Hours ago...

"Are you trying to kill my boy?" June stood in the foyer of Fallout's so-called 'lair,' a complex so excessive in chandeliers, silk dividers, handcrafted mahogany finishes, the faint musk of expensive incense, the woman had to bite back a laugh. Her jaw was ground, her eyes narrowed as she leaned in a creaking doorway, glowered down at by a bristling-winged Fallout. Square-jawed and wrinkle-free, Fallout had become a handsome-featured specimen who looked little older than his eldest son. An effect of his aura. The bastard had broken oath and taken the capitol down with it.

"He's my son," Fallout had said, tossing back hair that glimmered like black silk under the golden glow of seven softly clinking chandeliers. "Now that Owl's dead, I'm entitled to him. I doubt you disagree." The last line was spoken below his breath, a growl in his resonant, booming voice. 

June glanced at her feet, a moment of visible weakness on her part. But what else could she do? Show him the tears forming in her eyes? She let her fists clench around the hem of her shirt, let him see the evidence of her rage.

Then, she looked back up and gushed. "Give me the antidote and I'll give him to you in a month." Gushed. She had to gush, the words had to burble together, because her eyes were squeezed shut and her knees trembled. But she wouldn't cry in front of the villain. So, she bit back the crooked sound rising from her throat. She was giving away her firstborn child— she created Angel, she should have some claim over the boy she raised—to this man, to this creature.

Fallout slouched forward, eyes narrowing into angry little points. His whole face, turned ugly and squished together with a scowl. "A. Month." He said the words just like that, hissed through a jaw clenched so fiercely it was a superpowered miracle he didn't chip a tooth. "He should be here now. Weeks ago, in fact."

June rubbed the red rings around her eyes. "There's a school play."

"And?" When the villain leaned forward, Juniper did as well. He smelled of cinnamon crumbs and the sickeningly sweet odor of cigar smoke.

"You'll tear his life apart." Even to Juniper's ears, the words slid off her tongue surprisingly smoothly. "It's Romeo and Juliet. Give Angelos that."

Fallout glanced over her head at some point in the distance, perhaps the silky beams of sunlight pouring through the windows. His eyes widened to their natural width, dulled to a softer color. A second ellipsed into a minute of silent. And then the villain sighed. "I just want my son."

So do I, June wanted to say, her heart clenched, but she nodded, smartly keeping silent as Fallout turned on his heels. Feathers fluffed through the slits in his jacket. "Fine," he said. "The antidote is yours, but in a month, you'll return the boy to me or I assure you Gatsby and Cleo's girl, Catalyst, will die. Do not make me prove the soundness of my word."

Juniper nodded though he couldn't see her. Nodded because her mouth was sandpaper and her tongue was heavy. She didn't want to be a part of this, tired of playing a pawn, first of Curtis, now of Fallout. Tired of making sacrifices. Tired of hurting her own children.

And still, she nodded. Nodded until the base of her neck ached and her brains throbbed behind her eyelids.

Because what other choice did she have?

***

Heaven.

I collapse on the couch, running my hands through my tangled hair which hasn't been brushed in days. It isn't fair, I decide, that Gatsby confides in Angel instead of me. I turn over into the cozy cushions, groaning into the Fibbs' pillows. This is no time for a moping session. I have to learn who took that armor, spend some much-needed quality time with my cats, take Kepler to the park, and then, hey, pick up the pieces of my broken superhero career and fit it back together. Furthermore, I have to save Katris. Who knows what those leader-less Synners might do to him?

"Heaven!" squeals an all too familiar voice. My head whips up. Jaylin stumbles into the living room, rubbing her eyes. She moves like a drunkard, legs wobbling in front of her before she sets finds her balance, her mouth twisted into a snarling laugh. I'm up on my feet in seconds.

"What the hel—"

"I got us an antidote." Juniper trails through the doorway as Jaylin's arms cage my waist and the villains twirls me through the air like her bride to be.

"Ohmygosh Hev, I'm so excited!"

"Are you actually okay?" I squirm out of her suffocating grip and plop to the floor on both feet. Her eyes are cloudy, and a slow grin crosses her face. She places both hands on my shoulders and jerks me so close to her I can smell coffee on her skin and a faint trace of Angel's lady shampoo.

"We're going to the mall!"

I blink helplessly up at Juniper. She runs a trembling hand over her short hair, which has started to grow back in wispy brown tendrils. She's troubled. I can see the shadows in her eyes, the paleness of her features. After all she's gone through, I want to hug her. Even if she mangled Gatsby into a cat-creature and Angelos into a half-sane winged supermodel. "Storm's grabbing brunch with Shiro and...introducing him to the situation. We're pressed for space, so I called Toby and asked if Jaylin could stay next door with you and your brother."

