Angelos.

My head spins as I slip my phone back into my pocket. Gats? Again?  I try to focus, but the encounter with the woman replays in my head.  So many questions. I press my fingers into my temples and try to think.

Starlight's in trouble. Syndicate will only leave destruction in its path, but I can't quite focus on that either. The idea that someone could mistake me for Poison—a criminal who couldn't look any more different from me—haunts my every thought. I know it's selfish to reflect on that when the world around me stands on the brink of catastrophe, but I can't help it.  Are winged-supers really that rare that the only one the woman could think of was Poison?

I draw in a long breath. Too much. Too fast. I angle my head to the sky and turn to find where I came from. Maybe Gats slipped. Once, when he was doing the dishes, he fell and cracked his femur. Surely, that's it. He did something stupid and he sprained something.

Of course not, moron, Dark Side chimes in. Bah. Hate that guy. I crouch and spring into the sky, wings spread as I navigate Starlight's spiral of skyscrapers. When I find our balcony,  I snap my wings shut and tumble over the rail, landing hard in an ungraceful heap. I "oof" and wipe the dust off my pants. I don't want to go in. I want to pretend everything's fine for at least one second, but I pound the door and Juniper swings it open, almost knocking me off my feet.

She swipes her hand over her short hair, her eyes red and puffy. I frown. She's holding a shot glass.  "You drink?" I ask, tipping my good eye to her. She's always lecturing me on the dangers of alcohol. Probably because I snuck a cup or two of some of crappy, God awful cheap beer at a Halloween party last year. I loosened up, my relative sense of judgment peaced out, and I spilt a few too many stories about "the good old days" when Gats and I were freshmen. For his sake and mine, I won't touch another drop of the stuff. "And what's up with Gats—"

"Argh!" someone shrieks from the living room. My breath catches. It's Heaven. "He's...they..." Her voice falters and she breaks into a series of yelps. Chills creep up my spine. There's so much pain in her voice my wings stiffen.

"Shish." It's Toby. "You shouldn't have gone out."

"Well—Ah! Sorry, sir. Syndicate...they..." She whimpers, and he offers her Aspirin.

I dig my fingers into the seams of my jeans. "Is she okay?" Juniper shakes her head and motions for me to come in. I turn a little and try not to bump into anything. Our usually empty apartment swells with people, like we're throwing some bizzaro party. Toby, June, Storm, Hev, Jaylin. The frou-frou hanging lights swing from all the movement. Jaylin's flopped in front of the TV, playing with VHS tapes like Heaven isn't screaming out in agony. My heart thuds and I look away. I don't want to think about her and me and all that stuff. Another guy stands over the couch by Toby, the stranger's head bowed and his black shirt neatly pressed with creases. "Who—"

"Security guard. He found Heaven collapsed by the lobby in a..." She winces, the words coming slow and clipped. "...trail of blood."  

I cringe. "Is she going to be okay?" I ask, flexing my wings. A trail of blood, huh? Storm told me something happened to Gats, not Heaven. I guess Hev's  condition doesn't matter to Storm since she'll recover, but I feel sick. Her healing factor sucks—my fault—and she's so frail she should be out of commission for weeks. But that isn't what concerns me. She's in pain, serious pain, and everyone around waves it off like it's no big deal. She should be back in the hospital, but of course, they won't make her. I dig my heels into the carpet.

The guard looks up. I've seen him around, reading or watching Hev, Gats, and I with a look of sheer amusement. I know nothing about him, but he probably knows some about me, given all the conversations he's overheard.

 His green eyes flash, widening the second he sees me.  "Poison," he says. The word slides off his tongue in a breathless, nervous whisper, as if I'm a ghost or a storybook character alive off the page. My heart hammers.

"What? Sir? No! I'm not--" His awestruck state fades and he whips his gun out, pointing it at my chest. I squeak, jumping back and knocking into a chair. Oh. My heart pounds overtime now. Please don't kill me, I silently beg. Poison? Do I really look that much like him? Storm grabs his arm. I'm quaking with pure, unobstructed terror on the inside, but I shove back my fear and keep still on the outside. "How am I Poison?" I manage in a low, somewhat even voice. Have to stay calm. Can't afford to panic. "I look nothing like Poison."

"You have wings." He says it so matter-of-factly it's like he's quoting a dead philosopher Heaven loves so much. Jaylin bursts into laughter, and my forehead dampens with sweat.

"Don't shoot my son," Storm says, his voice quiet and ringing with just as much I-don't-want-to-fight-you as usual. It's almost frustrating, but he's always like this, so I let it slide without much thought.

"Your son doesn't have wings."

"Well, he does now," I say, trying not to shout or whimper or cry. Just talk like all's normal, like 'yep! I'm being held at gunpoint. Who cares?'  I twist my head to show him my patch. "Poison and I are nothing alike. Get a good look. He has white wings and hair. My hair and wings are black. Blue eyes. Black eyes. Criminal. Sort of not a criminal. See the difference, sir?"

"I'm no fool!" he snaps. "Turn around. Hands against the wall, kid."

Screw this. My head hurts anyway. I don't deserve this. I didn't do anything to be treated like a criminal. Okay, well, a few things. But I haven't in a while and I wasn't quite sane then. "June, do I have to?" 

