Okay.

For your information,

I didn't ask to be genetically altered while in the womb.

I didn't ask for my entire genetic recipe to include "bird" as an ingredient.

I didn't ask to be stolen from my birth-parents and then tortured by evil scientists.

I did ask to escape. . .

. . .but I didn't ask to be in foster care when I wanted to be free.

I didn't ask to be repeatedly returned to my social worker like an unwanted gift at Christmas.

I didn't ask to be adopted.

I didn't ask to be brutally attacked in some Chicago alley.

I didn't ask to be badly wounded and then hurriedly stitched up by my dad.

I didn't ask to be forced to fly home without my family.

I didn't ask to run into six other mutants.

But it all happened anyway.

So here goes.

the boring back-story crap

Flap, ow. . .flap, ow. . .flap, ow. . .

I gritted my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut. The wind wasn't bothering me; I was wearing my dad's sunglasses, which I'd found in his jacket.

What was bothering me was the unbelievable pain in my right wing. (The heavy, makeshift sack I was carrying wasn't helping anything, either.)

Hi, my name's Nicole Ackerly and I'm a flying mutant bird kid! You know the story: the two-percent bird DNA, the stealing from the parents, the plots to take over the world. That old chestnut.

I flapped my fifteen-foot wings again and felt the rough stitches rip open.

"Friiiiii-iick!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!"

Oh, come on. Like you never talk to yourself?

I kept cursing under my breath as I began to circle somewhere over the forest I'd been flying over. This sucked! I wasn't gonna make it home in one run, I wouldn't be able to find out if Dad was okay, and I'd have to re-stitch myself. . .which wasn't gonna be pretty, given that I didn't know a frickin' thing about stitches or knife wounds!

Let me backtrack a bit, explain the whole situation.

Up till I was five years old, I'd been shipped to different U.S. branches of Itex like a foster kid so scientists could study me, experiment on me, and/or torture me. When I'd been created, my special power had been found out right away--atom control. This had led up to molecule control, ion control, telekinesis, and even lightning strikes. (Lightning is caused by atmospheric discharge, usually when hyped-up ions are concentrated at certain spots on the earth and in the sky. We realized this could happen if I got upset, which led to the torturing.) On my last trip, which was supposed to go to New York, our armored car had broken down and, without the distractions of the engine noise and the stupid whitecoats, I'd been able to get out of my cage and out the back of the truck. After a sprint down a hard, rocky road, I remembered I had wings and flew off into the bright light that was Chicago, Illinois.

Once in Chicago, I'd been snatched up right away by a nun and given over to the police and Social Services.

My name? Before that, I'd been Subject Thirteen, so no. They'd given me some stupid crap name, Jane Austin, instead. (But like I said, I go by Nicole Ackerly now--I'll explain in a sec.)

Reason for foster care? I'd been five years old and stupid, so after that helpful nun, Sister Katherine, picked me up off the street and brought me to her shelter, I'd told her all about the men who'd hurt me. She gave me over to the police, who came up with a kidnapped-at-birth story that became an unsafe, abusive environment that I'd run away from. (I hadn't been stupid enough to spill about the wings--only the doctor who'd examined me knew about them, and as far as I knew, she hadn't told anybody else.)

First foster family? A house in Michigan with a million other kids and a mom who couldn't handle another--which I kinda had a hand in with my disruptive, violent tendencies. Disruptive as in I didn't take any crap from anybody who picked on me and violent as in I kicked her beloved fifteen-year-old's ass when he tried to mess with me.

Second foster family? In NYC, a pretty nice couple with one other adopted son. I was there a while until a guy in a black suit, sunglasses, and an earpiece had tried to kidnap me. My foster dad, Kyle, had immediately picked me up and tried to run, but then the guy shot him in the back. Women had screamed, children had cried, somebody dialed 911 and the shooter had high-tailed it outta there. Foster Mom Sarah and Foster Brother Trevor were devastated and Sarah had sent me back, claiming I was the reason for her husband's murder. (Which, I guess, I kinda was.)

You get the picture.

The shenanigens went on through four more families in one year, and then I hit Lucky Number Seven back in Chicago: the Ackerly family. Phil, Marie, Kendra, and Jeremy.

Kendra and Jeremy were normal, as in 100% human and 100% Phil and Marie's kids. Kendra was two years older and Jeremy was three-and-a-half years younger. (Three years, six months, and ten days, but who's counting?) The story with me was that they'd had a little girl, who was just about my age, that had gone missing right after birth. They'd always hoped they'd find her someday, and Marie, who was into fate and spirits and stuff, said she had a "really good feeling" about me. After a year or so, they fully adopted me and gave me the name of their lost daughter: Nicole Stephanie Ackerly.

Now, I ain't one who believes in fate and destiny an' all that crap, but Marie's feelin' did seem mighty true as the years went by.

First of all, people would always tell me I looked exactly like my parents.

Second, people would tell me that, if my brother were older or I were younger, we could be twins. Same dirty-blond hair, same golden-brown eyes, same adorable smile. Thirdly, I had no problem calling my parents "Mom" and "Dad."

And last of all, they'd been completely, utterly, no-strings-attatched accepting of my wings.

Too good to be true, right?

Exactly.