Jaylin squeezes me so tightly when she bats her eyes her lashes brush my skin. "What." My heart plunges into my stomach and my knees wobble together. Live with her?

"Just you and me, Hev-girly." Her arm slides up my hoodie and curls around the back of my neck, pulling our foreheads together so they touch. Her skin is warm and feverish. "We're going to be best friends."

"Um." The word leaves me a squeak.

Juniper tries on a twitching smile. She's slumped with her chin propped on her hands, squinting at the paisly print wallpaper. "I'm going to drop you girls off at the mall for a few hours. You and Jaylin both need to decompress a little." She lifts her head, her eyes full of glitters. Her baggy and paint-splattered jeans cling low on her hips as she shifts from foot to foot. "That alright?"

"That's great!" Jaylin slaps me hard on the shoulder and I've just squirmed out of her hold a second time when she has me by a clammy hand and is dragging me out the door. The sound that leaves my dry throat is a rasp, and I dart my tongue to wet my cracked lips.

"But what about Katris?" I ask, glancing over my shoulder at the open door, trying not to think of Angel, of Gats. My brain is fuzz. Days like these, I wish I could stop thinking at all.

Jaylin chuckles. It's a curiously husky sound, like bristles on coarse wood. "With his power? In an almost all-female crime syndicate? He'll be fine."

"Blindfolds exist, y'know?"

She shakes her head at me. Rolls her eyes. They glint, as glassy as marbles. "Why do you care about the guy who kidnapped Angelos and beat him to a pulp? Actually, didn't he kick you around a little bit?" She spits on the linoleum outside the door. "He deserves what he's getting."

"Cause I'm a hero." I glance back at Angel's cracked open door so she won't catch an eyeful of my blush. Because he has me wound so tightly around his finger, that the thought of him getting hurt cuts me. Turns my conscious thought to whimpering mash. Jaylin just rolls up my sleeve and runs her fingers over the place where there were once scars. Swollen cuts from Owl shattering my armor into my skin, gashes from bone broken and turned up the wrong way, Katris's fingertips, pressing divets into my wrists. I shake my head with my teeth ground so deeply into my cheek it's the sting of torn flesh and the copper-tinge taste of blood that snaps me out of my thoughts.

The ex-henchmen sighs, and it's a surprisingly gentle sound for her as she yanks me down the hall with enough force to wrench my arm out of its socket. "You superheroes." She shakes her head, flashing me a glance with those big brown eyes of her that's warm and unguarded, like she could throw me into another big bearhug. It's that look which has my hackles rising. Jaylin cannot pity me. If she does, or if she's still trying to manipulate me by faking, then I'm buried deeper in a life of raw sewage than I thought. "Tell 'ya what, Gal-girly, tommorow's your birthday, right?"

"Who told you that?"

"I'm a professional stalker, girly!" She leans into me, her breath a mix of spicy peppermint and sour coffee. "Also, June."

I nod with the bridge of my nose pinched between my forefinger and thumb. And I used to think AP Biology gave me headaches.

"So you and me, we do a little shopping, like a girl's night. Makeup counter. Nails done. Pedi-mani stuff."

I flinch before I can control myself. She bursts out laughing, a chaotic sound, like the wrong cords of a guitar being played one after the other. We crowd down the stairs—Lord knows we're not taking the second elevator—behind Juniper, who moves with slow, measured steps, red-taloned nails drumming the metal banister. Her head is hung.

"Jay, I have actually been stabbed, and that sounds way less scary than sitting still and having someone paint my nails."

A sound breaks from the back of Juniper's throat at the word 'stabbed', half hiccup and half squeak. She's hunched over, like guilt is a weight pressed on her shoulders. So, I swallow what's left of my pride. Not much of anything, unsurprisingly. "I mean, if I have to—"

"Hevvv," Jay says. I've never heard anyone draw out the 'v' in my name before, and it sounds like the rev of an engine. "You do this for me, rest up for a few days, and I'll help you free Katris. Sort of a birthday present. I have some choice words for him, anywho."

We're strolling step in step, her arm wrapped around my shoulder, her lips so close to my ear I shudder. I drop my voice to a grunt, speaking into my sleeve so softly a non-super would only hear the whistle of air on nylon. "You're trying to stall me."

"You're too tense," she says. "Can't plan a rescue until you're at your best, and besides, I'm actually getting sick of borrowing your terrible clothes."

I smile weakly against searing sunlight. "Fair point."

It makes my stomach sludge. Angelos and Jay have just escaped a murder attempt, Katris has been captured by a brutal organization which is being torn apart by women seeking to fill Owl's newly created power-vacuum, Gatsby hates me, and here I am, agreeing to a shopping day. But I do need a break, I decide, if only to clear my head. I let my hand slip into hers, let her wobbly leg prop up against my strong one. 

I might have more to learn from the villain than I first thought.