Angel.

Watching Gats eat is terrifying.

And I guess that's an odd thing to think when I should worry about lots of other things. Say, being stuck in the back of another stranger's car with the windows tinted black, my hands bound in front of me, and my wings trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey's. But no. Too tiresome.

The car jolts, and I decide I miss Gats' BMW. Sure, It wasted a lot of gas and left a terrible carbon footprint, but it was comfy, and I used to fall asleep with my head pressed against the window, eyes slit open to watch the lights of the city whoosh by.

But I'm too wired to sleep here despite exhaustion, my eyes stapled open, my wings smashed flat against my back. And anyway, Owl's riding shotgun, so no one's sleeping anytime soon with that nightmare fuel around. She's turned to me, her chin propped on her hand.

Her smile is cruel and empty, and I refuse to look at her. The window, too, is a no-go, blacked out to make me blinder than I already am. So, I watch Gats and the donuts, listen to his chewing and tearing at the stale pastries, bits of them impaled on his claws and buried under his fingernails. 

It all sucks. I shut my eyes, take a long, slow sip of caramel latte and try to dream myself away. I could be a teen pop star right now, or a handsome celebrity chef, or a chemist on my way to collect my Nobel Peace Prize, chauffeured by a mysterious man in black who might be my biological father—not Fallout, he's just a poser, trying to cash in on my coolness—but some other cool guy, a guardian angel like, and the woman in the passenger seat just a pesky agent along for a sweet, sweet ride on my glory train. I grin and try to capture the thought perfectly, the burning sweetness scalding my tongue, the happy pretending like a soap bubble I'm scared of popping.

 "My little Lucifer," Mom says, jolting my eyes open. Gats hums the My Little Pony theme song a cool kid like him isn't supposed to know. I glance over at the sight of Gats' stuffed cheeks, and in the shadows of the darkened car, he looks more squirrelly than cat-like.

"You suck at naming more than Jupes and Storm," I say, fishing my hands for the last Boston Creme in the box. She bought us eight boxes and an XL latte each, caramel for me, hazelnut for him. You might think that sounds excessive, but Gats and I devoured the first five boxes in about three minutes. Tearing and shoving chunks down our throats unchewed just to get something into our stomachs. And the thing is, the more I ate, the hungrier I became, like all that suppressed appetite come bounding to the surface. I mean, something's gotta feed that aura, and it ain't capture and sibling abuse.

But it's Gats who scares me more than my own hunger. Precious Gats, who lays a lace handkerchief on his lap when he eats, even for popcorn at the movies. Precious Gats, who cuts his Big Macs into itty bitty pieces every time we brave McDonald's. Precious Gats, who crash-coursed me before Mayor Curtis' fundraiser dinner on the difference between a fish fork and a salad fork and I swear to God, Angelos, if you mix one of those up with the oyster fork I'll punch you in the face. 

Watching that same precious Gats tear whole donuts into shreds and stuff them into his mouth, well, that was some scary stuff. Some part of me wonders if he's going to tear up the upholstery and swallow that whole too. It makes every vessel in my body sing with rage at my mother who changed him. My Gats would never eat like that, would never choose to sob out his internal angst in my arms instead of kissing Heaven like the two high school sweethearts they are. 

"And do you know how hard it is to suck at naming children more than they do?" I ask my mom, my eyes heavy from exhaustion. My limbs feel bound up with lead, and I sink on my side, aware in a sort of blithe way of Gats' eyes holed on me. The cat ears flop on either side of his head. I haven't seen them perked since Owl mentioned 'donuts.' My eyes half lidded, I lean back and look out through my lashes, which has a nice blurring effect. Makes me feel like I'm in a movie. Another latte sip. But at this point, I'm so far from saving even caffeine won't bring me back from the dead. My head slides down the glass. "They made my middle name Monsoon."

"Monsoon?" Gats glances at me and the ears twitch. Just a glimmer shows in his dull eyes, and I try to play it up. I want him to be okay. Even after what he did to me and what he tried to do to Heaven. He gives a mrow of a laugh.

I clutch the latte to my chest, coffee sloshing down the back of my skin. It burns, but the heat only results in adding to my sleepiness. "You weren't supposed to know. Angelos Monsoon Fibbs. Doesn't it sound nice? An all-American, totally not made up name?"

