Shade of Exposure (Three)

One

One:

The world seemed to come into focus as if through a dark-purple lens. As if nothing more than a flick of my wrist, I rematerialized, realizing I had been dispersed while I healed. A rumpled little redhead was laying at the side of the bed half seated in a chair and half spread across the bed’s surface.

Sky’s thoughtfulness was heart-warming. She was my best female friend in all existence. I winced as several mostly healed gashes and claw marks still dotted my back arms and chest. I felt like a waking human-shaped bruise.

The apex that was still only fifteen, peeked up at me. Her sky-blue eyes were befitting her considering her name. She looked like she was an Irish-born lass, much as her siblings did. The Nix was adept at guided evolution and had long-since been working to shift their new generations towards more human-looking appearances.

Her blue eyes widened seeing me up. Then those seemingly gentle eyes flashed with an unearthly power and turned upward in reptile-like slits, revealing her Nix heritage.

“Glad you survived that, now I can kill you myself!”

Skylar declared, her tone all apex. She seemed to be considering violence only two moments after waking.

“Can we get coffee first?”

I groggily asked, and the savage apex seemed pacified at the promise of coffee. She huffed and sat up, then stood crossing her arms over her small chest. Sky was only five-zero. I stood, and I was half-ahead taller than my bestie. Her form might appear deceptively weak, but she was a bonified dragoness. Only one of three left in all the known universe.

“Very well, a stay of execution, pending caffeinating. Hard to produce dragon fire without some java in the blood.”

I eyed her warily for a moment and gave her a cocky look in the next second as I stood and ruffled her shiny red hair. She growled in a feral annoyance. Sky had impulses like an apex predator and did at times even make bestial sounds without realizing it. She usually hid it well when amongst humans, but I was her best friend, so I saw the unfiltered beast that was the Nix apex.

“I’ll be sure never to print that where your enemies can see it then, Sky.”

I declared and she smirked darkly.

“Even without the fire, my teeth are more than enough.”

She said with an edge to her tone she was still very angry with me. I had a very damn good reason to believe I could survive the Zombie venom.

“Sky, thanks for getting me home.”

I said, and she seemed to still, losing some of her anger at my change in topic.

“You assumed you were immune, because Spencer is immune, am I correct?”

She asked, her tone ashy with her unexpressed wrath broiling inside. I raised my hands in defense and winced in pain. My entire body was alive with fresh agony.

“Hey, I am like a distant relative to like half of Spencer’s DNA, so it was a very safe bet!”

Sky grit her teeth and poked me in the chest hard enough to aggravate the sore wound underneath her finger.

“Hey, relax with the poking fang-face!”

I snapped but did not at all sound serious. My pain threshold was absurd. I could survive pain levels most beings might have expired purely from cardiac arrest and shock. I am not sure if this is a shade thing or just a me thing. I will have to remember to ask Spencer about this next time we run across each other.

“My fangs are sheathed, for now.”

Skylar stated in a very dry and toasty tone. I could not help the cheesy smile spreading on my face. She was too adorable for me to fear. To me, Sky was a grouchy little sister. She both loved and despised the fact that this meant I was never scared of her. I was probably the only being on the lower four dimensions not afraid of the Nix apex. That also could be a shade thing, considering my kind are considered to be an apex among apex beings. We are powerful, and usually batty. I am the only female shade ever to be born, and the only shade to be mostly not crazy!

“Well, if you start biting girls, what’s Clarke going to think about that?!”

I retorted, and Sky seemed to still. She was a teen when it came to romance. She was innocent, and stupidly smitten with Clarke. She thinks it is a great secret to most, but she is hardly that subtle. Being as apex and assertive as she is, she all but rubs herself all over him around other girls! Not literally, but her interest is obvious, even a blind, deaf, mute could see she has a crush on him.

“What are you going on about now, you are as crazy as all the rest of your ilk.”

She muttered, and I felt my lips twitch in good-humored expressive tolerance. She was seething mad with me to channel her mother so much! I guess if I am being totally honest, I get why. Sky hardly has many close friends. Usually, the apex can only trust her family for one-hundred-percent loyalty. It is not common for them to know they can count on anyone. Their position is that of a ruler who oversees the needs of the entire Nix species. The turning into a dragon trick, nice party favor, but it also means she is on the front lines of every battle to defend her people.

“Little Senna, your bigot is showing.”

