I woke to the sun in my face and a silent house.
It was a typical morning, I suppose. Normal, at least for me. I pulled myself out of bed with a glance at the clock to show that it was just after seven. Stretching, I winced a little as my slightly extended wings bumped against the wall.
I slipped into the hallway, pausing for a moment to listen to a highly unusual sound for me. The house was almost completely silent. When I listened very closely, I could just hear the sound of breathing, but no one was awake aside from me.
I smiled and made my way to the bathroom. The silence was one of the only reasons I got up as early as I did. Within an hour, the house would start to come alive, and I wouldn’t have another silent moment for the rest of the day.
After a quick shower, I made my way to the kitchen to make breakfast. On my way, I passed the living room, where Falcon was already sprawled across the couch. I paused in the doorway, studying him. He was a big guy, with lots of intimidating muscles, except that I knew he was really a goofball. His dark hair was in a slight mohawk, though his eyes were closed and I almost wondered if he was sleeping. And then he smiled.
“What are you doing up so early?” I made my way through the room and into the kitchen. As I tried to pass him, he extended one of his huge, dark wings to block my path. Rolling my eyes, I pushed past him and into the kitchen to make breakfast.
“Seeing as I’m not exactly up, this doesn’t really count.”
I rolled my eyes again. “Up, as in, somewhat awake and not in your room. If I meant up as in fully alert, then I wouldn’t be expecting you until breakfast was ready.”
He made a fake indignant noise. “Now, that’s no way to treat your elder, now is it?”
I laughed. He was older than me by two years, but I’d been taking care of all of us for years. There were six of us total, me being one of the youngest and Falcon one of the oldest. I found a couple of clean pans and set them on the stove before starting the first set of toast.
There was a loud thump and muttered curses from down the boys’ hall. I didn’t need to investigate. I had discovered why Falcon was up so early.
“Falcon, what have I told you about moving furniture to mess with Hawk?”
Falcon appeared in the kitchen doorway just as I started the eggs. “Come on, Kite. You know it’s funny.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “It’s not funny. The first time, a little, perhaps. You should have learned better by now.”
He hung his head a little. “It was just a joke. No harm done. Right, Hawk?” The last he directed towards the end of the hallway, where Hawk had just appeared. Hawk glared in Falcon’s direction, rubbing a place on his shin.
Hawk was at least three inches shorter than Falcon, and a lot leaner, too. His light hair was disheveled, sticking up from his head in every direction, and his own wings arced behind him. We were the majority in our little group, seeing as all of us were angels.
There was one big thing about Hawk that made him different then the rest of us, though. Hawk was blind. We were created by scientists in a lab. With Hawk, they had just started experimenting with our senses. They messed up, and everyone in Hawk’s generation, Generation Two, had suffered.
I shooed the boys out of the kitchen as I set to work on the eggs again. Well, mostly I shooed Falcon away. Hawk just followed him into the living room. I didn’t even have to look to know that Hawk was stepping in exactly the same places as Falcon to avoid any surprises. They may have messed up Hawk’s sight, but his other senses were unbelievable.
I had another few minutes of peace as the boys argued in the living room. Enough time to finish most of breakfast, at least. Then Beast found her way into the kitchen.
Beast could be really intimidating. She was a Generation One werewolf, but they’d made a huge mistake trying to give her the ability to shape shift. Instead, she just got stuck halfway, in a human form with really sharp teeth and claws, wolf ears sticking out of her hair, and brown and black spotted fur covering her entire body. If I didn’t know better, I might have mistaken her for a boy at first glance. But I did know better, and I knew not to bring it up. Ever.
She grabbed a piece of bacon off of the plate. I shot her a warning look, and she grinned at me, fangs and all. I couldn’t help but laugh at how bizarre the expression looked on her. Still grinning, she disappeared into the living room.
There was an enraged cry from down the boys’ hall. I didn’t even turn to investigate as I heard the padding of a wolf running towards the girls’ hall.
“Don’t even think about it, Russ. And you know you’re not supposed to be a wolf in the house. Go Change. Now.”
