Of Birds and Wolves

The setting sun shone a bright gold over the tree line horizon. A gentle breeze provided a nice cool feeling on her face after the hot summer air. The wind tickled her primary feathers, which made her neck hairs stand on end. The feeling of freedom rushed over her, even though in the back of her mind she knew she was flying for her life. A genetic freakazoid, she had to fly with the flock mostly at night. Six other people to keep her company during the long nights.

Her wings pumped in a certain rhythm she got used to. She looked over to one of the boys in the flock and he gave her a warm smile. Her heart fluttered and her pale face turned pink as she returned his smile with one of her own.

Though, she almost had a heart attack when the flock leader saw this action and shot her a glare of pure hatred and jealousy. Fang liked Leara, not Max. But Max liked Fang and didn't like Leara because they both liked Fang. Leara didn't typically like Max either, because Max was too bossy and full of herself. It was just one of those big love-hate triangles.

The three-way staring competition went on for a few minutes, but stopped when Angel spoke up. “Max, I'm really hungry.” Max looked away and flew closer to her “baby”.

“Okay sweetie. We'll fly down into this town below us and see if there is a grocery store open or something.” Max ordered everyone to start flying down to a patch of woods outside the town.

Leara really hated being ordered around by Max, but it was her only way to survive and stay out of the “School”.

Once they landed, they walked around the town until they found a huge convenience store. The sign in the window read, “Now open twenty-four hours!”

Max removed the shape that she had zipped up in her hoodie; turns out that when the flock had freed some experiments from the Institute, Angel somehow concealed a stowaway. He was quite heavy for her; a small black Scottie dog. His name was Total and not soon after the flock found out that he could talk. Hard to believe, but it is true.

Iggy offered to stay outside with Total, since pets weren't allowed inside. When the rest of the flock got inside the store, one huge poster hanging from the ceiling attracted the younger ones like a magnet: “TOYS”.

Leara followed Fang and Max through the groceries, not sure what to do. Max kept turning and giving her ugly looks, but Leara tried her best to ignore them; Max gave them too much for them to really sting.

“We can only buy what we can carry...” Max said aloud as she pulled some frozen dinners out of the freezer, creating a cloud of steam around her.

“We know, Max. That's the third time you've said that,” Leara muttered.

Max scowled at Leara. “Do you have something to say?” she growled and crossed her arms across her chest.

Leara shrugged her shoulders and said coolly, “All I said was that you're repeating yourself.”

“Do you have a problem with the way I lead this flock?!” Max suddenly snarled, throwing the frozen boxes into the cart.

Leara slowly shook her head. “No, it's just you keep repeating yourself. It kind of gets... annoying...”

Fang backed up and mumbled something about getting the younger three from the toy aisle. He was gone in a flash.

“Oh, and you're not annoying? You don't think it's annoying when I see you making googly-eyes at Fang? You better back off, because he is mine!” Max's face was bright red and she began to take deep breaths.

“Excuse me for being attracted to him! There is nothing on him that marks him as your territory either! Besides, he thinks of you as a sister, not a girlfriend. That, my friend, is a little something called incest,” Leara lightly growled, starting to get angry.

“You know what? I am so sick of you! If all you want from the flock is Fang, then forget it,” Max warned.

Leara frowned. “Fine! I will leave; again. Go save the world and whatever. But, when Fang won't have you, don't come crying to me. I'm sick of you, too. You think you're top dog and can boss everyone around. You think too much about yourself and no one else!”

With that, she turned on her heels and left with a huff. Her pale face was red and her steps came down as stomps.

As she walked outside, she heard a muffled, “GET OFF ME!” On the bench in front of the store was where Iggy was sitting; also were the sound came from.

Underneath Iggy was a squirming black shape: Total. Leara gave a confused look and asked, “Uhm, Iggy...? What are you doing?”

Iggy looked towards the sound of her voice with his pale gray eyes. “Oh, hey Leara. I'm just dogsitting, that's all.”

Leara sighed and had the urge to smack her forehead. “Iggy, dogsitting doesn't mean you literally sit on the dog...”

Iggy nodded with a smile and said, “Oh, I know that. Total was being loud and annoying, and I told him that I am the dogsitter. So I sat on him.” He stood up and let Total move away from him. The Scottie began to mutter things under his breath and Leara picked up quite a few swear words.

Iggy looked back at where he thought Leara was still standing. “Are you guys done shopping?”

Leara shook her head and replied, “No, they aren't; but I am. I'm... leaving the flock. I can't stand to be around Max any longer. I hope to see you around, Iggy. Can you tell Fang I said 'good-bye' as well?”

He just nodded with a confusion written all over his face. Leara looked and saw no human eyes around. She just took off right from where she was standing into the sky.

The sun had already set, making the night air even chillier as Leara crossed her arms over her chest, flying off into the distant horizon.