I said, and I stuck out my tongue at her, as I walked past her, giving her hair one final ruffle for good measure. She did something surprising for us both, she bit down on my offending left hand, and I yipped and leaped a few feet away, and out the door. I could practically feel the satisfaction rolling off her now. She might not want to kill me like her mom, but she had made it clear she was willing to play rough if I kept testing the borders of her patience.

“Ok, ok, I’ll be more careful, geeze!”

I said, and she followed me, seemingly more satisfied now. I was not naïve enough to believe she was happy with me now. Sky was known to hold a grudge. That I am certain is a dragon thing, considering her mother and sister also shared this trait.

“The words ‘reckless fool’ come to mind when I picture you.”

She stated in a dry and slightly dark tone. Sky had this knack for sounding much older than she was. You would swear she was eons old, not fifteen considering the burden and the mantel of power she carried.

“I really didn’t expect to pass out like that, ok?”

I said, and she rolled her eyes, which I could actually see even from behind. Mortals could never understand the perception of sight in nearly a three-sixty. Sky knew I could see her, and she was not even trying to hide her annoyance with me.

“Kerry, you up?”

I called out, as I walked through the apartment and I was greeted by a much taller redhead glaring at me while sipping on a mug of steaming mocha.

“And, what if I had been asleep?”

She asked in a testy tone, and then she seemed to sag as her eyes met Sky.

“Good morning Skylark.”

She said, accepting Sky’s demand to not use her title, but refusing to call her by a nickname. Kerry was our roommate since moving to New York. Mainly because she was a bonified royal guard, and because we wanted another girl in the apartment since it had three rooms. That, and it kept Clarke from getting any ideas. I did not need to try to keep Hawker from killing Clarke over him and Sky, which I imagined was just a matter of time. However, I am trying very hard to keep the peace, since her father is not a fan of any male spawn and their appendages anywhere near his baby girl.

“As if that were possible, you are like a freakin’ IRL Spartan! No way in hell you are not up by the time Skylar is.”

I stated plainly, which was Kerry to a T. She took her duty to Sky very deathly serious. Skylar started College with Kerry, Clarke, and Me. She had apparently graduated high school at fourteen officially. She took a year off before enrolling for college with us. Let us just say that her apex studies program run by Senna is morbidly comprehensive.

“Such a ludicrous comparison.”

She harrumphed in clear insult to the human comparison. I sighed in mock-exhaustion.

“Ok, can we just have a full cease-fire until the damn shade has a few cups of joe?!”

I asked in a very bitchy sounding tone, even to my ears. After the nights we just had, I needed the damn coffee, badly! I was almost four days overdue for some coffee now.

“That sounds logical, considering.”

Sky said, and Kerry clenched down on her jaw obediently. Kerry might not be my best friend like Sky, but we did not really hate each other, at least not on my end. If her tail were in the fire, I would risk my life for her, considering I think I would probably risk my life for just about anyone. When you are born from a mother who locked herself in a nuthouse and held on to give birth to you, despite knowing what was about to happen to her, this is how you tend to view things.

I would like to think that every life I save is another smile on my mother’s face from whatever cosmic afterlife there might be. No matter how much power I discover, I always remember the humans I come from. Feeble and completely fallible, yet they have hidden depths and determination that make their species redeemable. I believe it is at least partially my responsibility to see that they can survive to evolve further. That might sound very silly and a bit cliché, if only in a more immortal sci-fi sort of way than how you hear in most human stories.

“There is an entire pot of mocha. I took the liberty to fix enough for everyone.”

Kerry’s eyes were mainly on Sky, but she flicked her gaze to me for a moment and added, “Even you since you seem to still be with us today.”

I could almost imagine I heard a fleeting note of concern from Kerry, but she locked her face down tightly, not allowing a damn thing to slip. She was the second most powerful Nix alpha female. There was another who lived in the court. A friend of Spencer’s named Genevieve Daily. I do not really know her though, so I cannot attest to her powers first-hand.

“I knew there was a reason we kept you around!”

I exclaimed and I walked by Kerry and clapped my hand on her shoulder in passing, and she eyed my hand like it was filthy vermin invading her space.

“Pity I cannot say the same, shadow girl.”

She fired back, and I rolled my eyes as I passed her by and made my way to the coffee like a shade on a mission! Nothing and no one came between a girl and her morning fix of mocha! Something that the Nix alpha pair seemed to agree on.