I heard him skid to a halt just before the girls’ hall and slink back to the boys’ hall. A few moments later, Russ appeared, in human form now. He was a Generation Three werewolf, advanced enough from Beast’s Generation to shift forms at will. Generation Two had gotten stuck as wolves and been released into the wild.
In this form, he had a mop of the same russet brown hair that he had in his wolf form and that had been his namesake. He was just shorter than Hawk, but not quite as lean.
He grinned at me. “Sorry. But you know how much fun it is to mess with him.”
I sighed, but I didn’t disagree. He was speaking of Sunny, the last of our group. He was a vampire from Generation Three, the only Generation that survived. A couple of years ago, he discovered the Hollywood vampire. Since then, he’d been trying to be a “true vampire”, as he said.
“Sunny, get your butt out here for breakfast!”
“No! It’s daylight! I’m supposed to be sleeping!”
I rolled my eyes. “Sunny, you are not a Hollywood vampire. You will not crispify if you come out and eat—or, excuse me, drink—breakfast with the rest of us.”
“Yes I will! Vampires burn in the sun!”
I stomped my foot loud enough for him to hear all the way down the hall. “Your name is Sunshine, and you have no issue with sunlight. If you don’t get out here right now, I will come in there and drag you out of bed myself.”
“Don’t call me that! It’s Sunny!”
“I’ll call you whatever I want. Now get out here right now, Sunshine.”
I could just hear him grumbling, so I knew he was on his way. I gathered up the last of breakfast and headed towards the kitchen table, calling “Guys! Breakfast!”
They cheered and met me there. We were all taking our seats around the circular table when Sunny finally appeared. He was about the same height as Hawk, but more filled out like Russ. He had shoulder length black hair that he spent hours every morning styling. And, today, he had a black cape, which he held in front of his face with one hand, baring his fangs at me.
I rolled my eyes. “Where did you get that cape?”
He dropped the cape and grinned at me. It was almost as bizarre as Beast smiling, with his fangs sticking out. “I found it in town. They’re putting out their Halloween costumes. Isn’t it awesome?”
I gave him a scrutinizing look. “Did you buy it?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, I bought it.”
I continued to study him. All of the misfits—as I’d come to call us—had a habit of taking things without paying for them. I could almost understand it from Hawk, Falcon, and Beast. It wasn’t like they could just walk into a store and buy things, with the bulky wings and wolf-like body. But Sunny and Russ did it just for sport. We had more than enough money. The man that had helped us escape from the Labs where we’d been created had left us a bank account, and I could only guess that he still made deposits as our funds never seemed to dwindle.
Finally, I sighed, shaking my head, and turned back to the table. Everyone took their seats, reaching for food from the middle to fill their plates, except for Hawk and Sunny. Hawk sat and waited, listening very carefully for where everyone else was reaching to. I knew that as soon as we stopped getting food, he would gather his own with uncanny skill.
Sunny glared at the table for a moment. “Kite! You forgot my blood again,” he whined, getting up from the table.
I made an exaggerated surprised face. “Oh! Do real vampires drink blood out of bottle prepared by their mothers now?”
He grumbled as he headed for the refrigerator, and it sounded something like, “You’re not my mother.” Which I wasn’t, of course, seeing as we were the same age. The two of us and Russ were fifteen, Hawk was sixteen, and Falcon and Beast were seventeen. But I’d still been taking care of them since we’d escaped from the Labs when I was eight.
I ignored him and took a bite of the bacon on my plate. Hawk got his food, and as always, I watched in awe. He even knew which plate held what type of food. It was mind blowing.
Sunny pulled a jug of blood out of the refrigerator and poured himself a glass. It was animal blood that we got—read stole—from a butcher a few towns over. Sunny said it was disgusting, but, obsessed as he was with Hollywood vampires, he couldn’t bring himself to actually snack on people. Wuss.
He stood in the kitchen while his blood warmed up in the microwave—because, as he said, obviously cold blood is disgusting—while the rest of us ate and joked at the table. Russ stole bacon off of Beast’s plate, and she growled at him until he put it back. Falcon tried to mix up the plates to throw off Hawk, to no avail.
And then, just as the microwave dinged, the front door exploded.