Heaven.

Poison is gone. He kicks free and writhes out of my grip, his hand slimy with stress-sweat. Good on him, leaving me alone, for once. But it doesn't matter, because my eyes are focused on the flame. Crackling, outlining the villain's face in a glowing silhouette. He looks different now, the wrinkles smoothed flat and tight, eyes like hot coals in his pale face.

Angelos struggles to his feet, Gats supporting him by an elbow. There's a wolf at his feet. In my state of mind, I don't find it all that surprising. Wolves have yellow eyes. Toby told me this. Never blue, never brown. That's how you can tell them apart from, say, I really big dog. That and their teeth.

Jaylin looks on at the flames, her eyes big. Face upturned, hair tucked neatly behind her ears. The darkness slithers across the floor, moving in ripples. Natalie tucks herself in the corner, Owl sitting on the metal table, legs kicking. The toe of her boots, shiny and red, dipped into the darkness, trying it out.

"Dad!" Poison says, again, wings flexed out. I move to the opposite side, drudging through the humming dark. It smells like sulfur and sinks into my sneakers, squishy between my toes. The wolf, fluffy and gray and huggable like a stuffed bear despite its fangs, shrinks behind Angel's legs.

"She's shy," Angel says, dipping his head to apologize for it. "Kepler, Heaven. Heaven, Kepler."

"Kepler?"

"As in Johannes Kepler. You know, laws of planetary motion?" He lifts his head, black eye angled away from me. Smile, tentative. There's a bruise on his face, yellow and smeared purple at the center. Already fading, a sign of a good healing factor.

I shake my head. Can't help a little grin. "Nerd." Some things don't change.

His attention shifts away from me, eyes on Fallout. Gats does the same, stealing glances at me from his feet every minute or so. He won't look too long, like he's risking a glimpse of the sun. They look at Poison, heads bouncing as they trace out the feathers in their minds. At least, I know that's what I'm doing, watching his shimmering wings, arched as if to give him and his father privacy. Not that he can have any. We're all supers here, and that means we have super-hearing, too.

"Dad," he hisses again, his voice lowered this time. It's as if that's the only word he can think of saying. He steps to the side and I can make out his hand, clamped around his father's wrist. The flame-ball morphs into a flickering tear-drop, a length of flame stretched above the rest of the fire. Fallout's aura jumps. Jolts up from the floor, the flood of ink clawing up into the air in tendrils, curling at the tips. Jaylin is on her knees, knelt as if praying. Piety. Sometimes I forget about that, the respect villains show other villains. She hasn't said a word, and she looks awfully pale, her head down, eyes to the floor.

"Get out of the way." Fallout's voice changes, too. Higher. Sneerier. Younger. Like son, like father. Not that actual phrase, but close enough for me. Angelos holds his breath. Stares at his hands. I can remember him trying to kill me. Memories like that don't fade easily, even if you wish they did. The black aura, coiling up on the floor and lashing out at the tile like cattails. I crouch low on my knees, hands curling into a guard once more.  Prepare to fight fire with blows, though if he attacks Owl, I'm staying out of it. I don't condone killing, but I'm not saving Owl if it comes down to it. Maybe it's a personal thing. Maybe I know she's gonna hurt my city, the one I've done a lousy job of protecting.

"Don't do it." Poison's injured hand rests on the blade of his wing, elbow crooked over his head. My eyes glide from the tips of his fluffed feathers to his skinny jeans, down to his knees. They're trembling. Knocking together. "Stab her." His voice is a shaky whisper. "But don't use the aura. It isn't worth it." Smoke fills my lungs. Chokes the air out. Angelos catches my eye and teeters to the door. He jerks his chin to the smeared glass, gray with dust. I can almost read his thoughts, I've known him so long, but I guess anyone with a sane head would be thinking the same. Screw this. He shakes his head. I'm going home.

Me too.

I reach out and snag the cuff of Gats' sleeves. He looks at me, ears flopped against his head. I lean into his ear. "We're getting the hell out of here," I tell him in the low, silky voice usually reserved to sweet nothings. To me, those words feel just as sensuous. That's how you know you're screwed, I guess. When escaping people who want to beat the crap out of you feels sexy.

"We can't," he says. His voice is empty and mechanical. He jerks his head away, wheels around to look me in the eye. His eyes are Poison's eyes, too bright, too piercing, like they're looking through you, and I remember when they were a warm, smoky gray. "They're just going to follow us. We can't just run away from our problems."

