It was like having part of her soul ripped out. Like being buried alive.

Cara stared at the white wall of the little room, arms wrapped around her torso. Shivers racked her body and she flexed the muscles in her back that would wrap her warm...

Gone.

They were gone.

Cara buried her face in her hands and screamed, pouring her anguish and rage into the sound. She didn't care if the wardens heard and called the labcoats. She didn't care if they stuffed her full of pills to keep her quiet or threw her back in solitary so she wouldn't rile up the other "patients".

She screamed again. She screamed until her ears rang and it felt like her throat might bleed. Then she took a sharp breath to scream some more.

"Hey."

Her next scream caught in her throat and she started coughing, eyes blurring as she looked toward the door of her cell—room. They were supposed to call them rooms.

Like that would somehow make being locked up better.

Blinking tears away, she saw a man with hair too silver for his young face and a green tattoo spiraling up his left arm. Cara flushed, those useless muscles in her back flexing again. Her breathing slowed as she kept flexing and nothing happened.

Phantom limb syndrome, the surgeons had called it. It would take a while for those reflexes to stop.

The guy cocked his head, raising a silver brow. "Hello? Um...do you...speak English?"

Cara's attention snapped back to him, eyes narrowing. "Why would you assume I don't?"

"Because you stared at me like I'm an idiot when I said hey?" His eyes darted to the bedside table, probably searching for one of those little paper cups the nurses used to dispense meds.

Cara frowned. She'd expected a snide comment about her brown skin. That, or maybe a few sniveling apologies about how he was just trying to be considerate.

"So..." he leaned against the doorframe, "what did they steal from you?"

Cara shrank in on herself, shaking her head. Talking about it was like accepting it. And she could never accept it.

"Come on," he said, leaning back in the hall to see if any of the wardens were around. "If you're here, they took something." He stepped into the room. "Something that made you a menace to society."

That provoked a wry snort from her that made him grin. Cara didn't protest as he shut the door, putting his back to it so he could slid down to the floor. "I'm Jax," he offered.

"You're not supposed to be in here," Cara said, listless. Actually, she wasn't all that certain if the nurses cared. They didn't seem to care unless you got violent.

Jax shrugged. "I can do what I want. Last I checked, this was a free country."

"Was that before or after they put you in a room with rubber walls and bars on the windows?" Cara asked, sitting cross-legged on the bed. The fabric of her tank top brushed over the stitches, sending pain shuddering through her.

"Yeah," he muttered. "You've got a point."

They both lapsed into silence at that. Cara's eyes traced the spiral pattern of his tattoo, not quite able to decide what it was supposed to be. It wasn't exactly tribal, which was good, but it didn't seem to have any defining shape, either. Jax frowned, eyes scanning over her, searching for something.

When he didn't seem inclined to say anything more and the silence was stretching toward something exhausting, Cara said, "You know what, I sort of want to be alone with my misery here."

The corner of his mouth lifted. "Misery loves company. And no one really wants to be alone."

She shook her head, but couldn't deny his words. Not wanting to be alone was what had landed her here. His presence was comforting, even if she didn't know him. He was here for the same reason she was.

"Besides," he added, his eyes flicking up to the small, meshed window above him, "it's better than sitting here screaming, waiting for Nurse Ratched to come stick you with something pointy."

Cara laughed softly, then sobered. "Maybe that's what I want," she whispered, hand creeping up to her shoulder. The lack of soft feathers under her fingers made her throat tighten.

"Nah." Jax shook his head, hair shimmering in the fluorescent lights.

He played with the seam of his loose, light blue pants. Cara looked down at her matching ones. The ones everyone had been issued.

They looked like mental patients. Maybe they were. Maybe it had all just been one long, psycho dream. Maybe she'd never had wings.

Her body knew better. It couldn't forget, even if her mind wanted to. Cara blew out a breath, shaking a strand of dark hair out of her face.

Jax studied her for a moment longer, then held up his left arm, displaying the green ink of his tattoo. "I used to be able to kill someone just by touching them."

All she could do was gape. Jax smiled, the expression bitter. He rocked forward until he was on his knees in front of her, extending his hand like a dare.

"I was immune to poison. More than that. I could make it seep into my skin. I could even absorb it from other people." His face was grave as he looked down at his hand. "They stole it. Took whatever was in me that made me immune and ripped it out." He made a hissing noise of fury, then tilted his head back. "What did they rip out of you?"

Cara stared into those green eyes. Poison green.

Before she could think it through, she turned and showed him her ruined back. He swore under his breath, then a finger traced the top of one of the crescent-shaped scars. Cara flinched away and turned to find him white as a sheet, hand still hovering.

Carefully, she took his hand, turning it palm-up in her lap. He stood and sat next to her, craning his neck to look at the scars.

