Jaden:

It stung, what happened, but that wasn't the first time I had fought with someone about gargoyles. That wasn't even the first lesson on how an entire race of humanity was "evil". My dad was on my side and he nicknamed our rather regular lessons on the gargoyles "the two minutes hate"... sounded funny, but I didn't know what it meant.

I didn't know what to do. I moved on to go home with my friends.

My parents and I lived in a duplex with a white picket fence surrounding it. I ran my hand along the fence as I walked home with my friends. We had been delayed waiting for Judith and Jezreel to get permission, but generally, my folks didn't worry too much when I was a little late getting home, after all, the neighborhood was pretty safe.

Jezreel was a few inches taller than her friend and a good deal skinnier. They were similar in the face, but Jezreel wore her hair longer and her skin was lighter. She wore a blue dress that looked kinda like a school uniform (though our school didn't have a uniform).

Up ran the little blonde annoyance that lived next door to me known as Sarah. "Hey there Jaden. Hey Raymie."

"Hey, Sarah..." I said out of the corner of my mouth, trying to be polite and get rid of her at the same time.

"Your parents are getting a party-ready for you... can I come?"

I shrugged. I didn't want to her come but... well I couldn't exactly tell her the truth. Banshees, werewolves, wildmen, etc, we're all secret underground societies. No one is supposed to know we're special or that we have our own societies. Humans hunted us when they knew about us.

Sarah and her parents were normal people and associating with them gave us a great cover, someone "knew" us, or what we allowed them to see. My parents were very clear with me that I wasn't to "blow it" with her.

"Who are the two ni-" she began but I quickly interrupted.

"Please don't say that word."

"What ni-"

"Yea that word."

Judith shook her head. "Truly, do you even like this girl, wolf?" she whispered to me.

"No, but she's a cover," I whispered back. Judith rolled her eyes but nodded.

"Just allow me to handle this," Judith said. She walked over to the bright-eyed Sarah and took her by the shoulder. She then whispered in her ear so I could only hear Sarah's part of the conversation.

"Yeah, Jaden was in the hospital for a whole month, I remember... wait you did what?" She looked at Judith. "All because he called you a ni-" Sarah covered her own mouth. "I don't think I want to come to the party anymore" Sarah quickly walked away.

Judith walked back over to me with a smirk on her face. "Did you say what I think you said?" I asked.

Judith just whistled into the air. I sighed and waved for my group of friends to come on.

I spoke to Judith out of the side of my mouth, "You know I didn't earn what you did to me last November."

"You would not have earned it for saying a stupid word either," Judith said shrugging.

"I thought you were sorry about the whole thing."

"I was, but did you not overcome it? So did I with time." I rolled my eyes. Judith looked around. "Is this not technically a white neighborhood?"

I looked around as well. There were no signs up, but I supposed that perhaps this was a "whites only neighborhood" but... probably not. I would have noticed something like that before now. Still, to encourage our darker-skinned members I said, "You're with me, my family is well respected."

"Yes but would not having us along hurt that-" Jezreel said behind us, but I interrupted.

"We're respected because we're armed."

Jezreel nodded. "Okay." Noticeably Jezreel and Judith did start to walk a good distance behind me. Raymie raced up to me from behind.

"Are you really gonna spar with Judith tomorrow?" he asked. I shrugged. "Buddy," he shook his head, "she is gonna kill you."

"I am not!" Judith protested.

"My friend Judith would never harm a wolf on purpose!" Jezreel said.

I looked back. "Yeah, please don't call us wolves in public."

"I apologize," Jezreel responded.

Raymie looked back at them. "Do they really need to hang back so far?"

"You know what's going on these days," I said back. "Been going on for a while. Whites vs. blacks and all that junk."

"Yea but our races have never had those problems," Raymie said back.

"Yes, but our races, "don't exist". I said with air quotes. I looked back. "I think they're getting ready to run."

