Chapter 1 - Detroit

2
Morning came, sun peaking through the large windows in the living room to Joisan's curtained section in the back of the loft. She mumbled, rolling over in her stomach, her white wings fluttering against the blankets.. The ten year old's head went up. She sat there looking around. "Guess Jazzy didn't come home yet." Her hands went above her head as she stretched. Her stomach growled loudly telling her to start in the kitchen.

"I'm home!" a voice called, the door slamming and echoing through the loft. "I'll start on breakfast in a minute." The teenager slipped off her step in sneakers, and hopped over to the kitchen area. Jazmyn rustled through the drawers until she found her kitchen tools. Three frying pans, a chopping board, two different knives, and a bowl. Chopping up fruit, she tossed melon, grapes and peached in the bowl. She mixed pancake batter with blueberries and strawberries, and fried up half as pancakes, and the other half as waffles. Joisan pulled out plates forks and knifes and set the table.

"Where were you last night?" she asked, sitting near Jazmyn.

With a flip of her wrist, Jazmyn flipped the pancake in the air and caught it in the pan. "I went out."

"Out isn't an answer." Joisan sighed, forking some fruit. Her hand reached out and touched Jazmyn's wing. She looked at the soot-dust that covered her hands. "You went flying?!! Without me?!!"

"We'll go today if you want." Jazmyn said, plating a stack of pancakes on the table. Another plate had the waffles. "Do we want meat?"

"It's full of protein." said the ten year old, diving into the pancakes.

"So is soy milk. Beside meat is bad for you." Jazmyn set a dish of bacon on the table. "Aren't I ironic?"

"Pass the syrup please." Joisan said. "What are we going to do today?"

"We'll go out, shop for some clothes, go to the river to fly a kite... maybe even fly during the day." Jazmyn sipped her coffee. "So eat up. You're going to need all twenty thousand calories." Joisan smiled a grand smile. infact, why don't we do that after breakfast? Just go to the park and fly?" Joisan's smile became bigger.

"Really?! You're not kidding are you?!!" Joisan asked.

Jazmyn smiled too. "Nope. Not kidding."

***
Jazzy's POV

Wow, you should have seen her face. It just lit up when i told Joisan we'd fly today. We got on the people mover on Walker, which was smaller then a city bus. Joisan was jittery, excited, I could see it in her eyes. She just wanted to jump out the window of the machine and zoom over the river like a bullet. For those of you who don't know what a people mover is, it's like a subway except above ground, and goes on rails two stories over the streets. It's free and runs three times every hour, except after six, they close down then.

Oh, and about breakfast, it may seeeeeem like a lot, but it's actually normal. You see, because we have wings, hollow bones and anatomy like birds, our bodies eat up a whole lot of calories. Don't know how many, all i know is it's somewhere in the thousands. The people mover stopped, and we got off. It was a breezy summer day. The strong gusts pulling at her, Joisan just couldn't keep from hopping around me.

The only place we could really go was to Belle Isle. It's a little island just off the coast of Detroit, connected with this bridge that like, a mile or two long. It had a few parks, but because of the rain from a few days ago, most of the forest and parks were really swampy. But that's not what we're here for. I looked around for anyone there. We had travelled near the center of the island, since today was windy everyone would be near the edge of the river, kite flying.

Joisan looked back at me, pointing to a swan and her five ducklings. We froze where we were. Even if they were some of the most beautiful birds, swans are a bunch of vicious little bastards. Especially when you come three feet near their children. The mother swan looked at us, and we looked back.

After the swan left, we finally made it to the center of the forest. Looking around, Joisan took off her blue jean jacket. She handed me her jacket, and opened her wings halfway. They were truely beautiful. Solid white, but where they met her back the feathers were metallic silver and black. Reaching in her pocket, Joisan pulled out two whistles on a string. One, a normal whistle, the other a dog whistle.

I put her jacket on a fallen tree branch, next to my own jacket. She jumped up, opened her white wings to their full extent and took off. Yeah, it was risky, someone might see us, but i heard through the grapevine both the School and the Institute were destroyed. The only real reason we had to keep hidden now was so we wouldn't become superstar freaks.

I watched her until she was a speck in the sky. Stretched my arms above my head, my wins stretching out too. Unlike Joisan who had white and silver wings, mine were solid black. No other colors. Just black. I bent my legs, and pushed off the ground. A gust helped me sail up into the sky. My soul would be screaming for this, just to soar above the clouds and into my perfect playground. I saw Joisan surge up, straight to the sky, then pushed off and dipped into a backflip. Spiralling and twirling like an acrobat. She was smiling like a maniac, and peforming like one too. I hovered in the air watching her. On her twentieth turn or so, Joisan stopped. She was looking at the empty sky, and in the distance we saw some hawks coming our way.

"JAAAAAZZZYYYYY!!!" she screamed. Flying over towards me. Absolute terror in her voice.

I tensed. "What?!" I shouted over the roar of the wind. She came over, holding my hands as tight as she could. I saw what she saw. They weren't hawks, they were too awkwardly shapen. Our hearts died right then, sunk to the bottom of Detroit River.

"Erasers." Joisan breathed. "With wings."

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