"Wings," she choked out. "I had wings."

Lowering her head, she began to trace the green lines in his skin. Not a tattoo, she realized. His veins had been outlined by the poison he'd been immune to. His gift had been etched into his very blood.

"Could you fly?" he asked, goosebumps prickling over his skin as she drew her finger along the green lines.

"Yes."

"Well damn," he said on a sigh. "And I thought losing mine was bad."

"Are you still immune?" she asked, letting his hand go and turning to face him more fully.

Jax shrugged. "Dunno. Not something I really want to test."

That seemed reasonable.

Cara sighed and leaned her shoulder against the wall. Jax copied her, crossing his arms. The white t-shirt he'd been given was a size too big, which seemed like a shame to Cara. The breadth of his shoulders and the cut of his arms suggested that he was pretty well built.

At the thought, she leaned forward a little, gaze on his mouth. It wasn't like she had anything else to lose. And making out with a hot stranger seemed like a good enough way to forget what the wind felt like as it flowed over her feathers.

Feathers that had been burned.

Maybe he could make her forget that too.

"Why are you here?" he asked, yanking her from her morose thoughts.

"What?"

He smiled ruefully. "Why'd they chuck you in here? They don't put the good ones behind bars."

The good ones. The ones who'd hidden their gifts. Who hadn't used them for anything. Not the ones like her.

Martina's persuasive voice seemed to echo in her head, pushing her toward the bad choices she hadn't wanted to own up to. A reminder that would never leave her alone.

She wasn't about to explain any of that to him. He was cute, but that didn't mean he deserved her secrets. So she shrugged, wincing as the stitches pulled. Jax's eyes flicked down, like he could see through her to the wounds on her back where wings should be.

"I know why I'm here." He brushed a few unruly strands of hair behind her ear. "I am—was—dangerous. I've killed people."

"On accident?" she asked, resisting the urge to lean into his touch.

With anyone else, she wouldn't have dared. Anyone she knew had always known she was untouchable. Anyone who didn't know that didn't want anything to do with her kind anyway.

Cara shied away from the memories, focusing on Jax's face, searching for a lie.

"Once," he murmured. "After that, I learned how to control it." He withdrew his hand, seeming to weigh something in his mind. "And then I sold it to the highest bidder."

She licked her dry lips, fingers knotting together. Jax watched her, sitting up straight and moving to the edge of the bed like he was going to stand up. Like he was going to leave.

"What did you do?" she asked, making her voice neutral.

It wasn't hard. After all, she'd seen people die uglier deaths than being poisoned. And he had said he could draw poison out of others, too. She could give him the chance to explain, at the very least.

He barked a laugh. "Doesn't matter. I'm useless now."

Her heart ached at the lost quality of his voice. Her soul recognized the sound as her own echo. Dark as his gift might have been, it had still been his. Just like her wings had been hers.

"Why'd they drag you in here?" he said softly. "Why would they destroy something so beautiful?"

Cara's stomach fluttered and she swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. "It doesn't matter," she whispered, voice breaking. "I can't go back."

Slowly, giving her the opportunity to pull away, Jax slipped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her into him. A strangled sob caught in her throat as she buried her face in the crook of his neck.

She didn't care that she didn't know him. Or that he might have killed someone. If she could have, she would have killed every one of the bastards who'd done this to her. Right now, he was simply someone who shared the exact same brand of pain.

Maybe she really did hope the head nurse would come and give her something that would send her flying into oblivion. At least that way she wouldn't have to struggle to remember how to breathe or move without the heavy comfort of her wings.

Against her hair, he murmured, "You don't want to forget."

She wiped her eyes on his shirt and looked up. His green eyes were furious, though his hands were gentle as he brushed a few stray tears away.

"Don't forget what they took," he said. He bared his teeth, his rage making his eyes turn flat and cold. "I won't."

"What good does it do?" She was sickened by the wretchedness of her voice.

He cupped her chin, tilting her head back. "Because if you remember, maybe you'll help me burn this place to the ground."

Cara couldn't blink. Something small and golden stirred in her chest, valiant against the terrible blur of pain and loss she had been drowning in for days. It shocked even her when she placed a hand on the back of his neck, pulling him down into a kiss.

Jax froze in surprise for a second before he returned the kiss. His hands were tentative as they brushed down her back, feather-light over her scars.

The door slammed open and Jax was ripped away, thrashing and swearing as two guards bundled him out of the room. Cara leapt from the bed and lunged after him. A forearm slammed into her chest, sending her flying back.

Hands grabbed her and then there was a sharp pinch in the side of her neck.

Cara's vision went fuzzy and her limbs turned to pudding.

As she collapsed, she held onto what Jax had given her. She clung to the tiny spark of hope he'd helped her find in the middle of everything she'd lost.