RYAN

Now, I may not know a lot of things about this world, but one thing I know for certain is that dead people can’t break branches with their invisible ghost feet. I leapt into the air, soaring for a brief moment before I landed lightly on the ground. “Who’s there?!” I demanded again, turning quickly in a circle in an attempt to find the source of the noise. “I know you’re out there! Show yourself!” I raised my wings in a threatening manner—or, as threatening as a couple of white, feathery, fluffy looking wings could be.

My heartbeat slammed against my chest as adrenaline filled my veins. I almost self-destructed right then and there until finally, a figure emerged from my right. I slid back quickly, trying to keep my distance between me and whoever it was that had the nerve to follow me out here.

As the figure walked into the moonlight, his face became clear, and my heart sank to my feet. “Josh?” Of course. It had to be him. That was just how my life worked. How was I supposed to dig my way out of this one?

Josh’s mouth was wide open, the color drained from his face. Thinking about it, I had never seen Josh surprised about anything before. His eyes traced my wings in awe—but that was pretty much to be expected. Walking in on your ex-best-friend stretching out his wings was not exactly an everyday experience.

He stepped forward, and I stepped back. “Don’t come any closer or I swear…” I didn’t exactly have a threat to give him, so I left it there, to let his imagination take over. My heart pounded relentlessly and the sweat that had formed on my forehead began to drip down through my eyebrows and into my eyes.

It was all over.

“Ryan…what the hell? You’re a…you’re a mutant?” He rubbed his eyes and looked again as if somehow that would alter what he was seeing right in front of him.

“Okay, look, before you say anything…I can explain.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Josh interrupted.

“What?” I furrowed my brows. Was that really all he had to say?

“We were best friends for seven years! You could have told me!” Josh’s brown eyes were big and round as he looked right at me—right at me. All of me. His lips were pressed into a thin line, and the creases in his forehead told me he was more than just confused—he was upset.

I scrunched my face. I couldn’t believe he thought that it was that simple. “Uh-huh? Told you what, exactly? ‘Hey bro, I’m actually a mutant freak with giant wings, don’t rat me out, okay?’ I don’t exactly see a scenario where that would have gone well, Josh!”

“Oh yeah? How about this, for starters,” his voice trailed off as he removed his shirt.

I stepped back in shock, putting my hands up. Coming face to face with my ex best friend’s abs was not how I expected the night to go.

“Woah, dude, you know you are kind of my type, but I am so not into you!” Never in my wildest dreams had I thought I would be sitting half naked in the middle of the woods at night with my ex-best-friend.

Josh made a face. “God, dude, no, I’m not talking about that! I’m talking about this!” He turned around, his bare back facing me—emphasis on bare. It was just a regular, human back. But, as he finished his sentence, large light-brown wings began to show themselves from behind him, contrasting the dark color of his skin. My jaw dropped so low I could feel the grass start to tickle my chin.

Josh smirked. “And that’s not all.” With that, he suddenly disappeared, a gust of what felt like wind zipping around me. I could hear the leaves rustle before they were lifted off the ground and sent tumbling around in the air behind Josh as he ran faster than the speed of light. He circled me a few times, nothing more than a blur to my eyes, before he slowed down and stopped in front of me with that same grin on his face. “Pretty cool, huh?”

I was honestly speechless.

I thought I was the only one.

Yeah, sure, I wasn’t the only mutant. I was the first documented one, but not the only one. I knew that. But out of the hundreds—maybe even thousands—of known mutants in existence, I had always been the only one with abilities that were practically magic.

For example, my ability to literally manifest wings out of my back. I was the only one that science couldn’t explain away. I was the only one missing the gene. At least, I was the only documented one. That was why I always had to work so hard to hide them—the wings, I mean. They were a dead giveaway that I was the Hall kid. Still, I couldn’t help but be skeptical.

I shook my head in disbelief. “No way. I’m the only one. I’ve always been the only one!” I couldn’t believe it. I circled around him, so that I could see if there were any strings or straps or traces of glue. Sure enough, those wings were seriously growing out of his back.

Officially the weirdest night of my entire life.

“We can’t be the only ones. The Hall kid is supposed to have wings too, remember? And there was whatever the hell else he could do. Plus, it’s not like we are the only mutants on the planet. There are thousands of us—documented and undocumented alike. It’s not rocket science, dude.” Josh looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow.

Oh…he hadn’t made that connection yet. I guess it made sense. For Josh, growing up seeing someone who was just like him probably gave him the impression that there were more people as weird as the two of us. I couldn’t decide if that was good, or if I should tell him.

Then again, at least I would have something to blackmail him with if telling him my secret ended up being the dumbest idea in the world.

I crossed my arms over my chest. Blood rushed through my veins, and the thick walls I had built around myself crumbled ever so slightly. Loneliness overtook me. After all this time, I missed him. I missed us.

If anyone was going to understand, it was going to be him.

I sucked in a breath. “Okay, yeah, great for you. So happy I could be the poster child of mutant freakiness. Can we move on?”

Silence overtook us. His body went rigid for just a moment, frozen in place. He turned around so he could face me.

Damn.

And I was so enjoying having a conversation with his back muscles.

“Woah, what?! You’re the Hall kid?!” His eyes looked as though they were about to bug out of his head.

I clapped slowly and rolled my eyes. Should have known it wouldn’t be as simple as I wanted it to be. “Yeah, good job putting that one together. You would think the pure white wings would really be a big giveaway.”

