Seventeen Ain't So Sweet

“--irresponsible, Dory! No matter how you spin it!”

I woke up to hear my grandpa yelling. That alone was surprising.

My mom’s voice replied, just as angry and loud. “I thought I had more time! The fact that Gavrilla showed up at all proves that you aren’t as sharp as you claim to be either!”

“I did everything in my power. I was watching that house constantly, and she somehow managed to slip past. She even lured you out, so you can’t blame it all on me. Besides, why weren’t you preparing her by then?”

“There was supposed to be more time!” my mom sounded a little bit near hysteria. “Hours…I didn’t want to tell her before I had to.”

“Yes, and hiding it from her up until the very last minute was a good plan from the start.” snarled my grandpa, and it really was just that. A snarl.

Mom moaned tiredly. “Well, we’re here now. It won’t be long.”

“She’s not even awake --” began my grandpa, but a gruff voice interrupted him with ‘yes, she is’.

It was suddenly silent, and because my cover was blown I opened my eyes and blinked. All I saw at first was the night sky, which was very dark and dotted with stars here and there. Then I turned my head a little and saw my mother, grandpa, and Blue Eyes, who seemed to be the one who had talked a second ago.

They were all looking at me expectantly, and I said the first thing that came to mind.

“Ouch.”

Mom jumped up in a way that was kind of shocking, then she knelt next to me and brushed my hair off my forehead. “Where are you hurt?”

“M’head.” I mumbled, then winced when her fingers gently prodded my skull. “Ow.”

She made an apologetic face. “It’ll get better soon. I promise.”

“I want to know what’s going on.” I blurted before she could even finish. “Russian superheroes that claim to be my grandparent are running around, and you and grandpa are apparently just as insane, and whoever he is,” I pointed at Blue Eyes “has been following me.”

“Halle, I’m going to tell you everything. Just not right now. There isn’t any time.”

I sat up, ignoring how it made my head spin and throb. “No, Mom. I’m not waiting anymore. Tell me right now.”

Grandpa shook his head from his place a few feet away, and for the first time I realized we were sitting in some kind of clearing in the woods. Which was weird, because we didn’t live close to any forests.

“Might as well start, Doreen.” he said rather snappishly to Mom.

She gave him a look that clearly said how fed up she was. “Dad, any minute she’s going to start changing.”

“Hey!” I shouted, making all faces turn to me again. My throat constricted with panic. “Changing?”

Mom grimaced at her slip-up. “You’re going to be fine, honey. Don’t worry.”

Um, yeah. OKAY.

“I just watched you plow through traffic like we were in a Fast and Furious sequel, and you…” I trailed off and squinted at Blue Eyes. “should really be dead. I saw a GIGANTIC piece of glass shoot through your stomach.”

Blue Eyes straightened up a bit to lift his black t-shirt, revealing a pale muscular stomach where there was nothing but a fading pink line. My jaw dropped, and I caught a glimpse of Mom giving Blue Eyes a very scathing look.

“Less than helpful, Kaz.” she murmured. So that was his name.

I reached out to grab her wrist. “Can you explain? Just a little so I don’t feel like I’m about to go Looney Tunes.”

“Alright, um…” Mom looked like she didn’t have a clue what to say. “When people in our family turn seventeen they change, and…God, I don’t know what to say that isn’t going to make you think I’m crazy.”

“After everything I’ve seen today, crazy is pretty much relative.”

Before Mom could go on Kaz spoke up. “You’re going to become a whole different person. You’ve probably noticed that you’re becoming more agile and coordinated.”

I thought of the stairs, and the numerous times I usually would have been injured when I did something typically klutzy of me but I wasn’t. I nodded. “Yeah, a little.”

“It’s going to hurt worse than anything you’ve ever experienced.”

“Kaz!” bit out my mom in time with my eyes widening.

He narrowed those piercing ultramarine eyes at her. “You were only going to sugar-coat it. That won’t do her any good.”

Grandpa gestured at Kaz. “Which is what I’ve been saying for sixteen years!”

“Neither of you are helping!” Mom growled, and my eyes widened even more. Because once again, that was a REAL growl. “There will be plenty of time to tell her afterwards, and we don’t need to terrify her beforehand.”

“There will not be plenty of time!” sputtered Grandpa. “As soon as she’s changed we have to get the hell out of dodge!”

I looked back and forth between them. “I don’t wanna go anywhere.”

Mom opened her mouth and I could see a ‘I know, but I’m the parent and I know what’s best’ speech coming, but before she could start I lurched forward. My breath shot out in a big whoosh, my spine vibrating. I was about to ask what the hell was going on with that, but then there was a sharp crack and I was practically bent in half.

“It’s starting.” my mom said breathlessly.

Terrified to the point of being calm, I turned my head to look at her. “What’s happ-- AH!”