"I know what Poison looks like!" she snaps, ignoring me. "This is my kid." The security guard shoots her a look and cocks his .22. I roll my exposed eye and turn around, hands over my head and pressed into the chirpy blue wallpaper.

"Happy?"

"Ma'am, I'd like you to call the police. Poison is a dangerous criminal, the son of a ruthless villain who took part in the Golden-age Wars--"

"I know who he is! I can have you arrested for threatening my son like this!"

This is crazy. Someone's holding a gun to my back because they think I'm Poison. Are people that scared of him they hate all winged supers? Hundreds of supers fly, but up until now, Fallout and Poison are the only two I've seen with wings.  Maybe their reputation will taint my name forever.

Crap.

The guard sucks in a long breath. "He's an illusionist, ma'am. Only Poison and his father have wings. They're marks of lineage, almost. Perhaps the actual Angelos is in trouble."

"Bloody hell I am," I grumble. I want to know what's wrong with Heaven and Gats! I don't have time for this!

"See! I don't know him well, that I'll tell you, but would Angelos swear?"

Heaven groans.  "That's...him, sir. I--Augh!" The pain in her voice makes me flinch.

"Look." I swallow hard. "I'm Fallout's other son, the younger one, I think. I have wings, but they're black and purple and veiny, see?" I spread them agonizingly slow and pray he doesn't fill me with holes.

 He doesn't, but his rage-filled squeaky tone tells me he wants to. I wonder what Poison did for people to hate him so much. "Alright, Angelos. How long have you had your wings? Those look awfully hard to hide. Surely you couldn't have just sprouted them one day, feather and bone and muscle and all."

"Um..." I dig my fingers into the wallpaper. I'll admit, it was pretty weird how they just sprung up like that. "...well, yeah. They just sort of exploded out of my back. Um, Juniper?"  I hope she has some sort of explanation.

"Sparked by some sort of trauma, no doubt. Some supers can grow mutilated limbs back in minutes, they just heal so much faster than regular people. A wing could take anywhere from a few years to a few seconds to grow, and I'm banking on 'seconds' with Angel here." Huh. She continues. "When he has this...aura...up, it causes drastic changes to his body, channeling the energy of the universe around him, unleashing powers that he normally can't access. You know, telekinesis, uh, any sort of mood-bending or energy draining, healing..." She's rambling now, muttering under her breath. My jaw drops, my mind whirring. It's so much information to take in at once and I'm ticked she didn't tell me this earlier. She's an encyclopedia of this stuff. Why won't she just give me answers out right? "Though he wouldn't need his aura up to get the wings or anything, it would just make the process faster, materializing matter like bone and muscle out of energy around him. In truth, the growth of wings usually comes from some sort of trauma. Uh...Fallout gained his from torture."

My head pounds harder. Torture? I suddenly want to know more about Fallout. People fear him and, man, he was tortured? Why? Who is he and what has he done?"

"Uh-huh. So Angel here was tortured?"

"N-no," I say, snapping back into this insane reality. "I thought Gats was dead, see. And I went a little crazy...Storm?" Maybe he knows something else I don't.

"Emotional trauma," Storm says, barely above a whisper. As always.

"So you're a crime lord's son," the security guard says flatly.

My throat's stuffed up and I nod though it feels wrong. "Where did you hear about the wing thing being in...my...family?" I ask. Family. The word doesn't fit.

"The Handbook."

"What!" My heart leaps. "There's a handbook on this stuff?"

"Of course." He sounds confused. "Lore is passed down for generations. Everyone in Starlight knows about Snare and what the wings mean."

"Yeah?" I risk a glance at him. He lowers his gun a trifle and I  give myself a breather. "Could you tell me about it? Like all these powers have been phasing in and I don't quite understand them, you know? I--"

"Can...we shut up about A-Angel and talk about Gats, please!" Heaven shouts, her voice raspy and hoarse. My heart hammers.

"What about Gats?" I whip around, momentarily forgetting the man with the loaded gun at my back. A quick pull of the trigger is all he needs. BAM! The sound explodes around me. I'm stunned frozen. Couldn't move if I tried. Storm grabs the guard and yanks him back. The smoky tang of an empty casing traces back to me, and every muscle in my body tightens. I shriek. "Hey, hey, hey! Don't do that!" My ears ring, deafening me to the room's buzz. I gasp and curl against the wall.

Beside me, I see a little hole where the bullet buried itself in the blue wallpaper. My breathing comes heavy, my wings shot out like a shield and my feathers all fluffed up. A silent squeak rips from my throat. I'm okay. I draw in a long breath and try to stop shaking. I'm okay. No damage. Just a painful ringing in my ears. I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay.

"You idiot! I'd kill to call the police!" Juniper shouts, so muffled from the ringing I can barely make it out. A few of my feathers hang loose and I grip them with shaky hands. Okay. I'm okay.

"Well, he moved too fast! I didn't know! He was lucky it was just a warning shot, I could've blown his head off if I wanted!"

I try not to reflect on that imagery. My hearing phases in and out, and I lean against the wall in dumb, terrified stupor.

I shiver. Tonight's been one long night, and it's only going to get worse.