Josh huffed a little, obviously offended. “Hey, you were supposed to be kidnapped! And you have a mom! And you go to school! I mean, I know you're trans and everything—and the world is looking for a girl, I guess, but…How can you do all that when the entire country is looking for you?!” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“A couple of fake documents and an adoptive mother who works for the Department of Mutant Relations can go a really long way. And correction: I was not kidnapped. I ran away. My mom, the one you know, happened to find me a few days later, practically dead. She brought me home and fed me, got me healthy again.” I shrugged my shoulders quickly, letting them bounce in a nonchalant way. I found myself avoiding his eyes, not wanting to see the judgment behind them.

“And she didn’t call the police? That doesn’t seem right,” Josh shook his head.

I sighed. He wasn’t getting it. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Can we talk about what you were doing following me instead? I think that’s much more interesting.” I would prefer it if the conversation topic moved back over to Josh.

“More interesting than the famous Hall kid hiding in plain sight all of these years? Fat chance, dude!”

“Well, what makes you think I’m going to answer any of your questions? The less you know, the easier it will be for me to keep hiding. So, what’s up with you and those wings?” I tried once again to move the conversation back to him, though normally I would jump at the chance to keep talking. Maybe Josh was right all those years ago. Maybe I was the self-obsessed ass.

Josh rolled his shoulders a little, his feathers ruffling in the wind as he extended his wings out further. “I was born with them. Like you, right? ‘Cept, I never got documented ‘cuz of… well, you know the story. Abandoned and all that. So, what’s up with the Halls insisting that it was a kidnapping if you ran away? Wouldn’t they know that you ran? Did you leave a note?” He pressed, staring into my hazel eyes. Damn. He must have figured out my tactic, he was never going to let this go.

“Would you let it go, please? I’m not going to tell you. I’m the famous Hall kid. I ran, I’m alive, and I don’t want to go back. That’s all you have to know.” I ran my fingers through my hair, starting to feel a little bit like a caged animal. I wanted to run away, but instead I just kept pacing around like a moron.

“But why did you run away?” Josh shook his head a little, his face twisting up again. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. And they were even smoking with effort. Attractive.

“What did I just say? Do you ever listen? How about I shower you with questions now. With everything you’ve made me sit through, I’d say you owe me a couple invasive questions.” I stepped forward a little, letting my wings relax. Maybe I could distract him.

“Come on, man, you can’t blame me for being curious. It’s not every day you find out your best friend is a famous runaway!” Josh noticed the slip up almost as fast as I did.

He snapped his mouth shut, and his eyes grew wide as the color faded from his cheeks.

A suffocating silence fell between us. It had been a while since Josh had referred to me as his ‘best friend.’ I met him shortly after starting my new life with my adoptive family. We were almost inseparable for years. But once high school rolled around, he slowly stopped speaking to me.

It turned out football was more important to him than his “best friend.”

“Ex-best friend, Josh,” I corrected, my voice cold. “Don’t think this means anything. You have wings. I have wings. That’s great. We can be freaks together. But that doesn’t make us friends, and that doesn’t mean I want to hang out with you again.”

Josh rubbed his palms together, a nervous habit of his, and looked off into the woods awkwardly as he cleared his throat. He couldn’t even look me in the eyes. “Yeah. Sorry. Slip of the tongue.” Well, that killed the conversation really fast. I wasn’t sure if I should be happy about that. On the one hand, no more infuriating questions.

On the other, awkward silence.

It was Josh who broke it. “You know I really am sorry.”

I scoffed. “What for?”

“What do you think?” Josh stepped forward, and my heartbeat quickened. I tried to keep my eyes locked firmly on a rather interesting tree to my right, but my gaze kept flickering back to his. He stopped just feet from me. “What happened to us.”

“Is that a statement, or a question?” I rolled my eyes and leaned away from him, ignoring the way I felt my face heat up.

Josh shrugged. “Both.”

My eyes locked with his. “That doesn’t make any sense, Josh.”

“Listen, Ryan, I need to…I should tell you something. About what happened. The truth, this time.” He reached out for me, his fingertips brushing against my arm, and a sense of alarm shot through me.

No.

No way.

Mayday.

Abort mission.

This was too much intimacy for me. My stomach churned and my heart pounded in my ears.

Josh moved closer. Inches separated our bodies. His fingers traced down my arm, sending shivers up my spine. He opened his mouth to speak, and I gulped. Then, his eyes narrowed. “What’s this?” He moved his hand from mine, lifting it to brush some of my blond hair off my forehead.

Time came to a screeching halt.

An unstoppable force rushed from us, sending both Josh and I flying. I landed on the far side of the clearing, the dirt biting at my skin as I rolled to a stop. Something pushed through the trees, causing them to sway and crack. A soft yellow hue rose over the tops of the trees as the campsite whirred to life miles from where we were. Coyotes howled. Birds rushed from their homes in their nests.

My breathing was labored as I pushed myself off the ground, stumbling to my feet. I turned to Josh, who had also pushed himself up, but something was different. For a second—maybe even less—it wasn’t Josh that was standing before me.

It was a man, somewhere in his thirties, with strong muscular arms and thick plated armor. He had large, white wings stretching out of his back, and a silver tattoo on his left arm that twisted around all the way down to his ring finger. He had dark skin and piercing brown eyes, and he looked at me like he knew me.

I closed my eyes, squeezing them shut, and when I opened them again, Josh was in front of me.

“What just happened?” Josh looked around at the trees, which were still swaying slightly from the force of whatever the hell had just happened.

“I don’t know.” I retracted my wings, picking my shirt up off the ground and slipping it back on. “And something tells me I don’t want to find out.”