Heaven.

My head swimming, I blink to clear the darkness behind my bleary eyes. Blood glistens in slashes down Poison's face, red on white like peppermint stripes. My nails drip with blood too, glittering like liquid rubies in the low light. I'm loaded with this stuff. I ought to give vampirism a try. 

Poison blinks down at me, a constricting arm wrapped around my waist. His fingers dig into my hipbone, carving dents into my flesh. 

The room is small and stuffy and dark, lit only by the hazy red glow of an exit sign. I suck in a sharp breath. The light splashes his face pink, snips of white hair loose over his eyes. "Ow, Galaxy. Tell me, is Gatsby the only cat-fuse, or are you one too?"

Screw him. I yank my arm back, my nerves sizzling with the cold-hot heat of rage. I'm seeing in flashes. Poison: the guy who screws up everything. Who won't leave me alone, who took my Angel. Everything, every piece of me rattling inside wants to hurt him. And wheezing with rage as I am, I don't even try to hold it back. I ball my fingers, twist in his grip, and punch him in the eye. My knuckles sink into the skin, hitting the bone. He laughs and yelps in the same breath, a sound that makes my heart slam against my ribs so fast I think it'll beat itself misshapen. "Huh," he says. "Maybe not." The grip won't break. He squeezes me breathless, still laughing from deep in his throat like I'm a funny story to him. The sound makes me want to scream.

"Poison." I hold my body rigid. My voice is low, spooled together by the tightness in my throat. "Get your hands off me while I'm asking nicely."

"You should thank me." His face is smooth and blank like it's carved out of moonstone, a ghost of a smirk behind his whispery voice. "I just saved you from the supervillains. You can't handle the big guys."

"I didn't ask for your opinion on my XP!" I stamp my foot so hard the floor rocks beneath me. "Let go—s'il vous plaît— or I'll break every damned bone in that puny body of yours—"

"You think I'm puny?" He shakes his head, clicks his tongue. The iron-tinge smell of blood clings to him, too, like an expensive cologne that makes goosebumps break on my skin. "You're real funny, Heaven. Galaxy. Whatever you want me to call you."

"Galaxy." I hook my heel behind his bent knee, and with one kick I can feel the twiggy tendons snap. Hear them crack under my weight and his breath hitch into a silent scream. I shove him back, clenching his wrist in a trembling fist. My other fist comes crashing down on his collarbone and I wrench free. Wheezing, I hit the wall behind me, my blood hot in my veins. I snap my hands to my sides, grasping at the tears in my pants. Preparing myself mentally for another attack. I'm still groggy. Wish I could have coffee, something to put some blood back into my brain.

Poison staggers and grabs the back of his knee. He looks down at me with eyes flashing like broken police-lights. His jaw clenches, every muscle in his face tight with concentration, anger. The room is dark and the air is heavy, dust like mist as it whips up in the air.

What am I supposed to do in this type situation? Take him on? Scream for help? Hear him out? No one gave me a handbook on this! My head whirls like a carousel spun by storm winds, thoughts dumped here, thoughts dragged there, scattered like damn wooden ponies. Are Angel and Gats okay? What did Owl do to Gats? And Jay, can she be trusted around Angel? Should I run back now and watch her? Or should I stay here and learn what Poison wants? What does Poison want, anyway? I shake my head, and it all fizzles away, like static clearing from the back of my head. Only one question remains: why can't he leave me alone?

He has such a delicate face, the features dainty and sweet. Upturned nose, bottle-cap-round eyes, angled chin and smooth skin. His silver-white hair's tucked behind his ears, and he wears the smell of blood like a perfume. It makes me remember his phone call. Angel's muted cries and the sound of shattering glass turning the line to static. 

My body's on autopilot. I raise my elbow to bash it into his throat, and he chuckles. Lunges at me so I clip him in the shoulder. Raise my knee to my stomach, send the toe of my scuffed white sneaker into his stern. He goes sprawling, and my very breath cuts me through my lungs. Heat courses me, fills my veins with something smoldering. Now, it's my turn to lunge, to beat him breathless, but he never gives me the chance. He scissors his legs around mine and pulls me down. No time to react; I hit the floor with a hard knock like I'm hollow inside.

For an instant, I lie beside him, breathing fast, my hands falling limp at my sides. He rolls on his hip, watching me with those pretty blue eyes. My chest clenches.

 It's an odd feeling, like someone made me a voodoo doll and stuck a pin in its heart. So sudden, so sharp. I stare down at my chest and breathe out, slow and deeply, willing the pain to ease. Willing the flutters in my stomach and the warmth in my skin to disappear. They don't belong to me. I don't like Poison. I hate him, hate him.

But his presence radiates with his power. Chemicals in the air, in my body. He doesn't have to stare for me to feel the effect, and it makes me seethe and shake. It makes me want to drag my nails into the floor and tear the grain away, just to distract myself from the champagne bubbles in my blood and the heat in my face. These feelings aren't mine. They're his. Unwanted and scary, scary because they feel so real, so like when Gats and I kissed on the carpet of the lair, and they're drowning me. I'm still noticing the smoothness and the seductive ring to his voice, the way he twirls the finger of his single black glove. It makes me sick. And still, my heart beats faster, like my mind and body are two separate entities.No matter how I tell myself I don't love him, I can't snap myself out of it, like I'm trapped in a nightmare and pinching just won't do it. Wake up, wake up.

