Kings and Queens of Promise

“You okay, Em?” Jared asked me for the millionth time.

“Yeah,” I lied, straightening out my dress. We were backstage in a huge auditorium full of people ready to ask us questions. It was kind of petrifying. Zacky and Frank were standing nearby, whispering small comforts to one another. Brian was giving Jack a lecture about what things not to say. Even though I knew they would be visible, I had my wings pressed tightly against my back.

“It’s time,” said a man from the stage door, giving us a nervous smile. I nervously moved forward, trying not to trip over my own feet. I waited until after everyone else went out, then went last. I heard the chatter of the crowd go quiet as I appeared, walking to my seat behind the table.

I had picked out a dress in hopes that people wouldn’t notice my baby bump, but at 31 weeks, it was pretty noticeable. I stared out at all the people staring at us like we were freaks. Oh, God, I couldn’t do this. I was panicking. I was gonna start hyperventilating.

Then Brian, who was sitting on my right, reached over and grabbed my hand, giving me an encouraging smile. That made me feel better and I looked out at the crowd, spotting Violet in the front row. She waved at me and rubbed her stomach, mouthing ‘how’s it going?’. I nodded at her and smiled. Next to her was Alex, making funny faces to try to make me laugh. Then came Matt and the guys, Johnny and Jimmy not paying much attention as they were involved in a poke war. Then were the guys from Simple Plan, minus the MIA lead singer. Lastly were Zack and Rian, sitting on Violet’s other side.

“Hey, everyone,” Brian said into the microphone. Somehow, he had been elected to be the speaker. “So, I’m sure the reason you’re all here is to see a bunch of freaks, but we’re here to answer your questions and prove we’re normal people like you. You each only get one question, though. So, who’s first?”

Everyone in the room began to speak at once and no amount of yelling could get them to stop.

“Jared, remember how you got Pierre to shut up at the doctor’s office?” I reminded him desperately. He bit his lip and closed his eyes, lines appearing on his forehead as he concentrated. After a few moments, the entire room went silent and people looked around frantically, trying to figure out why they could no longer speak.

“Thank you!” Brian exclaimed. “Now, let’s try this again. We’re going to pretend this is like school, okay? If you have a question, raise your hand and then we’ll take your questions one at a time.”

Jared let out a gasp, flopping back heavily in his chair and panting.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

“I’m fine,” he said tiredly. “Never really tried to do so much at once.”

“Okay, um, you in the red tank top,” Brian called, pointing to someone. A woman stood up, not looking at us.

“How long have you known you were like this?” she asked.

“Well, I’ve known for about three years, longer than anyone else,” he said. “Then Zacky found out his powers, then Jared, then Frank, and Em is the newest.”

“You,” I then said, pointing to a man to the right.

“What can you do, other than make people be quiet?” he asked.

“I can fly,” I said. “And I can...project my thoughts to others. Jared can read minds, Brian can know anything about someone by touching them and he can teleport himself and others. Jack can turn invisible, Frank can manipulate plant growth, and Zacky can speak to animals.”

“Actually,” Zacky said, tapping his microphone. “It’s animal mimicry. I can take on the traits of animals, including speaking their language.”

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“Well, I can take on their abilities,” he explained. “Like, I could...use echolocation, like a bat, if I came in contact with one. Or I could see in the dark, like a cat.”

“Could you copy a meerkat and scent mark stuff by rubbing your ass on it?” Brian asked, making a large part of the crowd laugh, myself included.

“Fuck you, Gates.”

“You wish, Vengeance,” Brian laughed.

“Next question,” Jared said, leaning up to his mike and pointing to another person.

“So, you guys have been hiding out ever since you found out about your gifts? What have you been doing?”

“Well, personally, I have been trying to develop a cure,” Jared admitted. “Zacky, on the other hand, has been experimenting with his powers and seeing if he could give himself different powers, change them, or even give them to others.”

“You,” Zacky then said, pointing to another person, a young woman.

“Have you ever given someone else powers with your experiments?” she asked.

“I have. I gave my boyfriend, Frank, his ability to manipulate plants and I did invent the mixture that gave Em her wings. However, I did not administer the mix to her.”

The questions continued on like this for well over an hour, until we got a break. As we sat backstage, sipping coffee and -in mine and Frank’s case- eating tacos, we discussed very important issues.

“No, no,” Jack said. “I would want to be able to stick my tongue anywhere. I wouldn’t ever need a spoon again.”

“Yeah, bet the ladies would love that,” Brian said, pushing Jack’s hat off his head. “I’d want to have the world’s biggest dick. Could you do that?”

“No, I can’t copy an animals physical attributes,” Zacky fumed. He wasn’t enjoying the torment we were all giving him.

“Well, then...I’d want to be able to sense females from miles away. I could pick up on the hottest one.”

“Like you need help with that. There’s an auditorium full of women out there,” Frank laughed.

“Yeah, that girl in the front row was hot,” he agreed.

“Violet?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“You know she’s, like, 8 months pregnant?”

“So?”

“So, you want to bang a chick with a kid on the way?”

“Well, no. But I haven’t been on a date in years. Maybe a pregnant girl...”

“You’re sick,” I said, smacking him. “If you ask her out, do it because you like her. I’ll introduce you after this thing’s over.”

