Blood and Genetics

Hoverbikes and Hippopotami

Keith immediately snapped his head back into the nose of his attacker and rammed both elbows backwards one after another. They hit soft flesh, and his kidnapper let go. He spun away, in fighting position as his assailant groaned, holding his nose. "Ow! Geeze! I just wanted to talk!"

Keith blinked. "Griffin?"

"Ow, yes! That was a serious overreaction!"

Keith didn't let his fighting position drop although he did relax a little bit. "I thought you were trying to kidnap me," he said matter-of-factly.

Griffin scowled at the scarlet on his hand that had come from his nose. "Who'd want to kidnap you?"

Keith scowled back. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with your family?"

Griffin was still preoccupied with his nose, which was still giving a steady trickle of blood. "I pretended to be sick," he said with a wave of his hand, pressing his sleeve to his nose, "I stuck around."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to talk to you."

Keith was immediately on the defensive. "Why?"

"I think you know why," Griffin replied, "Your eyes."

"What about them?"

"They do the thing. The thing where they get all slitted and the whites turn yellow."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do!"

Keith crossed his arms, feigning confusion. "Nope."

"Then why have you been pulled out of class?! What's going on?"

"Counseling," Keith lied, "Anger management counseling. I've attacked you twice, you know."

"What?! They haven't told you?! There's no way- they had to have believed me- I took a video! I showed them a video! Your eyes—"

Keith headed for the door. "Griffin, maybe you should get your head checked out. I did hit you pretty hard with that lunch tray."

He left the room to Griffin's outraged splutters, a small smile creeping up on his face. Score. He finally made it to his room and powered on his computer. There were four unread messages and a picture attachment.

Keith unlocked the computer, and the first message showed up, under an email name of Pidge Gunderson.

Hey, Keith, it's Katie.

Keith's heart beat faster as a picture of a glyph showed up. A very familiar glyph, although one that he typically kept wrapped up and out of view. He looked underneath at the other messages.

Any idea what this means?

No,he typed back. And it was true. He'd never understood it. It was something that probably only his deadbeat mother understood. He glanced at the last message.

Yes, it's your knife. I hacked my mom's phone and found it.

Thank you for showing me, he responded. There. Shiro would be proud. Well, first he'd have to get over the crushing disappointment that perhaps Keith had shared military secrets, then he'd have to tell Mrs. Holt that Katie had been hacking her phone, but maybe, just maybe, after that, he'd be proud.

Speak- or thought, anyway- of the devil, a new message popped up from Shiro.

I'm out of training. You up for a hoverbike ride?