THE MISFITS

BOOK ONE: HYBRID MISFIT

Adults. Ugh. Always claiming the shit they forced on you was for your own good. Take the treatments they subjected me to, for instance.

The medicine will make you better. Those gazillion needles will improve your quality of life. How, by granting me a career as a pin cushion? Hell, some of the stuff they siphoned into my veins glowed. It was a wonder I could sleep at night with all the wacky shit they filled me with.

But the battery of tests and treatments weren't the only things I had to contend with. I was a prisoner. A patient. A test subject. Those in charge explained the locked doors to our rooms were so we wouldn't wander at night or get into trouble. The barbed-wire fencing around the compound, again, for our protection, to keep the wild animals out - funny since some of the wildest creatures were held within. As for the guards, they were for our safety. Safety against what? It wasn't as if they stopped those doctors when they strapped us down and poisoned us with their certainly-not-FDA-approved cocktails.

So many of us died from those treatments. Those lucky bastards. Others emerged from the agony and screaming changed. How I tired of averted eyes when they said it wouldn't hurt, even as molten fire burned through our veins.

Liars.

Bastards.

Meat...

For every one of us that died, for every one of us that cried, and for every one of us that lost our humanity, someone would pay. Make that someone would die, not by my hand, for, even with the torture I'd suffered at their hands, I lacked that kind of ruthlessness. But my brothers and sisters, made kin by the shared experimentation, they had no such qualms - in fact, they craved violence. They reveled in death.

When the uprising occurred, blood rained down and soaked the earth. Like a volcano erupting, vengeance, too long bottled, burst forth with deadly consequence. In the deep of night, when only bogeymen - and test subjects - dared walk, I ran with the flames of Hades reaching high behind me in the dark sky. As I escaped my prison and the adopted siblings who'd finally turned on me with covetous eyes, I heard the chilling screams of the liars as retribution came back to bite them.

Then to eat them.

As for me, I fled and hid, but most of all, I rejoiced because I was finally free.

Apparently, someone forgot to mention that with freedom came responsibility. Escaping the gated institution I'd lived in for three long years didn't make everything all better. I didn't get an instant happily-ever-after. But life was definitely better.

I certainly didn't miss the barrage of needles, the loneliness of being locked away, and the communal showers with the other girls.

On the other hand, though, I'd have to say I wasn't too crazy about the gnawing pain in my stomach or sleeping on the cold, hard ground.

Freedom wasn't comfortable. It also forced me to face some crucial facts. I needed a place to live. Clothes. I needed sustenance to survive. For all this, I needed a job.

Of course, that was easier said than done, especially considering I had a definite lack of skills. A grade twelve education did not make me a rocket scientist, although I could still recite by rote some of the Spanish I'd learned, but somehow counting to ten in another language didn't impress the prospective employees who interviewed me.

I had no marketable skills - unless screaming at a high pitch while writhing counted. While in captivity, we'd had no access to computers or technology, and books were doled out for good behavior. I'm afraid to say, I didn't read often.

Emerging into the real world like a butterfly from a chrysalis, I needed to learn how to fly. Or, at the very least, type and fluently speak a second language. It wasn't as if I didn't have any skills, but somehow, I didn't think peeing in a cup with no hands would gain me points on a job application.

I tried all the easy places first - McDonalds, Walmart, and other retailers that paid minimum wage and required no experience. Nobody hired me. I wasn't sure why. Was there something in my eyes that frightened them? Could they sense my otherness?

No one ever said. And I couldn't find the words to ask.

Annoyed that the world seemed determined to foil my plan to start a new life, I moped for days and thought about going back to kill the managers who couldn't see my potential. A little revenge would have helped with my hunger at least, but caution stayed my hand - and a squeamishness over parts of my diet that forced me to resort to hunting those of my kind - well, my kind until I'd changed that was. Don't go there. Don't think about it because the loss of my innocence and humanity remained a memory I preferred not to dwell on.

So what should a girl of twenty-one with good teeth, no skills, or advanced education do for money? Where could I work and have access to a gullible food source?

Say hello to Trixi, the newest exotic dancer at XXXButts - not one of the more upscale clubs like Bunny Tails, but not the bottom of the heap like Dollar Dancing.

Frown and disapprove all you want. I could handle it. There was no denying I'd chosen to work in a shocking environment, replete with chrome, mirrors, and lots of naked women. I wouldn't deny that what some of the men said or expected of us was degrading to women, but in the club's defense, they paid really fucking well. They paid on time. But most important of all, they made feeding my hungers - and not the meat and potato variety - so much easier.

