the surface.
I kept flexing my hands.

I didn't like it.

I stood by the workbench, flipping a screwdriver between my fingers when it happened.
I dropped the tool-reached out fast to catch it-and something shot out of my wrist.
I yelped.

There was a snap sound, like a rubber band under tension, and then-
Thwip.

A thin silver strand connected my wrist to the screwdriver.

It hung there midair, spinning slightly.
"What the-"

I waved my arm.
The line followed. It stuck. I had to brace myself to yank it free, and when it finally gave, the force threw me off balance and I crashed into a cabinet, knocking over three boxes of lab samples and a fake skull Dr. Verma used for... some reason.

"Ow," I muttered, untangling myself.
I sat on the floor, staring at my wrist.
A small, almost invisible slit had opened just near the base of my palm. Not a wound-more like a little vent. It pulsed once, then sealed back up.
I held up my hand again, tentatively aimed at a nearby chair leg, and-
Thwip.

Another line. Clean. Perfect.

I tugged.

It held.

I tugged harder.

The chair skidded across the floor toward me with a screech.

"No freaking way."
By the time Dr. Verma finally burst in-coat on crooked, hair a disaster-I had webbed half the lab. Not on purpose. Turns out it's a little like sneezing: comes out fast, hard to control, and happens exactly when you don't want it to.
"Oh my god," she said, stepping over a string that had pinned a filing cabinet shut. "Did you build a spider rave in here without me?"

I held up my hands like a magician revealing a trick. "I have webs."

She blinked.

Then grinned, setting her bag down. "Of course you do."

"Why now though?"

She opened a drawer, rummaged for a second, and tossed me a weird-looking glove with finger sensors. "Pressure-triggered, probably. Spiders shoot silk under stress or to escape. Instinct kicks in. Your body was adapting. You just didn't know it yet."

"I'm not gonna start laying eggs, right?"
"Nope. Wrong gender and wrong species. But the web thing? That's useful."

She spent the next two hours running tests. Measuring tensile strength. Velocity. Range. I hit a wall target from fifteen feet away. Swung from one beam to another-badly. Smashed into a filing cabinet again. Still counts.

By the end of it, I was covered in strands, bruises, and a little dizzy.
But I was grinning.

Dr. Verma looked at me over her glasses.
"You're getting dangerous," she said. "In a good way."

I nodded, panting. "Yeah. I can feel it."
I didn't say it out loud, but for the first time since the bite-I felt cool. Not broken. Not "Dud." Just... me.

And I was a girl who could shoot webs out of her wrists.

Try calling that a mistake.

AN-Sorry the last chapters were short, but 5 is going to be longer, I promise.

Song to listen to: Velvet Ring- Big Thief