I want to smack him and maybe punch him for confusing 'escaping dangerous supervillains' as 'running away from problems.' "What's wrong with you?"

He punches his hands on his hips, glowers down at me. Then he looks sideways, avoiding my eyes again. His fingers fidget and pull at the hem of his shirt. They look so wrong on him, the nervous gestures, I mean, and it makes my pulse beat faster, the heat behind my cheeks grow hotter. There's something he's not telling me, and I should feel sorry for him. I don't know what Owl did to him. I should cuddle him, give him my shoulder to sob into, like Angelos did for him before. But I can't or I won't. My arms cross my chest and won't budge.I'm so sorry," he whispers to the floor.

That snaps me through the marrow. "Stop saying that!" My voice quakes and cracks. Tears sting my eyes and I reach for his arm. If I don't touch him I think I'm going to explode. "We're going home!"

Owl's eyes shift toward us. I only notice because of the way Gats tenses like he's bracing to be hit. He looks out through one slitted eye, the cat ears pinned flat against his smoothed hair.

But I don't get a chance to respond. Angel's chains rattle as he rouses Jaylin, a gentle nudge in her shoulder with his bound hands. Poison cries out. The smell of charred flesh hits my nose before I turn.

The fire is contained. There isn't much for the flames to catch here, all this metal and tile mixed with the occasional porcelain pot. But it catches Poison's wing. His father's holding him by the wing-blade as the feathers burn black and shrivel, swirling up in the wisps of smoke. Poison squirms and falls limp. Not out of fear or pain, I think. It doesn't seem like him. It's something more like Jaylin's doing. Something out of piety or obedience or respect.

His face is twisted, his eyes squeezed shut. "Hey!" I fling myself off my feet, zero to sixty in two seconds flat. Fallout is indifferent. His pupils have expanded, leaving only a ring of white around them. Owl leans forward, smirking to herself. 

"Disobedient," Fallout curses. I barrel into him, knock him back. He stumbles into the metal shelves, peering down at me. He frowns, then his lips quirk up. He laughs, a drunken giggle. Like Angel.

"Leave him alone." I force my voice smooth as I reach for his fingers. Poison slits an eye open, shakes his head. Suddenly, mute. The melting blackened flesh, the feathers dripping from his crumpled limbs, it makes me think of Icarus. The Greek guy with wax wings who flew too close to sun, melted his wings, and plunged to his death. Fallout shoves me back and drops Poison, who collapses to the floor at his father's feet. His white wing tucked against his back, feathers glistening in the sloping fluorescent light. The fire's gone out on his other wing, the membrane of the limb still smoking. The stench makes my stomach roil.

But I can't focus on it for long. The pain starts in shards. In my spine, burning through my skin. I yelp and hit the floor, roll on my back to smother the fire. Fallout whistles through his teeth. "Children." The flames spring from the layer of the black on the floor, curling into circles around me. The smoke wreaths over my head, choking me as Fallout's shadow slinks over the darkness, black on gray. My lungs shudder. I know he has some sort of kinetic power. Not telekinetic, the other one. Starts with 'P.'

Pyrokinetic.

Shit.

Angel stumbles. The chains clatter against the floor. Clank. Clank. Jaylin swears under her breath as if she forgot Owl and Fallout and the rest of us can hear, because we're, you know, freaking supers. I hold my sleeve to my face. I don't know much about any of the kinetic powers, or even auras. I know everyone has an aura, and sometimes, they can be pulled out, forged into weapons or poured into pills to give non-supers powers. You can channel it then, in the weapons. Make the flames crackle, every color in the rainbow. Roy G. Biv. I know too that they aren't supposed to be things you can channel when they're inside you. Fallout and Angelos are experiments, human weapons in their own rights. Like father like son.

I gag on the smoke, the wall of flames orange and tall. I crouch again, aware of the ceiling, and how smoke travels up. I could shoot over the fire. Fly it. But the smoke...

The fire looks wavy to me, like steam rising off gravel under a summer sun. I wheeze. "Fallout, jeez, you're going to burn the place done."

But he won't unless he wants to. He controls the fire. I'm screwed. It's either choke or face the flames. Really, how do I get myself into these situations?

"Heaven!" Angelos shouts. His voice quivers. "Dad," he says, and it's serious, not the mocking tone he used earlier. I wish I had my a hoodie, something to wrap around my face.

"Owl." Fallout's tone is steely. "I will burn you alive."

