FRANKENSTEIN
32 | Courtesy of the red, white, and blue.

"HA, ha. Try to get me, you bitch!" A fourteen-year-old Maverick yelled at his twelve-year-old sister.

Jolene's eyes blazed with fury as she pedaled her bike faster, trying to catch up with her older brother. Unfortunately for her Maverick had an advantage as his longer legs allowed him to pedal his bike faster.

"Fuck off, asshole!" The twelve year old screamed, their bike's racing past old lady McDowell's house.

The old woman sat in the rocking chair on her porch glaring the two children as they raced past her house, saying profanities at each other.

"Ungrateful delinquents those children are." She muttered shaking her head at the two.

"Uh-oh, looks like I'm going to beat you. Again!" Maverick laughed, seeing the large country house which they lived in coming up.

The children's house was an interesting design as the outside was made of wood, and appeared older. However, the inside was an extremely futuristic design - looking as if it was worth millions of dollars. Which it was.

Jolene looked at her brother huffing. 'We'll see about that' The young girl thought to herself. With a smirk, Jolene looked to her right.

"Do you think you could give me some help, Quinton?" Jolene whispered the words below her breath knowing her dead friend could hear her. A thirteen-year-old spirit, by the name of Quinton Kaleston suddenly appeared a few feet in front of Maverick's bike.

Quinton Kaleston was light-heart spirit who had came across Jolene just a month prior. He was quite happy when he learned that she could see him, considering he'd never encountered anybody who could actually see him. Not even vampires that he'd approached could see him. The two hit it off very well, and now Quinton and her were very close friends.

Jolene grinned from ear to ear watching as Quinton stopped her brother's bike mid-movement leaving it frozen in the middle of the dirt path. "Looks like you're gonna be cleaing my room for the next month!" Jolene laughed, her bike passing Maverick's quickly.

She could hear Maverick swear, before Quinton released his bike. Maverick hurried to try and catch up with his sister - but was left the loser as she got to the house well before he could. As soon as Jolene was in the front yard, she dropped her bike and ran to touch the front door of her house.

With a large cocky grin she turned her head to see her brother just now riding into the yard. Behind him stood Quinton who winked at Jolene, before disappearing into thin air. Jolene's cheeks flamed as red as her hair, and her heart seemed to beat faster. Over the past week Jolene had adopted a small school-girl crush on the spirit. Could you blame her though? The Carson children were home-schooled by their mother, and knew practically no one other than each other, their own age.

"You cheater!" Jolene's attention was brought to Maverick as he stomped up the porch steps.

Maverick's sandy-blonde hair tousled as a breeze flew past the two. Other than Anthony Carson, Maverick was the only other non red-head in the family. "You can't call upon the dead to help you!" He screamed at her, making her smirk at him.

"You never said I couldn't." Jolene hotly replied, pursing her lips. "Plus, how do you even know I did? Maybe I just won cause I'm better than you." Jolene smartly questioned him.

"Are you freaking kidding me, right now!" Maverick boomed in red-hot anger, jealousy pricking at his skin. "How do I know?" He mocked her, making his voice go high-pitched. "I know because my bike is not just going to stop in the middle of the road like that! It's physically impossible for me to do that! Not only that, but you're face is red as a tomato, let me guess it was Quinton? You're new best-friend Quinton? The Quinton that you probably dream of kissing and-" Maverick was cut off by Jolene screaming at him and kicking him in the nuts.

The real reason Maverick was so angry was because of jealousy. The four Carson kids had no other friends their age, outside themselves. Because of that they all grew relatively close. None more than Jolene and Maverick. The two were best-friends, and loved each other more than anything. This caused them to grow protective of each other. Maverick didn't like the fact that his sister could see the dead and therefore had the option to be friends with other people. He also didn't like it when those friends, happened to be male.

"I won fair and square, you can go clean my room." Jolene looked down to her brother, who held onto his pants tightly.

Maverick narrowed his eyes, before leaping up and tackling his sister to the ground. She yelped before efficiently fighting back. These children were by no definition 'normal', no the Carson children were all equipped in the ways of self-defense. Maverick and Jolene fighting was not like any normal siblings fighting, no; they were having a flat war with each other.