Oh, there was the pain. I scrambled onto my feet and tried to reach around and get whatever was stabbing my back off of me. But there wasn’t anything there, at least not on the outside. But I could feel my skin moving and twisting, and a second later I was forced onto my knees. Something was trying to scratch its way out of the skin between my shoulder blades, and it was tearing the thin membrane agonizingly slowly.

“A-a-a-h-help!” I couldn’t seem to scream, but it definitely was the worst pain I‘d ever felt. Even in the car crash. Even when I had my tonsils out when I was thirteen.

Mom appeared at a loss on what to do, then she was looking towards the trees suddenly. “Did you hear that?”

“It’s Gavrilla.” Grandpa was at her side in a second, peering down at me indecisively. “What do we do?”

“I’ll stay with her.” Kaz volunteered out of nowhere, appearing behind my mom and looming over her. I hadn’t noticed how tall he was before.

Mom was going to protest, I could tell by her face, but I sobbed and she stopped. All eyes turned down on me in time for my skin to burst, the crackling bones shooting out. I thought about this video we’d watched in Freshman Biology of a bean sprout springing out of the dirt, only in this situation the dirt was my skin and the bean stalk was my bones. My shirt tore with a noisy rip, and I shivered from the pain and the cold night air.

“Mom!” I whimpered, falling onto my hands and then my face when my elbows wobbled and gave out.

“They’ll be here in ten seconds, and then we can’t do a damn thing for her!” exclaimed my grandpa, leaning towards the trees slightly. “Dory!”

With one last pained glance at me my mom nodded. “Take care of her, Kaz.”

She and Grandpa ran out of my line of sight, and I could have sworn I heard something swoosh through the air. I let out a wail into the ground, my fingers gripping hard but unable to find purchase on the slippery grass. Just as the pain between my shoulders stopped it started again in my lower back and hands, but before I could do anything else to try and make it go away someone was gathering me up and holding me in the fetal position.

I tried to talk but the only things that would come out were high-pitched pants and pathetic sobs, but at least my hands had something to hold onto besides dirt. But as I was beginning to find a little relief in clutching the soft shirt I found the bones in my hands started to pop and shift just like what had happened in my back. My back arched, and I could decide which horrible sensation to concentrate on: what was happening in my hands, or the way the skin on my back was itching and ripping. Suddenly a sound caught my attention, so much that I almost forgot the pain for a few seconds.

It was like someone was shuffling cards behind me, then settling them into place with a loud ‘pfft’ noise. When the sound stopped the pain in my back stopped, but then there was pain everywhere else.

Every bone that hadn’t been forced to break and reform before was doing it now. Not even my jaw stayed still, popping to the side before moving back into place.

“Oh, God.” I groaned, my voice coming out scratchy and strained.

A hot hand rubbed my back. “Halfway over.”

I opened my mouth to try and ask how much longer it could last, but I froze when my teeth started to snap and change. Blood filled my mouth and I spit it out reflexively, realizing after I did it that it probably went all over Kaz. My nose was the next thing to fracture, then my cheek bones and my ears. I hadn’t even known that the cartilage could break that way, but it did, then it grated against the inside of my skin as it changed shape. The next sharp breath I took made me choke, because I could taste grass and skin and blood as well as smell it. And the smell was so much more intense that I somehow knew an ant had crawled up my pantleg. My eyes burned so I held them shut tight until it stopped, and when I opened them again it was amazing. And horrifying.

Absolutely everything around me was brighter and clearer, and it seemed like all the colors had changed subtly.

My body ached steadily as all the pain started subsiding, and it felt like it was going along with my heartbeat. I breathed in and out heavily, hands clenching onto the shirt still tight in my palms. Everything felt different; my arms, my legs, my skin, my head, and most noticeably my back. The top of it was numb and tingling in a way that made me tremble.

“Is it over?” I breathed out against Kaz’s neck, finally comprehending that it was his lap I was crumpled in and his hands that had been comforting me.

He was quiet for a moment. “Yes…Do you feel okay?”

I shook my head. “Not even a little. Where did my mom and grandpa go?”

“To kill Gavrilla before she can get to you.”

I blinked with the hope that it would make me less dizzy. I felt heavy with the relief of the pain receding, ready to go to sleep. “Who’s Gavrilla?”

“Your dad’s mother. The woman that was in your house.”

“Oh. Yeah. Grandma.” I mumbled, my head falling limply against his shoulder. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay.” his voice was stiff. “Are you going to sleep yet?”

“Am I supposed to?” I blinked again, but this time my eyelids stayed half closed.

Kaz moved around a little, arm still around my sore back. “Usually we do. It’s an exhausting process.”

“Tell me about it…Will my they be okay?”

“Yes, they’ll be fine. They’re very good in combat.”

I let out a weak chuckle at that. The only thing I’d ever seen my mother fight was a pickle jar with a stubborn lid, and my grandpa was about as violent as a lawn gnome. But apparently everything I knew was a lie…so maybe they were fighters. I kept trying to fight off sleep because I was still confused, and I wanted answers now more than ever, but it was useless with how worn out I was and how nice and warm I was in Kaz’s lap.