I cough, wheeze in a shallow breath that fills my lungs with heat. I sink low and rocket into the air, my breath holed up in my chest. The smoke curls and flickers, think as ink. It makes me gag, my mind feels spotty, like it's melting in my head. Smoke clouds stretch, shrink and tear at their middles. My legs tremble from heat stroke. I hit the ground outside the inferno. I pant and gasp, my hands cupped over my mouth to keep from throwing up. The smell of smoke. The smell of burned flesh. It's too much.

"It's no use," Gats says to Fallout. Black spots grow in front of my eyes, my face shoved into the smooth, cool floor. Bile surges up my throat. I'm going to throw up. I hate fire. I've gone up into burning buildings before, but though I have pretty hearty lungs, strong enough to keep me breathing in high altitudes, anyway, they don't spare me from the inevitable vomit-fests that always follow saving the innocent kids and grannies. More than once I've had to scrub my lunch off my jaw guard. A small price for survival, but the thought leaves a bitter taste in my mouth (harr harr). "She can grow back limbs. Burning her won't do anything."

His arms cup my waist. He pulls me off the floor while my hands flail and my feet backpedal for solid footing. I snort smoke out of my lungs, my stomach too empty to warrant all the throwing up I feel like doing. Poison's stretched out on the floor, his burned wing twitching while he moans through gritted teeth. Poor boy. The withered feathers are still smoking and they smell something awful. 

"You don't know that," I slur. "Maybe she's like, like the opposite of the wicked witch of the west." Stupid, stupid. But I'm trying, okay? Can't blame a girl for wishing the personification of evil to die, even if it's all pretty improbable. "Melts in flames instead of water." Natalie's flat against the corner, all shadow, reminds me of a chalk outline the way her arms are crooked against the wall. Angelos' Kepler is at her shins, protecting her, tail bushed and fur spiked like stingers. Jaylin's still knelt, but her head's snapped up. Her hands are curled into fists, punched into the floor as she shifts. All that kneeling must be bad on the knees.

Gats pulls me back as the fire eats through the shop. Gooey black tendrils catch Owl's boots and smother her shiny armor. Flickers of flame spark up on her skin. She glances down, impassive as if noticing a splinter for the first time. Fallout glares, eyes narrowed, fingers pressed to his forehead as if nursing a migraine. Owl spits and the flames go out. Her armor isn't even stained.

Gats shudders against me, tensed and shaky. "Hev..."

"If you say 'sorry' one more time, baby, I'm going to slap you."

Owl glances over to me, the flames crawling up her suit. She smiles. Gats skims his fingers down my arm as the smoke thickens, takes my hand. I squeeze it back. We're going home. My breath stabilizes in my chest and I step toward Poison. "Have to give him aid," I say, but Gats doesn't budge. He digs his feet into the floor and something snaps around the wrist of my free arm. I freeze. I hear the familiar ratchet of cuffs, but my mind won't click together. "Gats, what are you doing?" My voice trembles. He can't be doing what I think he is. Gats is my best friend, my boyfriend. He said he'd die for me. I threw myself into a sword for him.

"It's for our own good," he says, picking out the syllables carefully. I whip around a second too late. The cuff snaps closed around my other wrist. I jerk against them, the metal biting my skin. He's looking dead at me, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and his face dripping with sweat. "I don't have a choice!"

I don't know what to say. I'm not programmed to handle this. It just doesn't compute. "Gatsby? What the hell is going on?"

He grabs my shoulders and stoops to my height. His ears lie flat, his hair mussed and tossed back over his neck. My hands shake behind my back. Owl laughs drily. Jerk.

"Hey!" Angel shouts. "Knock it off, all of you." He stumbles over to Poison, bouncing off the toes of his socks as his chains knock together and clank. Poison doesn't even look up as Angelos takes him by his burnt wing. He just hangs his head, shivering and sweating and crying. "Jaylin, get up and punch someone. Dad, stop it. I hate you, Mom. And Gats?" He sighs as he struggles to balance Poison, the chain around his neck pulled taught. I move to help him, Gats dragging on my arm. My wrists dangle limply behind me, and though I tug, the cuffs are forged of some pretty strong stuff. "Buddy, what are you doing?"

Fallout leans back against the shelves. His flames are weakening, and Owl pads up behind us. Her boots make 'swish' sounds as they sink into Fallouts goo. Fire reaches her face and she smothers it with a swat of her hand. Her eyepatch roasts, but as soon as she touches it, it's shiny and whole again. Illusion powers.