Jolene brought her leg up in a high-kick only for Maverick to bend backwards sufficiently missing it. Maverick's size on his younger sister was an advantage to him. He was able to easily punch her in the gut, with a lot more strength. Jolene grabbed her stomach, making a noise of pain.

Maverick smirked thinking he'd won. "Give up yet?"

However, Maverick's size could also be considered a disadvantage, given the fact that Jolene was able to slip through his legs and take him down. Maverick lay on the ground having the wind knocked out of him, trying to catch his breath.

Before either of them could utter another word, the front door flew open revealing Michelle Carson. Her eyes narrowed at the sight she saw before her.

"What are you two doing?"

"Nothing mom!"

~

"Oh, hold still would you, Quinton." Jolene smiled at the ghost, who sat on the chair fidgeting.

Her green eyes lit up as she focused her gaze on the sketchpad sat in her lap. She reached her hand out to her left to grab the purple colored pen. In a daze she brought the pen to her lips, and popped off the cap using her mouth. Lightly she bit on the cap focusing her attention to the drawing.

The wind ruffled her hair, as the two of them sat on the backyard porch. Maverick refused to talk to Jolene after their fight, but Jolene didn't care as she knew he'd come running back to her within a few hours. Plus, it gave her a solid two hours to stay with Quinton without the chance of being interrupted.

Quinton watched his only friend - that was alive, with a smile. He still couldn't believe that after all these years of just floating about watching the living mingle with each other, he found one person who could truly see him.

"And done." Jolene smiled turning the sketchpad for Quinton to see what she'd drawn.

"What the-" Quinton cut himself off, by laughing loudly at the drawing.

Jolene had taken an entire twenty-minutes to draw a stick-figure. It wasn't even a good stick-figure, it looked like a kindergartner had drawn it.

"I tried." Jolene shrugged, a smile tugging at her lips.

"This is you 'trying'?" Quinton rose an eyebrow, staring at her in disbelief.

"Yep." She popped the P with a smile.

"Wow, so the talented Jolene can sing and dance, but she can't draw?" Quinton was slightly shocked.

"God, no. Drawing has always been more of a Donica and Maverick thing. Singing's more Hadlee and I." Jolene said, closing the sketchpad.

"But all of you can dance in this family?"

"Oh yeah, you're not Anthony's child if you can't dance apparently." Jolene rolled her eyes at her father's saying.

Quinton only laughed finding Anthony a hilarious person. He'd like to actually be able to interact with him, though Quinton knew it'd never happen. He knew the chances of himself stumbling upon another person with Jolene's particular talent were next to nothing.

"JoJo dinner's ready!" The eighteen year old Donica swung outside.

Donica's plaid shirt was large around her fit frame, and her feet bare. Donica Carson was the first born of the Carson siblings and by far a true leader. She cared for her younger siblings more than anything, and was always protective of them. Donica brought her hands to her hips and gave a small laugh at the sight she saw. Her younger sister staring at what looked to be nothing, but she knew she was talking to a spirit.

"Is that Quinton?" Donica asked, motioning her head to where her sister was staring.

Jolene shyly nodded her head hoping her big sister wouldn't do anything to embarrass her. Donica smiled to herself, as Jolene had come to her and Hadlee just yesterday confessing the small crush she had on the ghost.

"Well hello Quinton, I'm sorry but Jolene needs to come eat dinner with us now. Though I'm sure the two of you can talk later." Donica said, not knowing where to look as she wasn't sure where the spirit was.

"He said okay." Jolene scurried to her older sister, cheeks blazing.

Donica only laughed rubbing her sister on the head as she ran past her.

~

"How's your day been, Hadlee?" Michelle questioned taking a bite of her pasta, looking to her daughter.

It was leftover Monday, meaning the entire family would eat leftovers in which they had from the past week. Jolene and Maverick had silently made up, and were now sitting next to each other at the table. Across from them were their sisters, Donica and Hadlee, their mother and father sat at the the two ends of the table. It was a relatively normal day in the Carson household.

"It was fine not like there's much to report though. You know, considering you refuse to let us interact with people outside this family." Hadlee said, moodily crossing her arms. "I mean we don't even go to school, for Pete's sake."