XXXButts was just a starting point, though. Those first few years after my escape, I moved often, fleeing sometimes with only the clothes on my back when members of my past caught up to me and learned, to their detriment, that I preferred to stay hidden and out of their clutches.

During those hard learning years, I lost my squeamishness. I had to or die. The new me adopted the new motto of "I will kill to survive." Word must have spread, or the numbers against me diminished, because, eventually, I managed to stop running. I settled in a spot, made myself a home, probably because I discovered, to my amazement, that I wasn't the only special girl working at the newest club. Of course, the siren and werebunny didn't come close to my state of being, but because of our differences - and in spite of them - we forged a friendship that was stronger for our specialness.

My unique appeal on stage caught the attention of a bigger club within months - I knew how to please a crowd. Dragging my friends along with me, we moved to the more upscale location, and I landed the cushy feature dancer position while Lana and Claire landed jobs as shot girl and waitress. My success entitled us to the best shifts, the cleanest, most secure lockers, and a never-ending flow of cash - among other things.

During my time on stage, I enticed and enflamed. I swung on the pole in a titillating dance as the featured Saturday night dancer. When I shook my booty, all eyes in the place were glued to me. What could I say? I was hot, and not only did I know it, but the humans did, too. Even better, their slack-jawed excitement fed a part of me without my even touching them. If only I could have fed my other hunger hands-free.

My friends and I settled into a comfortable routine. We exchanged life stories. We watched out for each other, and I thrived.

I should have known my comfortable existence wouldn't last.

Premonition didn't warn me as I hung upside down on a pole, my ankles crisscrossed while my anaconda thighs gripped the upright bar. My hands cupped my breasts - which were barely hidden by my sequined pasties - while my hips dry humped the steel support. Multitasking at its best. I was in the midst of my routine, sucking in all the thick, sexual energy permeating the air, when they walked in.

Shit. Fuck. Damn. A litany of curse words went through my mind when I saw them, my long-lost brothers. Or should I say rejected lovers - although, given their rough ways, many would have said rapists - because, after the change, I went from little sister to coveted object.

Their appearance couldn't bode well. I pretended not to notice them, hoping I'd get lucky and they wouldn't recognize me.

Their freakish yellow eyes zeroed in on me immediately, shooting down that wishful thought. I hid my own special eyes behind contacts lenses of dull brown. Apparently, violet-colored eyes, ones that appeared to light up from within, weren't the norm for humans. Imagine that.

Although I wore a mundane human disguise, I couldn't mask my scent, and I could see my lost brethren sniffing the air as they took seats close to the stage. They didn't make it to the pervert row, that first rank around the stage where leering men sat with eager faces and enjoyed the up close and personal show. But the trio didn't sit far behind, and I could see them muttering to each other, even if I couldn't hear their words over the blaring rock music.

Probably plotting ways of capturing me so they can drag me back to their lair for devious torture.

Okay, that was a tad melodramatic. They probably didn't have a lair, but I wasn't kidding about the capture part. They wanted me because of what I could do. Or, should I say, what my blood was capable of.

I had no intention of becoming some kind of blood bank for them, even though I was tired of always looking over my shoulder. Freedom was worth dying for. I would never allow myself to become a prisoner, an object at the mercy of others, again.

My set ended with me bent over and exposing parts of me that should never see daylight - it didn't bother me, though. I truly had no inhibitions when it came to displaying my body.

As soon as I could, I rushed to the back of the stage and slipped behind the curtain. I figured I didn't have much time before they came looking, but I needed at least a minute to change out of my glittery outfit into something more respectable for walking the city streets. There were probably some who'd argue that the micro mini I shrugged on, along with the sheer blouse and high heels, was no better. Too bad.

After the sterile whites I'd worn for years - asexual garments that smelled of bleach - I craved color and loved to look sexy. Besides, it made getting dinner so much easier. I often liked to grab a snack to tide me over before going in to work.

But tonight, I wished I'd worn running shoes instead of three-inch heels as I slipped out the back door, usually manned by Bernie, our bouncer. Tonight, the gorilla whom I bummed gum from wasn't standing at his usual post, probably because he'd been beheaded and his body had been partially stuffed into the dumpster. Poor Bernie, his face still bore an expression of surprise as his head swung from a fist. My eyes followed the hand up the arm to a familiar face.

So much for my plan of sneaking out.