Raymie finally shouted back to them. "C'mon, are you two scared or something?"

"No!"Judith shouted back.

"Never!" Jezreel followed. They ran to catch up to us.

Up the stairs of my house, we went and finally to the front door. "Mom I'm home!" I yelled.

The second I opened the door something small slammed into me and I fell backward across the porch. "Guess who it is Jaden!" shouted a voice I knew all too well, even though she was covering my eyes.

"Jessica!" I shouted.

The little girl removed her hands from my eyes. I looked up to see Judith and Jezreel looking curiously at her and myself. "That's right," Jessica said, holding her hands out in front of her. "Now that's not a big enough smile." Her hands dug into my sides, which tickled like crazy and I started squealing. I quickly grabbed her arms. Jessica looked up and then looked back at me. "Help me out here guys?"

Judith and Jezreel just looked at each other in confusion at this, but Raymie circled around and shouted, "sure, I got his arms!"

"You traitor!" I shouted, but nonetheless, he grabbed my arms and pulled them up, the tickling starting anew.

This struggle went on for a few minutes on the porch and I'm pretty sure both Judith and Jezreel joined in at some point. I managed to get my arms away from Raymie, but then he joined. Finally, I heard an even younger-sounding voice say, "okay guys, I think that's enough." All at once, the tickling stopped and I lay there gasping for air with a huge grin on my face. Jessica got off and I slowly started getting on all fours.

"Hmmm..." Jessica started as I pulled myself up by the rails. "Ya know, it's his ninth birthday." She nodded her head from side to side. "We could do a birthday tickle and do that for nine minutes..."

I held up my hands. "No please I would die." Through tears of laughter, I looked around at everyone who had assembled.

Judith and Jezreel had been with me the whole time, but as I was taking everyone in, I took in my old friends Kyle and Jessica. Both kids were a very light off-brown color. Jessica was lucky if she was a little over four feet tall and Kyle was even shorter. Both had raven black hair- you could be forgiven for thinking they were siblings.

I shook my head. Aside from my actual family, those two were my favorite people in the world. "Well you're boring today," Jessica said with a shrug. "You're not gonna try for revenge or anything?"

I chuckled. "I'm not gonna lie that took a little bit out of me."

That's when Jezreel grabbed Jessica from behind and sent the girl into a fit of laughter. Judith walked over next to me. "Who are the munchkins?" she asked.

"Them?" I said, pointing. "They're the Finders. I told you about them right?" I looked down at Jessica. "Jess, Jezreel, Judith, and Raymie," I said, pointing at my friends in turn, introducing them to her.

Jessica pointed at the kids. "So- Jez, Jud and Ray... got it!"

Jezreel easily had Jessica pinned on the wood floor of the porch. "These are the Finders?" she asked. "They surely do not seem like much." She looked over at Kyle. "You are not going to help your partner?"

Kyle shook his head. "She's not threatened by you if that's what you mean," he said with a chuckle.

"Yeah," I put in. "As I understand it, Jessica could take out this whole duplex with a single swipe from one of her blades. She's over twenty times as powerful as any other pharaoh... heck maybe more than that."

"She is a pharaoh!?" asked Jezreel. She got up. "Sorry, verily, I thought you were just another child." She helped Jessica up. "How old are you anyway?"

Jessica looked around. She then took a serious stance and held her head high. "Why yes, I am over one hundred and forty years old. Never in all my life have I been treated so childishly." She turned away from Jezreel. "Hmph!" She walked back into the house.

Jezreel scratched her head as the girl left to go in. "Did not mean to involve her in a juvenile-"

Kyle laughed. "Seriously?" he asked. "Jess is about as mature as a five-year-old."

Jessica's voice traveled over his shoulder. "But not as gullible as a nine-year-old apparently!"

Jezreel glared after her. "Oh that little-" Kyle stepped out of the door frame and gestured for us all to come in. Jezreel did so ahead of all of us at top speed.