“Rider, I swear, if you jump over that ledge one more time, I’m going to sick Spot on you!” I yelled as quietly as I could with the rest of the pack sleeping. He smiled at me from his cozy position on the couch; that he had just jumped from the second story of our house to get to.

“Spot? Oh, now I’m scared.” He said mockingly. In all reality, he knew that Spot, our six year old of the pack, was probably the most dangerous one of us all.

“You’re going to teach Gidget and Gadget how to do that, and then I’m totally going to rip you apart!” we were allowed to be mean to each other; we lived together. Besides that, we both had “super-human” strength. Whatever; like that made life any easier.

Rider, sitting on the couch to the right of me as I was sitting on the chair, laughed and I glared a thousand daggers at him. This was my all-time-favorite show and gods know I wasn’t going to let him ruin it for me.

“Rider, you say anything, anything, I will hurt you so bad.” See, Rider has abilities, as do the rest of us. One of his happens to be seeing parts of the future. Only about things that are absolutely decided though. Obviously, TV shows were absolutely decided, since they were on the air and all, and Rider could probably watch the entire episode the night before. Nothing humorous had happened on the screen, so I knew he was laughing at something that would happen on the show. If he said anything, it would ruin it for me.

“Didn’t even say anything,” he said defensively. Usually Rider didn’t say too much, but he enjoyed making fun of me. Unfortunately.

I grumbled at resituated myself on the chair, folding my legs underneath the rest of my body, my tail curled around my legs, keeping me warm. My ear twitched, rustling my hair a bit.

Oh, forgot to mention. I’m a hybrid. Minor details. The rest of us in the pack are hybrids too, but we’re all different. Me? I’m a human-cat hybrid.

Rider’s a human-eagle hybrid, with huge wings that fold in and out just like a real bird. Spot, as you can guess, a human-dog hybrid. Gidget and Gadget are human-mice hybrids, and the only ones who are actually related. And then of course, there’s X-Ray, a human-bat hybrid. Albeit, these combinations sound absolutely terrifying, we’re not all that bad. As long as I wear a hat, I look semi-normal, minus the whole tail thing, but we won’t go there. For Rider, it’s simply a large jacket, which he prefers to be leather. Spoiled brat. Spot, well, she’s a little harder. She has the ears, which can simply be hidden by her hair, but, well, she’s got quite a bit of hair to cover them with. Her arms are covered in very thin fur, not densely, but it’s still there. Gidget and Gadget, they’re perfectly fine, the only things are that they’ve got super fast reflexes and they’re abnormally short for two 13 year olds. X-Ray, she’s a lot like Rider, only her wings are leathery instead of feathery.

Anyways.

Thankfully, Gidget, Gadget, X-Ray and Spot were all sleeping right now, and it was just Rider and I. That was the only downfall of me and Rider being the oldest of the pack; we couldn’t boss each other around. I mentally chuckled in an angry way.

“Someone must be PMSing...” Rider said letting his voice fade off.

“RIDER!!” I screamed, “SHUT UP BEFORE I RIP YOUR FREAKING MOUTH OFF!”

Dang it.

I shouldn’t have done that.

Now... wait for it...

Yep.

There it is.

Just as expected.

Grr.

Rider laughs hysterically and falls to the floor in his fit of laughter. I pout in my chair and cross my arms.

“Juvenile little girl.” He says after he (finally) stops laughing at looks at me.

“Lousy pain in the ass.” I mutter back.

“I try,” is his only response. I roll my eyes.

“Well, seeing as how I’ve managed to annoy every last drop of patience out of you, I’m off to bed.” He tells me. As if I need a play by play. Ugh. Men.

“Good riddance,” I gratefully say to his retreating form.

I return to watching my show, and I watch in anticipation as the main girl is followed by a strange man, unaware that he’s “out to get her”. The show ends and I turn off the TV, stretching and purring gently. There are some things about the whole hybrid thing that kinda bug me. The whole purring thing- yeah, don’t like that so much.

I silently walk up the steps, passing my room and checking on the rest of the pack. Gidget and Gadget were their happy little selves, Gidget constantly fidgeting in his bed, and Gadget so still you’d think she was dead. Rider, well, I was just scared to look in his room, so I pretty much shuffled by, hoping his eagle ears would pick me up and bother him. X-Ray was pretending to be asleep. She doesn’t understand that I can tell, that’s kind of where my cat stuff comes in handy. I opened the door.

“Ray, sleep. Now. Not kidding girl, we’ve got another long day ahead of us tomorrow,” I said into the complete darkness in her room. Because of my cat instincts, everything in the room was black with kind of a greenish glow. But Ray, she’s a little different. When she was grafted, something went terribly wrong, and terribly right all at the same time. Because of something, the white-coats still weren’t sure what, but something caused Ray to lose her sight when she was first born, and yet, something happened. Her eyes, they weren’t, normal. As if anything else about her was, but still, this was odd even for hybrids. Her eyes were purple. Shiny purple. Metallic purple. And because of this, she could only see in the dark. Yes, yes, you’d think that because she’s a human-bat hybrid this would be expected. But by studying the bat’s eyes and studying Ray’s eyes, one can tell perfectly how different they are. I don’t know, still kinda cool if you ask me.

Personally, she was my favorite, not that I was choosing between family members, but, I liked her the most. So yes, I am choosing favorites between the pack, but I can’t help it. I just have some kind of, well, connection I guess with Ray more than the others.

Whatever.

Anyways.

“Sorry Addie,” she replied quietly. I smiled, knowing she could see me, and went to leave.

“Oh, Addie?” she asked as I was closing the door, “You’re my favorite too.” She smiled.

Dang it.

By the way; Ray? She reads minds.

“Goodnight sweetheart,” I whisper. Next, I checked on Spot, who was presently chasing something in her sleep. Small “woofing” sounds emitted from her mouth and I chuckled a bit, hoping I wouldn’t wake her. I closed the door behind me and I went back to my room. I closed the door and turned out the light, preparing for another long night filled with nightmares. I sighed as I pulled the blanket over myself again.

Please, not tonight. I have a feeling, it’s not good. No nightmares tonight. I begged to anything out there that could hear me. I didn’t necessarily believe in a God because what kind of God would let poor kids like us become like this. But, anyways. Enough about my problems. As I was falling asleep, I was trying to remember some of what Jared had said to me before he left.

“Always my little girl... never forget... I love you...”

2.2.2

I woke up early, before the sun was up, just as tired as I had been the night before. Nightmares had kept me tossing and turning all night, but I couldn’t let that stop me. I had a pack to protect. I sighed and quickly got out of bed, knowing I’d have to be quick if I wanted to beat Rider to the shower.