Hadlee was upset by the fact that they were not the normal American family. Considering their father was a famous inventor, also the iconic superhero know as 'Iron Man', nothing in their lives could be considered 'normal'.

"You know why we have the rules that we do Hadlee." Michelle sighed, noticing she'd barely touched her food. "You've barely even eaten."

"I'm not hungry for steak." The sixteen-year-old said, stirring the meat on her plate around.

"Well it is leftover night. We have meatloaf, pasta, what are you hungry for?" Michelle rose an eyebrow looking to her daughter kindly.

"A life." Maverick said laughing, getting looks from all around the table.

"Shut up." Hadlee hissed at her brother.

"Well you do want a life." Maverick scoffed.

"I said shut up! You hairless-ape!" Hadlee threateningly pointed her fork at him.

"Do not shout at the table! Anthony!" Michelle said looking to her husband for help.

"Kids, listen to your mother." Is all he said providing no help at all.

Michelle gave him a blank stare in return. Jolene and Donica looked to each other knowing what was coming.

"She'd eat if she had a boyfriend." Maverick muttered loud enough for the whole table to hear, snickering.

"That's it!" Hadlee screamed dropping her fork, and leaping over the table.

Hadlee landed on Maverick causing the chair to fall backwards pushing them both to the ground. Michelle stood up yelling at both of them to stop. The children did not listen and instead Hadlee sat on top of Maverick slapping him repeatedly.

"You're dead!" Maverick yelled flipping Hadlee off him and standing up.

Oh yeah, there's one key point that forgot to be mentioned about this family. Jolene wasn't the only special one there. All four siblings were special, or as most people referred to them; 'mutants'. Maverick was mutated with the power of teleportation and a gift which allowed him to shock people. Hadlee herself had vocal cords so strong it let her scream at a frequency loud enough it could put a person on the ground and a power which controlled ice.

The oldest; Donica, she could turn herself invisible. Not only could she go invisible, but she could also shift to look like any person she wanted. Jolene as we all know speaks to the dead, but not only does she speak to the dead she can cross over the bridge into their world. The mother; Michelle, was basically a human elastic-band. She could stretch so far it was eerily scary.

Anthony had no mutation. He was only gifted in the world of academics, along with his brother; Patrick Carson. Anthony created a metal suit capable of many things, giving him the superhero alias known as 'Iron Man'. Despite his fame, not many know of his family's oddities.

As soon as Maverick stood up, he began teleporting around Hadlee. Each time he appeared, he hit her. Finally having enough Hadlee opened her mouth letting out a loud piercing sonic wail, which shook the house.

She directed the scream at her brother who appeared and was about to hit her again. The force hit him hard causing him to fall backwards on the floor. Maverick stood up enraged at his sister, glaring at her. He tried to jump over the table at her, but was stopped by and arm getting in his way.

Michelle stretched out her limbs so her left arm wrapped around Maverick keeping him on one side of the table, and her other arm around Hadlee keeping her stationary away from him.

"Sit down!" She yelled at them.

Maverick only let out a war cry before darting under the table, Hadlee doing the same. The two of them fought under the table with their mother's arms still gripped around them. Michelle's body was leaned across the tabled as her children fought beneath it.

"Anthony, do something!" Michelle cried over the noise.

With wide eyes, Anthony stuck out his hand and his the hand parts to his metal suit came flying. It attached itself to both of his hands, and quickly he gripped the top of the table. Anthony used the suit's strength in order to lift it up off the ground. A yelp escaped Michelle as her body along with the table lifted in the air. The children despite dangling in the air by their mother, still fought. Ice started to gather at the ground as Hadlee got even more worked up at her brother.

Donica and Jolene gave each other knowing looks as this happened at least once a week. Yep, just a normal night in the Carson household.

HEY GUYS! I WANT TO GO OVER SOMETHING REAL QUICK, IN CASE ANY IF YOU WERE WONDERING. THIS IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE, SO YOU MAY CATCH REFERENCES OR PEOPLE FROM THERE. IT IS NOT EXACTLY THE SAME THOUGH, SO I DON'T COUNT THIS BOOK AS A CROSSOVER! I HOPE EVERYONE LIKED THIS CHAPTER! ANYWAY HOPE YOU ENJOYED, COMMENT I LOVE HEARING YOUR OPINIONS!