He blinks, a twitch of a frown showing on his face. "I always thought it was Michael. Angelos Michael. Michaelangelo."

I shrug, try on a goofy grin that doesn't seem to fit. "Maybe Juniper wanted to name me that, and hey, who knows, what if I was a Michael, and she changed it because I suck so much at art."

"You don't suck." He says, his fingers spidering toward another donut stuffed in the box's corner. Even he's slowing down. "That drawing of Princess Leia, pretty okay."

"Pretty okay.'" I make air quotes, more coffee flying. Thinking of him leafing through my drawings makes me blush, so I mask it with a pinch more sass than usual. "Wow, Gats. You know, I was struggling with self-esteem issues, but man, you and your compliments have made me more confident in myself. I'm a proud man today, because of you."

He looks at me sidelong and raises an eyebrow. "I've been thinking."

"Oh, quick, someone call the presses."

Gats frowns. "I missed you. Why did I miss you?"

I slap my donut to my chest. It crushes flat, clumps of dough and chocolate frosting crumbling into my lap. "I'm touched." My eye twitches and I rub the blind one, the one he refuses to look at. "More touched than Hev, probably."

He sinks back into the chair and makes a sound like a whimper. It's so soft I wonder if I imagined it. So I continue, one hand clutching the latte, the other squeezing clumps of donut. "It's nice,"I say, crumbs falling from my fingers, "that after you failed stabbing me in the front, you successfully stabbed her in the back." I give him the sweetest smile I can muster and he chokes on his donut. 

Eyes go frantically wide. Chest falling and rising in a frenzy. I watch emptily, the car thumping on and on and on. Another shrug from my part. It isn't my fault he betrays his friends every chance he can. If he's going to do this to us, then he's going to have to live with it, and I don't feel a shred of sympathy for shaming him.

"Poison would've hurt her," he says, trailing his gaze to the blacked-out window. Mom, apparently bored, engages her driver in a hushed chat. Her arm hangs over the back of the chair, and for a split second, I consider snapping it into an 'L' at the elbow. But that couldn't hurt her enough; she's a supervillain. So instead I study the back of Gats' head, the wisps of his white hair tinged with blood brushing the nape of his neck. Otherwise, he's well-groomed and smells clean. Oddly. 

"Poison?" I spit the word with a wheeze of laughter. "Heaven can take of Poison. I can take care of Poison, even. You thought handing her over to Owl would save her from him?" I tap the latte to my temple. "Good thinking Gats. Saving someone from a school bully by handing them over to a psychopathic supervillain terrorist. Smart."

He whips his head to me. His blue eyes flash so brightly they remind me of Poison's before he goes into his hypnosis thing. "You don't know what she put me through!"

"He wanted cookies," Owl says from the passenger seat, her other arm draped over the driver's shoulders. She laughs, and it's a light, lilting thing. "Told me everything about her for them."

"Gatsby!"

He throws up his arms. "What did you expect me to do, Angelos?" His chest heaves, and all at once he looks furious. His eyes smoldering, his ears pinned back against his head, a low, catty growl grating from the back of his throat. "I hate getting dragged into your and Heaven's stupid lives!"

I take a swig of lukewarm latte and press the cup on my knee. "Do you think we chose this, Gats?" I ask in a voice that drips with honey. He crosses his arms over his chest, his head ducked low, his eyes wide and angry, angry, angry. But I press on. "I thought you loved her, anyway. But I guess I was wrong about that, too."

"I gave myself up for Heaven." He snaps his head to the side, narrows his eyes so he looks dead into mine. "I was trying to distract Catalyst, your girlfriend, so she wouldn't take you away. And I was stuck in a villain's lair for a week. I convinced the villains to take me with them so I could make sure you were safe!" He looks back at the window, at a view that isn't there. "It's not like Galaxy saved me when I was trapped. I'm sick of being kidnapped and beaten up so you guys can get away. I hate this!"