"Oh," he says, rubbing his eyes with his dusty hands. His voice is a low sneer, the edge of his lip raised. "You pack quite a kick." He smiles at me like a killer, and it makes me wheel to my feet. But his legs are still hooked around mine, and after a moment of uncomfortable floundering I raise my fist to his face, but by then, he's already let go. He twists free and bounces to his feet, leaving me just enough room to jump up after him. Gasp. The room is dark, so dark, the red glow of the exit sign like a distant dream and the voices raging in the little store equally as distant. If I scream, Fallout and Owl will think I'm weak. So I force a cheeky smile, like this is all a game, like my eyes aren't darting to the scuffed bookshelf, to the potted fern tucked against the oak chair, to the cobwebs that drape the musty room like silk sheets just to escape his eyes. Such pretty eyes.

"You beat the crap out of Angelos," I say. And it rolls. Maybe I'm saying it just to remind myself, but it comes out smoothly, so I just keep talking. I jerk my head back to his and I glare. "Why?"

"You weren't there." He shrugs. "You don't know. I had to put on a show for the crowd. That way, they'd think I was a real superhero. Like you."

My jaw drops open. I don't know what to say to that, that the villains see me as a monster. A sadist, at least. But don't they know I'm just following the law? And I never would hurt someone like Poison hurt Angel. All those bruises...

"You left a recording on my answering machine." The voice that comes out of my mouth feels all wrong, so empty and breezy when there's real pain in the hollow of my chest, real and sharp and cold.

"Yeah."

"You know what, Poison?" I rake my hands through my hair, close my eyes for a moment and stand my ground. The sound of a moth beating its wings against glass makes a piece of me shudder. It's coming from above me. "I'm sick of this. I want you to leave Angelos and Gats alone. Whatever you want from me, I can't give it to you, so take your fantasies and shove it."

"You really like saying that. Is that your catchphrase or something?" He pitches his voice into a squeaky whine. "Leave my loser boyfriends alooooone! And while you're at it, shove it!"

"One boyfriend." I wave a finger. "One friend." I hold up two. My eyes are open now, narrowed at a pocket sewn up on his leather jacket. He has his phone tucked in there, the case rose gold and scraped silver at the corners. "Let's see, then there's Toby, my thirty-something-year-old brother who has custody of me, and the Fibbs, my godparents." I add three fingers and wave my right hand. "Five people, Poison. Five. Two friends and three parental units. That's all I have in my life to protect."

"Pitiful," says Poison with a shake of his head.

"Yeah, it is, isn't it? I'm sure you have so much going on that my five—six with Natalie, actually—looks so pathetic to you." I clap my hands slow for good measure. He leans forward, his head tilted as if studying me. The rage inside me is hot, smoldering in my stomach. But my heart beats slow against my ribs. I hate the rhythm of it. Hate the way it makes me think of a funeral procession, so even and deep and sad.

"I have family," he says, pronouncing the words with a crisp slowness to them, as if trying to remember the words. He huffs through his mouth, staring up at the ceiling with the misty look of someone seeing something I'm not. 

"This city isn't yours," Owl says through the door, and her words chill me somehow, so disconnected from Poison's teasing. So much more serious. That's what I should focus on, but I only half-listen. Poison's very presence seems to soak up my attention."It's mine now. You're wasting my time. Let me have the boy or I'll lay waste to you and your city."

"Yeah," I say. "Like Angelos—"

"No." He shoots me an angry look. "Uncles. Aunts. Cousins. A mother."

I feel the pins in the voodoo doll again. Little pricks in my heart.  Maybe I'm just jealous. Any family I have left is dead, minus Toby. My parents, bankers or something, killed in a car crash. No aunts or uncles or cousins to speak of. Maybe I have a half-sister or brother floating around, but it's unlikely. Toby told me my mother and father never left each other's side, hooked arm and arm until they died. 

I wish I knew them. 

And while Poison mutters about his family, some of me wishes I had stayed asleep after the car crash. A selfish some of me, but some of me still. So much of me is on the other side. My mother is on the other side. My father is on the other side. 

Maybe I didn't care before, but now the pain eats at me from the inside. Sudden and insistent. And I have to force it down to look at Poison.

"Well, good for you. I'm just gonna scoot back in that shop and kick Owl in the face and uh, punch Fallout. I guess. If that'll help." My fingers massage my right temple out of habit, though my head does hurt now. I turn on my heel toward the door, my free hand clutching at my heart to keep out the pins. The truth? I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I said I'd rescue the boys, but how? The villains are just so much stronger than I am.

His hand stops my shoulder. Squeezes it. "Wait. Heaven. You're gonna get crushed."

"Yeah." I let out a huff, forcing myself to dip him a curtsy and smile sharply. "If you haven't noticed, that's my job."

