Hidden in Plain Sight (Working title)
Chapter 2: Avery

Avery walked through the forest near her weeping willow, she'd been collecting sticks to reinforce her home. It was afternoon and she hadn't eaten in what felt like a million years even though it had only been four days.

But, seeing as an angel could survive only seven days without food whereas creatures could survive for fourteen, it was basically a million years.

And here she was, collecting sticks.

She decided she needed to get food and she thought of her options. She could see if the nearby apple tree had any apples grown yet, or she could steal food from the store, or she could collect random wild berries that grew around the forest, but some were dangerous and the ones that weren't were too small to actually fill her up.

Welp. Stealing it is.

She honestly didn't feel bad stealing. She didn't know if that was good, or bad. The store had no security system thankfully, and technically it should be fine if she was starving and any normal human may have died by now, right?

Right.

She walked into the store in her human form. She tried to look normal as she grabbed as much as she could carry without someone noticing. She knew it was risky, but she didn't necessarily have much of a choice. She managed to grab a lot of really small things. She didn't actually know how long humans could survive without any food, but it couldn't have been much longer than an angel or a creature, right? She crept out of the store and went to the back of it. She found a stray plastic bag and put her stuff in it before transforming into her angel form. She took off into the sky just as she heard someone say something behind her.

Uh oh.

She beat her wings harder as she flew up into the sky. She didn't dare to look back.

She landed only when she got to the weeping willow tree she called home. She crawled beneath the roots and placed the bag into a small hole she'd dug out in the side of her bed. Her home was cramped but she liked it that way. It made her feel safe.

Avery took out a box of mac-and-cheese. She then went down to her makeshift fire by the riverbed. She lit the fire with a lighter she'd found on the ground, then, she grabbed a little mini grill she'd found in someone's trash can. It was just an oven rack with metal legs fused to it.

So a mini grill.

She placed the mini grill on top of the fire and then placed the bowl on the grill. She poured a few handfuls of water in and waited for it to boil.

It felt like hours by the time the water began boiling, apparently, it's true, and watched water never boils...

Avery poured the box of macaroni into the bowl after taking out the cheese packet. Sadly, she had no milk or butter so she couldn't make the mac-and-cheese correctly.

When she finally finished making it, she sat beside the fire. She ate the mac-and-cheese, hoping that no one would replace her or her hiding spot. She'd have to change schools and she guessed that would be a good thing since she had a feeling that girl, Kat, was a creature.

She just kinda knew things like that.

Like she knew it hadn't been a human that had called out to her when she flew off earlier that day. It had been a creature. She hoped the creature hadn't followed her back to her home. Because it could have, creatures were slightly faster than angels when they were flying but on the ground, they didn't stand a chance. She guessed she should have run home instead of flying. But she hadn't. She looked around. The sky was getting darker, and her fire was starting to go out. Avery gathered her sticks and reinforced her home, placing the sticks over the gaps in between the weeping willow's roots.

She thought she was alone. She really did.

That was until she heard someone say, "Hi," from behind her.

Avery jumped and turned to see who had found her and her safe place.

It was the creature who'd talked to her earlier.

It was the girl from school, Kat.