I shake my head and jerk out of Gats' grip. "Lean him on me," I tell Angelos, and he drops Poison over my shoulder. The supervillain groans in my ear, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch tears rolling down his face. Streaks of them falling from his fluttering lashes. He mutters, eyes rolling back in his head, something about being grounded, not being able to fly, and oh, God, my wing, please, not my wing. The crispy feathers slump over my opposite shoulder, cocooning me in his burnt flesh. Between his cries and the smell and Gats handcuffing me, I'm going batty.

"Owl wants you and Heaven," Gats says while I walk Poison toward the door. "There's nothing we can do about it. Let's just play along, huh? Try not to get killed."

"Have you lost your mind!" I shout. I hate it when he talks like that. Hate that he thinks he knows best, enough to try making me follow suit by handcuffing me. You know what? Screw him. Screw him, screw him, screw him. I don't care if he sacrificed himself to save me from Owl Round One. What's the point of he gives up before Round Two? Friends and boyfriends don't betray their friends. The hatred that swells up inside me frightens me, survival mechanisms already trying to shut down the parts of me that cared about him, loved him. Then I remember Owl must've brainwashed him and I feel a stab of guilt. A flutter of panic, because I don't know what to do or who I'm talking to. I want my Gats back. "You're going to get us killed, baby." My voice is a strained whine because I'm trying to sound gentle and understanding when I want to strangle him.

Owl whistles. "My, my. Look at the time." She sings the words, voice high and sugar-sweet. Fallout pants and clutches his head, face screwed up in pain. "A pity you can't hurt me as much as you could your son."

He snaps his head up. His pupils shrink down to natural size, the aura sloshing back into his body. Poison groans and Fallout looks at the cooked wing, his mouth gaping and his eyes shiny, wide. He stumbles over his words. "Poison—K-Katris, I didn't mean to, I—"

"See?" Owl smiles wryly as Fallout stumbles over to me and Poison, running his hands through the blacked feathers as if to check for breaks in the wings. Poison falls limp over me in a whimpering puddle. I pity him. I really do. "Why would I give up my child to someone like you?" Show lowers her eyes to mine. "Gatsby—Felix, I should say, isn't that right, Felix?"

Gats nods glumly. "If that's what you want to call me."

My mouth drops open, but she continues, oblivious, smiling when she speaks. "Felix belongs to me, now. You should've convinced my henchmen to take you when I told them to, but in the long run, I think he'll make a fine replacement. Isn't that right, Felix?"

His cat ears droop. With one more miserable look tossed in my direction, he lowers his head and nods like a bobblehead. Owl smirks. "Had to beat it out of him a little, but otherwise he's an obedient boy and his parents—"

"Shut up!" Angelos and I shriek. Gats peeks up, his mouth screwed into a grimace. He shakes his head at us, but I'm seething and so is Angelos telling from his gasping and clenched fists.

Fallout's fussing over Poison, asking him about the pain, apologizing as Poison swallows back sobs. Supporting him, I can't follow Owl as she paces around Angelos. She smacks him with the strength of a supervillain and he stumbles. I watch helplessly as he topples over. He hits the ground floundering on his back and I suck in a breath.

"Don't speak to your mother that way," she says.

"Fallout," I growl through my teeth, "get Poison off me, please, so I can help my friend out."

He shoots me a look. "Wait.t

"Felix, come here," Owl calls, and Gats trots after her like an obedient little pony. He won't even look in my direction. Just stops at her side, slouching with his hands stuffed into his pockets.

"You witch!" Angel cries. She laughs at his pathetic protest and pulls him up by the chain on his neck. He gasps and chokes, kicks and pulls. I shrug to get Poison off me, but Fallout snatches my elbow. Jaylin just stays in her perch, head bowed in damned respect. I want to kick her in the face. Owl tips her head to me as she drags Angel with her, grinning like she's giving me payback. Payback for what, I don't know. And it makes me want to scream. Angel pseudo-swears the entire time, even when she waves something black and shiny from her pouch that makes him flinch. Gats follows her, shaky like he's trying and failing to keep his balance on a tightrope.

"I will speak to you later, Ms. Brooks, when your city's burning. But I have to set a few things on fire first." She winks. I flip her off before I remember my hands are bound between my back. I slam my foot on Fallout's, kicking and cussing him, Owl, and Jaylin—who still won't move, even when Natalie gives chase—out.

And by the time he lets go, she's gone. 

***

Cripes! It's twenty past nine on a Sunday night, this chapter is double the length it should be, and I'm awful sorry. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!