"You selfish little—" I cut myself off and grab the door handle to keep my aura from flaring. The heat's crawling back up again. I count up and down from a hundred, start going through a mental vocabulary list. Monosaccharide. A monomer that makes up a carbohydrate. Metabolism. The sum of all chemical reactions that happen inside an organism. Homeostasis. The act of keeping a stable internal environment. I wish I had the liberty of that, of stability. "Heaven and I were panicked. You think she wouldn't have saved you if she knew where to look? I'm sorry they took you instead of us. I'm sorry that you got tangled up in this. But you're one of us. You're acting like we just dragged you into this mess." I whap him across the cat-ears, nearly decapitating myself on my collar in the process. Blood trickles down my throat, warm, the feel wet and foreign. He shrinks back against the door. "You're a super, Gats! Owl and Fallout want you just as much as they want us. We're friends and we're supposed to look out for each other." My voice quakes. "Why can't you just suck it up like the rest of us!"

He flattens against the door, clutching his throat. Face white. Eyes buggy. It sickens me. "And will you quit acting like that around me? You make me nervous. I'm not going to hurt you." My voice comes out sharper than I intended. He turns his head toward the window. Sighs.

"You and Heaven can't win this. These people are hundreds of years old." He whimpers. "They killed Jupiter and Taurus and all the others. What chance do we have? You're smart, Angelos. Do the math."

I shake my head and sink back against the seat.  The superheroes failed. That's why we have to fight. "So, Gats." I swallow a sip of latte. Wait another second. I will not let this go. "How long have you been thinking about switching sides?"

He makes a squeaky sound. Sell out. He meant to all along, no happy misunderstand about it, and Owl's only a catalyst.

"Is he annoying you?" Owl asks, her sugary voice as fake as her sugary smile.

"No." I wave a hand, clinking my chain. "He's fine."

"Yes. Tell him to shut up!"

I glance down at my latte cup, wondering if its contents are still hot enough to scald off Gats' pretty face. No, too cool. He shoots me another angry look, and I realize that's all I see of him. Angry and sad. Shouting and sobbing. These are the fragments left of my Gats, the cool one who cared about Heaven. May he rest in peace.

Mom turns around in her seat and my heart sinks. She snakes her sword over the glove compartment. Dawn rays peek through her tinted window, casting more shadows than light. She turns the sword and it flashes white.

It's long and dignified, the hilt carved with inscriptions. They're unreadable, scrawled one upon the other in crisscrosses of scripts. They remind me of hieroglyphs, and even Gats recoils. 

"Mom." I shoot her a snotty little smirk, my stomach twisting up inside. "Stabbing your son is child abuse."

She shrugs at me and tosses the sword onto Gats' knees. He squirms back, tucking his head against his forearms, his widened eyes glued down at it as if it were covered in cockroaches.

"You want to shut him up," Owl says, tossing her ponytail over her opposite shoulder, "stab him through the stomach. He'll heal, a super as he is, but he won't be able to speak without choking up blood."

I laugh. Gut response, no pun intended. My hands fly up, the tiniest of shudders rippling through me. "Oh, mother. You clearly don't know Gats. He doesn't stab his friends unless it's in the back."

"Will you quit it!" He squeezes the hilt, an unruly tuft of hair blown over his eyes. His face burns pink. "Shut up, Angelos!" From his rigid posture to his screwed up face, everything about him screams rage. On the inside, it rattles me. But I can't let it show. The tip of the sword points at my stomach, then my mouth. It trembles in his hands, and I shrink back in case it flies out of his hands.

"Gats—"

"I swear if you don't shut up I'll—I'll cut out your tongue!" He says it with a gasp. And I can't help but blink a couple times, just to make sure the snarling cat-boy is Gatsby. The guy who calls himself Romeo. The one who fought off my bullies. The kid who's supposedly in love with Heaven. Then I lower my chained hands, stack them one over the other, the latte sitting neatly by my knee. I stare at my lap, blue flames leaping from the sword in my peripherals.

"I guess you really work for Owl now."

He gives me a swift, miserable nod, his eyes red and bleary. "Mrow."  The guy can't even speak right, so choked up,  but I can't look at him. Too disgusted.

Instead, I lean my head against the window, the lure of sleep a battle I'm unwilling to fight, and drift away to Mom's chatter and Gats's quiet, choking sobs.