IncuBUST

Enchiladas

"Oh my god," Sissy said shoveling enchiladas into her mouth. "This is so good! How are you such a good cook?!" Octavia smiled at her from the other side of the counter and replied, "I've been cooking meals for my dad and I since I was twelve." Sissy glanced at me and I repeated what Octavia said.

"What do you think?" Octavia asked me and I replied, "It's really delicious, Octavia." She grinned satisfactorily and picked at her own food. Sissy whined and muttered, "Yeah, delicious and awful." Octavia looked up at her in confusion and Sissy sighed.

"Now that we have someone to make actual food I'm gonna get fat!" she cried and Octavia laughed. I shook my head and said, "You're not gonna get fat, Sis, not with all the...exercising you do." She giggled and retorted, "Good point." And she took another bite.

There was a moment of silence before I turned to Octavia and asked, "When does school start? I might be able to drive you." She swallowed the food in her mouth and shook her head signing, "No, you don't have to. I've been taking the train for years."

"Are you sure? The high school's on my way to work," I said and she pursed her lips in thought before gesturing, "The bell rings at 8:30am, I get out at 3:15pm." I nodded and replied, "I can drop you off but I won't be able to pick you up."

"I could," Sissy said and we both looked at her. Sissy wasn't usually the type to offer favors. She blinked her big green eyes at us and continued, "I'm usually free during the day and who knows, I might be able to pick up a few high school hotties."

"Sis," I warned and she rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah. No minors, but really what's the difference between a seventeen year old and an eighteen year old?" she muttered and I replied, "For us? A five hundred dollar fine and up to eighteen months in prison and that's just for feeding on a minor. Now if you want to talk about statutory rape--"

"Okay, okay. I get your point." Octavia looked at the both of us with a shocked expression and she asked, "Eighteen months? That seems a little excessive. Even if it's consensual?" I glanced at her and shrugged.

"If it's consensual and no one gets hurt you could still get fined if someone in a position of authority catches you. If someone wanted to press charges you could get put in prison," I said and she shook her head slowly.

"So when you fed off me that little bit yesterday...you could get arrested for that?" she inquired and I nodded. She looked down at her plate and I could see her face going pink.

"But it was so...pleasant," she signed without looking at me. "Why would anyone make it illegal if all parties agree to it?"

"Well for one, apparently anyone under eighteen doesn't have the mental capacity to make that decision and two, it's a rule that mostly applies to creatures who feed in less pleasant ways. Vampires, Elementals like Barapha and of course flesh eaters but they usually kill when they feed and killing a minor gets you twenty-five years or more depending on the average lifespan of the Mythic in question," I explained and she nodded staring at me with rapt attention.

"Wow, we didn't talk about that in law studies. I mean the teacher touched briefly on the law as it applies to Mythics. I knew it was illegal to feed off minors but there's not a lot about the exact penalties. There were only like two chapter on the Accords in our textbooks. I guess because there's mostly only humans in my school. They don't really care about teaching Mythic law," she gestured.

"That's to be expected, but really it's just human law. They should teach it because they're the ones enforcing it. Mythic law is...very different. Actually I-wait mostly human?" I asked looking at her and she nodded.

"Yeah, there are a few...oh what are they called? Blues? Whites? The ones that don't eat people--"

"Lights," I mumbled and she nodded. I didn't like it how humans classified Mythics as either light or dark depending on whether they fed on humans. The words 'light' and 'dark' had connotations. Light meant good and dark meant bad. Though I had met plenty of 'lights' that were assholes and 'darks' that were lovely individuals.

"Mostly telepaths, clairvoyants, telekinetics and the like. I think this girl in my AP environmental class might be a nymph and of course Jesse," the way she signed the name was somehow cynical.

"Jesse? Your landlady's daughter? She's a Mythic?" I asked and Octavia nodded.

"What's her Myth?" Octavia's brow furrowed and I explained, "Do you know what sort of Mythic she is?" She shook her head and replied, "No. Maybe psychic or something. Would explain why she's so smart." I was about to respond when Sissy pushed her stool back with a loud screech. Octavia and I looked at her.

"Not that having no idea what you're talking about isn't buckets o' fun, but I'm going out," she said fluffing her hair and adjusting her breasts so they popped a little more out of her tank top.

"On a Sunday, Sis, really?" I said and she rolled her eyes at me before grabbing her little leather purse and checking to make sure she had her phone, wallet and house keys.

"Thanks for dinner, Octavia, it was great. Do you wanna come with?" she asked and Octavia grinned and started to nod before I said, "Not on a school night. She needs to be in bed asleep by eleven." They both looked at me and I felt my face grow warm. I was doing it again. Trying to be her parent. It was weird.

"Alrighty then. I'll try not to make too much noise if I come home," she said her perfect eyebrows raised as she looked at me and then she left.