Every summer, we still made the two-day car trip back to Chicago, the third-largest city in the U.S. and the city of my sweetest memory. Most recently, in this fabulous summer of 2008, we'd gone to visit our old house. Dad talked to the couple who lived there and they let us all walk around a bit. Jeremy didn't remember most of it, and I only had scattered memories, but man was it cool. Kendra and I used to share a room in the attic, so we went up there--and I bumped my head on the ceiling. She'd laughed, I'd made some sarcastic comment, and it had all been good.

Then we went outside.

Mom, Kendra, and Jeremy all wanted to go back to Grandma's, but Dad had wanted to go around to the back alley to look in the backyard. I said I'd walk with Dad and we'd meet the others at Dominick's (which was the local Chicago version of King Soopers--which was the Colorado version of City Market. . .and if you don't recognize any of these names, it's just the neighborhood grocery store, okay?).

Anyway, Dad and I had gone around back--by now it was starting to get dark--and some homeless psycho had jumped us and come at us with a knife.

Dad, paranoid city kid he was, had made sure Kendra, Jeremy, and I all knew how to fight, so, apart from being a little freaked, I wasn't particularly worried. Dad pushed me back against the wooden fence and decked the guy, sending him to the ground. He told me to run, and I did--and that's when two other guys popped up and tried to grab me.

I freaked out and shrieked like the girly-girl I had never been. I struggled and kicked and got one of the guy in the particulars. (There went his chance of ever having kids!) Then the other guy punched me and I spun into the fence.

Which reminds me: I have splinters in my cheek.

Off topic. Sorry.

After I slammed against the fence, Dad came running and body-slammed the guy who'd hit me. He told me to fly.

I got out of the way and took off my jacket. I unfolded my wings--which are an unusual combination of brown feathers with white spots and white feathers with brown spots--and hesitated, which was stupid, because another guy came up behind me. There was a weird flash, almost like a camera going off, and then steel was slicing through my wing.

Again, the girly-girl I'd never been made me scream (more in shock than pain--that came later) and fall to the ground. Dad knocked out his guy (the one who'd first punched me--Knife Guy Number One and Never-Gonna-Have-Kids Guy were still down and out) and came to tackle Knife Guy Number Two, who went unconscious as soon as his head cracked against a rock.

Dad helped me up and told me to fold my wings. I got one in, but the other one, the hurt one, couldn't move without sending a tidal wave of pain. My dad escorted me to the end of the alley. Just outside the glow of the street, Dad had me face the wall and yell into my sleeve as he stitched me up--the guy had sliced it deep--as best he could (he's a nurse, but he couldn't do much with a frickin' sewing kit he'd found in an inside pocket).

I know it's a long background story, but bear with me. I'm almost up to the present.

Then I'd put my jacket on over my shoulders to hide my wings. . .which didn't help too much, given that the one couldn't go in all the way. We'd gone straight to Dominick's, keeping to the main sidewalks yet out of sight.

Dad unlocked the car and had me get inside. Then he went into the store to find Mom, Kendra, Jeremy, and some really powerful painkillers.

Suddenly the front windshield cracked and smashed--someone had thrown a rock. We didn't have an alarm, but I still yelled in surprise. Which was stupid, because it gave me away instantly.

Dark figures came running from all directions, so I got out and ran into the brightly-lit, way-too-public grocery store.

I went straight for the deli, where the family had said they'd be waiting. Nobody was there. My sister called my name and I whirled to see her looking at the makeup stuff, smiling and clearly oblivious to what had happened. I ran right past Kendra--knocking her into the lip liner rack in the process--and towards the over-the-counter medication, where I hoped my parents would be.

I found them and started babbling about the car in the parking lot when other shoppers began to scream. The people who'd attacked us were in the store, looking for us. Looking for me.

Mom gasped, went pale and grabbed onto Dad for support. He shed his jacket and gave it to me. Then he filled it with rubbing alcohol, gauze, medical tape, and about twelve boxes of Moltrin (one of which he ripped open and gave to me for the pain). He zipped up the jacket, tied it up so nothing could fall out, and pushed me towards an emergency exit.

Fly home.

That's told me over the clanging of the alarm and the chaos of voices in the store.

Fly home and don't stop.

That's what he said as I began to run for the empty lot behind the store.

Just get home and we'll follow.

That's what he yelled as I spread my wings and leaped into the sky.

By "home" he meant the house in Colorado. By wing, it'd take me a day if I didn't stop. If I stopped to sleep, it'd take two days, like the car. Already tired out and having a hurt wing? Three days, maybe. I mean, I healed freakishly fast, but I couldn't keep the wound open to the elements.

I dived into the top of the foliage, wincing as branches and twigs grabbed at my clothes and hair. I dropped out feet-first at the foot of a huge oak tree, the shock waves of impact causing my knees to buckle. I fell to my knees and dropped my bundle of stolen goods before falling face-first into the dirt.

For a second, I just laid there, eyes closed, wings open, and dull pain pulsing through my body. I could've just curled up and gone to sleep right there.

But no--I had to fix my wing, which would be difficult considering all I had was a tiny needle, a button, six inches of black thread, and stolen Kroger-brand medical goods.

I sighed and wearily pushed myself up.

I'm roughly six hundred miles from Chicago. I've got a full sack of meds, half a fifteen-foot wingspan, it's dark, and I'm wearing sunglasses.

Hit it!