His fingers brush my chin. My skin goes hot and tingly. "Don't go back. Stay with me." And he says it simply like it's the most natural thing in the universe. "You ally with our guys and we'll take out Owl."

He's playing with my hair, untangling curls glued together with clumps of dry blood. It's his thing I guess, trying to help my out, knowingly or unknowingly putting me through incredible pain all the while. My scalp throbs like it'll come loose any minute.

"Allying with Fallout is one thing," I say. "Staying with you is another." Everything is coming round again. It's like our lives are arranged in circles. Gats getting kidnapped. Angel getting hurt. Me dying. All I want is to break the cycle. The pain in my head sharpens like I drove a spike above my eye. I turn around. "I get that you like me. Really." I bat his hand away and sink on the floor, my arms wrapped around my knees, hugging them to my chest for just a moment. My arms are numb like rubber. I breathe in deep, the smell of dust and damp wood heavy in the air. I have to fight. Everyone's counting on me. Inhale and exhale, dust and wood, wood and dust.

"Look, dove. You think you can take out the army, fine. But you try and take over Starlight, you're just going to make supers even more hated than they already are. The time for villains has passed, at least until all this mandate for power-neutralizing bullspat is rejected. Then go on with your little world domination plot—"

"You sycophant! Sucking up to those damned heroes. That's what Nebula told me. What do you think you are now? A hero? Or even a mortal? You sound like one."

"Nebula was right."

"Nebula is dead."

"I ought to use my power."

"Try it."

Poison paces. The click of his heeled shoes echoes in my ears, crisp as hoofbeats. "You made a deal with me," he says.

I blink one heavy eyelid. "Yeah. Maybe I did. But I still don't know what you get out of it. So I fall in love with you. So I stay with you, your organization, whatever. So what?"

His brow crinkles. He tucks his wings flat against his jacket, long wispy feathers bristling in the stale air. He cocks his head to the side, looking down at me with the queerest expression.

"You're Galaxy." He says it like it explains everything, though it doesn't. Couldn't. And maybe I was a superhero, but Jaylin makes it clear that life is over for me.  I can't be a one-woman-show. The villain sinks on one knee. Takes my hand. His palm feels clammy and hot. Mine is cold. I sigh to myself, tired all at once, like I've finally outstayed my welcome in this superhero business and this supervillain world. "Let me take care of you." He squeezes my palm and I just look at him, at his crumpled collar and the scratches carved into the worn leather lapels. I can't think of something to say to that. 

Sometimes I feel myself slip through Heaven and Galaxy and sometimes I just feel quiet. I don't know where my loyalties lie or what I am and what I'm pretending to be. Smart? Brave? Cool? Is that me the real me or the one made up for tabloids? Now it seems more blurry than ever. "Owl and Jay will never bother you." The trickle of red light highlights the curves of his face, a scabby line drawn down his cheekbone.

I shake my head and rise, my legs tingly and cold in my veins and my muscles. He's still holding my hand and I clench his. "No can do, Poison." The words should feel natural. Inevitable.

But I almost regret them, like some part of me wants to accept. Like some part of me wouldn't mind being taken care of. Resting for a bit, even if it's in his arms.

"Heaven," he says my name in a whine. Like a puppy. His eyes are round as dinner plates. Then he works up an even breath, composes himself by clearing his throat. He clenches my hand back so hard you'd think I introduced myself as his daughter's Prom date. His expression, once soft and doughy, sharppens. His eyes aren't safe anymore and I avoid them, my head over my shoulder toward the shop. "I don't want to force your hand―"

"Maybe you should've thought of that before kidnapping Angelos, huh?" There's something about his tone, smooth and commanding like he has all the power in the situation and I don't, that snaps me out of it. He's just like Jay. I heard them on the phone, Jaylin scoffing at the thought that people "are ends in themselves." They think of people as things. Things that can be bullied and bought, toys. But not me. I'm not gift-wrapping myself to him to end his threats. This is it. With one squeeze I crunch the bones in his hand. I can only describe the sound as something like rattling dice in a Yahtzee cup, that's how detached I am to the situation. To his pain.

"I can kill you," Fallout says it so breathlessly, he almost sounds like his son.

"Yes, you can. I want you to try. I liked that power, even if it got civilians killed."

I drag him by a limp, floppy hand, breathing through my teeth. He won't blindside me again, and I want him to hurt a little. Poison lashes at the back of my neck. I yank him hard and he stumbles, the swipe barely missing my shoulder. "Heaven," he says coolly, "let go."

Wordlessly, I pull him through the darkness, our footsteps creaking the floor. Smoke pours through the door. Blackness like oil slinks through the cracks of the floor, humming as it engulfs our feet, like the purr of an engine. Jaylin gasps. Angel 'huh's.

Poison cries out in horror. "Dad!"

He bolts so fast that I'm the one being dragged. He throws his body weight against the door and it flies open. The hinges creak and snap, brass clanging to the ground.

Fallout turns to us, a black aura dripping long, spindly shadows off him, tendrils stretched in every direction.

And cupped in his hand is a crackling ball of flame.