The Half-Truths of the Flynn Siblings

1

Kate was listening to heavy metal music when August appeared in the door.  She took her earbud out.

"Family meeting," August said.

Kate's lips twisted into a small smile.  "Be there soon."  Kate had never much cared for "family meetings" in the past, mostly due to the fact that Harker was the absolute worst and instead of asking how school was going, he was too concerned with being a shadowy dictator.  Then there'd been Riley, who'd been fine, but he was too busy lecturing Kate on how monster hunting was dangerous (she'd never guessed).  But the Flynns were an actual family, and they were good cooks, so what wasn't to love?

August, Soro, Ilsa, and Emily were all at the table when Kate arrived, with Flynn preparing a pizza to feed the humans.  Ever since he'd recovered from cancer, Henry Flynn had been incredibly spry, with a love for life that Kate had never seen before or since.

"What's the family meeting about?" She asked them.

"Why do we call them that?" Soro said, exasperated.

"Because we're a family, Soro," Emily replied.

"We're an old married couple, three killing machines designed to purge the world of heretics, a cat, and..." Soro looked for a word before thrusting a hand in Kate's direction.  "Her."  Kate winced.  "We're more like a weird set of roommates."

"Oh my god, we're roommates," Kate said.

"We're a found family, Soro," August insisted.

"Can we talk about how the cat's higher on Soro's list of people than I am?"

"Allegro is a valued member of this family, Kaitlyn."

"Quiet, Augustus."

"I hope you two aren't bickering," Flynn said as he entered, giving Kate, Emily, and himself a slice of pizza.  He sat down at the table next to Emily.

"Will you finally tell me what this meeting is about?" Kate demanded, already scarfing down her pizza.  "We've been arguing about semantics for the past five minutes."

"Soro, don't argue about semantics with your sister," Flynn said.

"She's not my sister!" they exclaimed.

"That sounds like you're trying to start an argument about semantics," Flynn said.

"I mean..." Kate was considering mentioning that the term "sister" was a weird one, but she wasn't sure if the weirdness stemmed from her being an only child for much of her life or something else, something deeper.  But that was an issue of semantics that Kate just didn't want to deal with right now.  Besides, she had a sinking feeling she'd prove Soro right if she kept thinking about this, and Kate didn't want to prove Soro right.

"You are a valued member of our family, Kate," Flynn said to her, "and as a valued member of our family, you deserve to hear the news."

Ilsa scribbled something on a napkin and held it up: Just tell us already.

"Oh, all right," Flynn said with a smile.  "We've found more sunai."