“This is going really great, isn’t it?” Jared asked. “So smoothly.”

“Yeah, and no one’s called us freaks yet,” Jack smiled.

“Yet,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, well, you know what’s coming next,” Zacky pointed out.

“What?”

“They’re gonna start asking for demonstrations.”

“What kind of demonstrations?”

“‘Fly for us, Em’, ‘turn invisible, Jack’, stuff like that.”

“As long as they don’t ask me to crush someone’s brain with my mind,” Jared said darkly.

“That was one time,” I said, patting his knee. He looked up at me with a thankful smile that made my insides feel funny. Ever since they day we’d run into Trisha, we’d been so busy dealing with the press, we hadn’t really had time to discuss what had almost happened that day.

“I think it’s time for us to go back out,” he said, standing up. He offered me his hand and I slowly got to my feet, following him and Brian back out to the stage. People were mumbling among themselves and now grew silent as they watched us take our seats.

“We’re back,” Brian said, raising a cheer from all the Avenged Sevenfold fans out there. “So, we’ve got another hour before Em has to be in bed-”

“Shove it, Gates!” I shouted at him.

“-so who else wants to ask a question?” Once again, practically every person in the room raised their hands and we had to pick randomly. It was all, as Jared said, going very smoothly, though I found myself glancing at the clock a lot. I was tired and wanted to go home.

“Can we see what you can do?” Finally, it was asked.

“We can,” Brian answered. “We might need some volunteers, though. Who’s up for it?” Brian picked a random girl, random guy, and then Violet. They all came up onstage and stood in a line. Brian took turns touching their shoulders and then spouting off useless and sometimes embarrassing facts about them. Then he grabbed Violet’s hand and they both vanished on the spot. I quickly scanned the room, seeing Brian and Violet hanging from the fancy-looking chandelier in the middle of the room.

I shook my head and stood up, stretching out my wings. Everyone in the room had their eyes on my ever-growing wings as I threw myself off the stage and into the air, quickly reaching the chandelier. I reached for Violet’s hands and she nervously let me pull her from the chandelier. I had never tried holding up another person before, so I dropped rather dramatically, flapping furiously to hold up our combined weight. I struggled to carry her back to the stage, where I practically dropped her into Brian’s arms.

I fumbled my landing a bit, stumbling into Jared’s open arms, utterly exhausted.

“Who’s next?” Brian asked us.

“Well, they’re all pretty much thinking ‘holy shit’,” Jared said, gesturing to our volunteers.

“Okay. Jack?” Jack flushed under everyone’s looks and gladly vanished. That left Zacky and Frank. Frank looked around and went to the nearest window, pulling it open and looking out. In a few moments, a long vine began to grow along the walls, webbing out in all directions. I had actually never seen him do this, so it was pretty entertaining.

“Zacky, can you beat that?” I asked, grinning. Zacky bit his lip and I heard him mumbling ‘mountain lion, mountain lion’ as he focused. Then, something really weird happened. In a matter of seconds, his body thinned, his face elongated, and dark fur sprouted from his very skin. Standing before us all was a real mountain lion. He let out a terrible snarl that made me recoil, clinging to Jared’s shirt.

“Well,” Brian said into his mike. “That’s new. Zack, could you turn back into a human? You’re freaking out Em.”

In another moment, Zacky stood before us again, looking at his human body curiously.

“So, is everyone convinced now? Great. Next question?”

“How long has that slut been fucking Jared?” came a sickening voice from the crowd. As I was still holding onto Jared, I heard him mutter, “fuck.”

“Who do you think you are?” Brian demanded.

“I’m Trisha, the woman of Jared’s dreams,” she replied hotly. “How long have they been fucking?”

“We aren’t,” Jared said into his mike.

“Then who knocked her up?” another person asked.

“No one of importance,” Jared replied.

“How do we know you’re telling the truth?”

“I got pregnant at Zacky’s birthday party, while Jared was out of town,” I said shakily. “Everyone at that party could tell you Jared was miles away.”

“Was it another freak that knocked you up? Is your baby going to be a freak, too?” Trisha asked, smirking at me. I was completely frozen, her words replaying in my head. Oh, God, she was right. I was a freak and my baby was going to be a freak. I was starting to hyperventilate. I couldn’t even hear what was going on around me. Jared’s arm was still tight around me, keeping me from running.

But I wanted to run.

I imagined I wasn’t real. I was just a spirit that could walk right through his arm. I took a step and phased right through his arm. The instant I realized this, I took off running, leaping into the air and flying right through the ceiling without a scratch. I soared up into the air and just flying northwest. I flew as fast as I could, tears blurring my vision. Flying was easy now, when my wings got tired, I would glide on an updraft. It only took ten minutes of flying before I saw the city of San Francisco unfolded beneath me.

I flew down and landed in the middle of a crowd street, ignoring the gasps and stares of passersby. I walked to the nearest hotel, checked myself in, and then went up to my room. I texted Jared that I was okay and then turned my cell phone off. Then I stretched out in bed, trying not to panic.

Was my baby going to be a freak?

What if it was and someone wanted to take her from me?

What if she came out mutated?

How would she be able to have a normal childhood?

So many questions burned in my mind, and the scariest realization was that I didn’t have any answers.