Inhuman Heritage by Sonnet O'Dell

to singing Amy Winehouse as a taunt. I turned a corner and was out of Incarra’s sight before she could even get a second wind.
    * * * *
    In retrospect running away from Incarra was not my brightest idea. In fact it was probably only second worst to the fact that I had applied myself with magic and booze to avoid the truth. Just another form of running. I had not been mature enough to handle my change in circumstance. It was like the rug had been pulled out from under me and instead of slowly, tentatively getting back to my feet, I’d laid on my back and wallowed in my self pity.
    * * * *
    It’d taken me a while of sitting in my apartment, hiding from my best friend, staring at a worm swimming in the bottom of a bottle of Tequila to realize I’d really crossed a line. People-whether human or non-drew lines in the sand for a reason. I was not this person, I did not go round publicly distressing my friends, I was stronger than this. I reiterated this to the worm-who I had fondly named Norbert-thinking that he would understand. After all his life, too, was buried under an incessant pool of liquor.
    My phone rang again on the coffee table, Incarra calling for the seventh or eighth hundredth time. I just watched it do its merry jig on the wood, ignoring it and watching the colors of the late afternoon sky through the skylight. They turned brilliant orange, then fresh pink and were closing to deep lilac and purple shades when I got a knock on my front door. Imagining I’d ordered a pizza as I felt a rumble in my stomach, I got up from the floor and walked to answer it. I opened the door and went flying to the floor as arms and hands and in fact whole bodies tackled me. Incarra was riding on my chest trying to pin my upper body as I flailed at her. Anton had very gingerly wrapped his arms around my ankles and was holding them tightly closed trying to keep his eyes from wandering up my dress. I’d changed for my later meeting.
    “This is an intervention!” screamed Incarra as I bucked and tried to throw her off me. I screamed in fury at being attacked, in my home and by my friend.
    “What the...? Get the hell off of me!”
    Anton peered around Incarra.
    “Um, we can’t, this is an intervention. It’s for your own good.”
    I wailed and made another attempt to throw Incarra off me suddenly aware of what time of day it was.
    “No, you can’t be here! You’ve got to go.”
    Incarra dug her skinny knees into my sides to hold onto me while she looked back at Anton.
    “Didn’t you bring the cuffs?”
    “Sure I did but I’m not going to be the one that tries to put them on her. I’m not stupid.”
    Incarra snatched at what he was offering to her and brought them into my view. I was looking at a pair of purple fluffy handcuffs, the kind you bought if you were thinking of “experimenting.” I was about to be restrained by fluffy manacles which was not only ridiculous but embarrassing. Incarra climbed up my body so that my face was pressed against her abdomen, silencing all my protests as she secured my wrists into their bindings. The sun set and I shuddered from my fingers down to my toes. Incarra looked around sharply.
    “What the hell was that?”
    “I think the handcuffs did it for her?” said Anton cracking a cheeky grin. Trust him to be the one to make a joke. Incarra sat back letting me breathe and looked from side to side like she could feel the change in the air as I whimpered beneath her.
    “It’s too late,” I mumbled and just to make my night complete, Aram walked out of my bedroom.

Chapter Eight
    Aram stared at us and Incarra and Anton stared back. I threw my head back against my now cuffed wrists and mumbled.
    “I am fortune’s bitch!”
    Aram was dressed as well as ever. Tight leather pants, floppy topped black boots that had to be vampire made because the design was not of this century. He had a white poet shirt on, all billowing with the lacing undone to let his pale flesh peek through. His hair