Sisters of a Feather

Chapter 1

Kira and Angel weren't going to make it. Kira knew that if she wanted to, she could easily outpace her sister. She was both taller and faster, yet the moment the thought crossed her mind, she banished it. Angel was her younger sister, aged seven. Kira herself was fourteen, and felt that it was her duty to take care of Angel. Now, running out of ideas with the men rapidly gaining on them, Kira had two options. The first would quickly drain her energy, but would speed them up considerably. The second was a last resort, considering the crowded street. Kira immediately acted upon the first. She scooped Angel into her arms and poured on the speed. As she watched the men get farther and farther away over her shoulder, she gradually slowed down. "Kira," Angel's small voice cut into Kira's concentration. "I don't think they're gone yet," Angel continued. "When will they go away and leave us alone?" But Kira had stopped listening. Something had caught her eye. Three men had materialized at the end of the road. Their movement was precise... too precise. Kira turned around and started walking rapidly away from them. But when she turned her head to look where she was going, three more men were facing her. They started closing.

It was then that Kira realized the mistake she'd made. They were on a road that was surrounded by buildings. The only exits were blocked. Kira could fight them on her own, but not carrying Angel. Angel had seen the men by then, and was looking at Kira with huge scared eyes. It was then that Kira realized that she would have to act on the second option.

The men were a few feet away when Kira made her move. She leaped for the sun with Angel in her arms. At the height of her jump, Kira unfolded her huge wings. They extended out of the slits that she had cut into all of her clothing, carefully hidden. Kira's wings were brown and white, yet they seemed to have many more colors. They closely resembled those of a spotted owl. Unlike Kira's, Angel's wings were pure white and not completely fledged. Her primaries were not fully in yet, and her pummels were just budging. With her fifteen foot wingspan, Kira could top two hundred miles per hour when she was flying, helped along by her hollow bones, another quality that Kira and Angel shared with birds.

Kira paused, silhouetted against the sun. She glanced back. The men were staring at her, but not in shock. A couple people were raising cameras. That meant disaster. The last think she and Angel needed was a front page story. For the second time, Kira poured on the speed.

The sisters were resting in a tree. Angel was sleeping, Kira was thinking. Our whole lives, we've been running from them. All we want is a peaceful existence, all they want is to study us, Kira thought. Ironically, most kids dream of flying, all we dream of is normal. We would both give up our wings in an instant if it meant being like them. Angel was still asleep, and Kira had gone to get the paper. Sure enough, they had made the front page. The picture showed Kira holding Angel, silhouetted against the sun. Her face was difficult to see. The story speculated about mirror tricks and pranks.

The truth was that the sisters were genetic experiments, human-avian hybrids. Bird DNA had been grafted into their own when they were still infants. They had grown up in dog crates, being experimented on until someone stood too close to Kira's cage and let their guard down. By the time they realized that the keys were gone, Kira and Angel were over three hundred miles away. They immediately sent out a search party, trained for the sole purpose of catching them. Three years later, they were still looking.

Far to the north, Angel was waking up to a snowfall. "Kira, why don't we get cold?" Angel wondered. "Well, we get cold, but not at the rate humans do. Our cruising altitude is about that of a plane, made possible by our lungs, which require less oxygen than they do. It's much colder up there, so we need to be able to regulate our body temperatures. Also, we have to consider the wind chill. If we can't stay warm, we can't go to higher altitudes. That's why we don't get cold easily," Kira explained, but Angel had moved on. "Ooh Kira, do that thing with your feathers, the um... uh... the whatchamacallit!" Angel exclaimed. Kira thought, then said, "You mean spottilating?" (Spottilating is a camouflage technique used by spotted owls. They shift their feathers into certain positions, making them appear lighter.) Angel nodded vigorously. Kira concentrated, then folded her wings around herself and seemed to melt into the snowy background until Angel couldn't distinguish where the wings began and where the snow ended. Then, Kira unfolded her wings and became visible again. Angel giggled as Kira changed her wings from white to spotted to brown and back again. Later, Angel thought, later, she and Kira would fix things. Later, when she was older, they would be free.