We herd our small flock into the alley and hope no one says anything to anyone about what happened or what they saw. Mayor Curtis is in a horrible state of shock, but she manages to cuss out Juniper and Storm, who tell us to leave before things get uglier—they'll call a Taxi.

The first expression Gats manages is a glare that he throws at them. Heaven has finally put him down, and as soon as she does, he curls up against the sword, his head tucked against the blade. Blood, still wet, clings to his face.

Kepler was sitting outside, listening to the whole thing go down with her snout tucked between her wolf paws. She finds me, panting. It's a happy reunion between us, as happy as one can get between a panting wolf and a boy who watched his mother die. If I can call Owl that. It's still hazy, like I dreamt it all.

Heaven sets Jaylin down beside me, casting just one suspicious look over her shoulder. It softens when she catches Jay's eye, a tight smile worming its way on her tensed face. But it only lasts a second. She grabs Gats and squeezes him into a bearhug. It's long and silent and would be awkward in any other situation, but the two hug each other so hard it's like they're afraid of being torn away. "I'm so sorry you had to..." she starts, but she never finishes.

Heaven doesn't cry, or at least, when she does it's rare and out of frustration rather than grief. So listening to her cry at all, even if only a little, makes me feel uncomfortable. Like I've walked in on something I shouldn't have.

"We should go," I say to Jaylin, my mouth so close to her ear my cheeks tinge with a hot flush.

"Yeah." She leans against me, one arm wrapped around my shoulders and neck. Her hair brushes my skin, so soft I want to run my fingers through it. The thought makes me blush. We had a long talk about our relationship while I was still in chains. And now, I don't want to say anything about it at all. Everything hurts and all we've said feels distant now. I like her in one way and she likes me in another. The sun is a glowing splat across ther smooth blue sky, and its warmth seeps into my skin. Right now, Jay and Kep are all I can think about without everything getting foggy and dim.

"Can you stand." I don't mean to speak in such a clinical tone, but right now, a new headache rolling in, the image of Owl crumpled dead on the floor seared behind my eyes, that's the only way the words come. A clipped, monotone robot voice.

"Angel, I'm in physical, mental, and emotional pain."

"Well," I say, swiveling my head toward Heaven and Gats. Hev's shoulders quake, her tattered shirt cackling against her skin. That girl goes through clothes faster than Clark Kent. "That makes four of us."

Jay eyes me up and down, scraping dried sweat off her eyelid with her thumbnail. Grit and blood streak the back of her hands in long lines down her fingers, like chalk outlines. Above her temple, a gash of black blood. I'm cleaning it off before I even know it, nails scraping at the lines of gray drawn up around it. She lifts her eyes, the right corner of her lip curling up into a smirk. The other seems too tired even to twitch, so she just stares at me, giving me that haunting half-smile. "Talk somewhere private?" she asks. "Like Death Tower?"

For what I think is the first time, the name doesn't faze me. Looking back on it feels almost like a sort of nostalgia. I let a long sigh. "Well, Jay, I'd have to fly us up there."

"Good on your wings?"

"Trying," I say, noting the ebb and flow of our dialogue. It sounds rhythmic to my tired ears, something I want to keep up for the sake of the melody. "I think it's easier when I'm not running for my life."

"Won't hit the ground like last time?" She bats her eyes at me, her voice reverberating with a sweet, innocent softness. I wish someone would conk me on the head so I could forget everything.

Wish I could just wake up to this pretty girl flirting with me and that I didn't have to live with the things I've seen, things I've done, and the feelings crammed down where I try not to think of them. Danger still lurks in every shadow. No time to let my guard down.

"If you don't knock me out with sleeping gas before I take flight." I bat my eyes back at her, though it feels awkward and I probably look like I have something stuck in my eye. In truth, I want to cry. Can't even explain where the impulse comes from. My mother, maybe, though I don't want to feel that way about her. Not after everything she's done to me and my friends.

Hev and Gats stagger out of the alley. Or, to be more accurate, Hev staggers and Gats clings on with one hand, his stolen, bloody sword dragging on the concrete. It leaves ugly brown streaks on the pavement, and I watch them leave.

Kepler nuzzles my shoe, and I stroke her starchy coat while Jaylin hugs her. Her face pressed into the wolf's back, the embrace so fierce and loving for a split-second I want to be on the receiving end. Kepler sighs contently. I can't imagine Jaylin hurting that wolf, not even to scare it, not even if she were paid to. The thought makes my heart a little lighter.

"You've made some friends, Kep-girl." I stop stroking and hug her, arms wrapped so tight around her thick shoulders I'd probably hurt her if my strength weren't so on the low. I can feel her bones poking through her coat, and the purest of rages wells up inside me. I feel it, and I let myself feel it, no longer afraid of my 'Dark Side.' I'll deal with him later. "How about, Jay, we talk at home? We can feed Kep there."

Our arms brush, and I feel tingles. She cocks her head and looks at me, and my veins squeeze with a rush of blood. Her eyes are two colors, black and brown. You wouldn't notice at a casual glance, but this isn't a casual glance. I notice a lot of things about her, all at once. I wedge my fingers under Kepler to pick her up, and her tail thumps the sidewalk in a happy wag. The world smells like mud and steel, and I gulp back the last of the wetness in my mouth. "Help me."

She releases Kepler and clings to my shoulder so I support her when I rise. Kep is so heavy I can't get her off the ground, which the wolf doesn't mind. She wriggles free and pokes her nose against my heel. Now it's hot and dry, so I know I need to get her water. We hobble off the street, alone together as the news crews barrel down the street, the sweet, smoky smell of Fallout's aura hanging in the air like sickness.

"Why should I help you when you don't even like me?"

"You wanted to be a queen. I've inherited Syndicate. I'm a supervillain now, a-a crime lord for Starlight's sake!"

She laughs, but she runs her fingers in circles under my shirt sleeve as if in sympathy. If I could purr I probably would, but that's best left to Gats. So I wrap my arms around her waist—to support her—but out height difference makes me squat. She chuckles. I flush. So she won't notice, I speak faster. "I have to take over and dismantle it myself. We can't stay pawns and wait for Fallout to attack us. We've got to fight back." I've found my opening. Time to strike.

"What do you want from me?"

"You're a villain. You know what to do, how to act. All the intelligence stuff I need to know, too. I've gotta play a big-and-bad. You're the only person I know who—"

"Shh." She puts a finger to my lips. Her hand feels warm and my eyes flutter shut for one long second. "I got it, Angel. Now that you need me for your disguise, you want me to play a part. A queen to help you rule your new empire, one who actually knows what she's doing."

I push her hand away, and I notice for the first time how my bloodied knuckles look like raw meat. "I don't mean to insult you." We're making slow progress, and home is some miles away. I stumble forward on blistered, achy feet. My wings flutter, heart longing for flight. "And I never said rule. I said 'dismantle.'"

"Fine," she says, smoothing back a strand of frizzy hair. A smirk flashes on her angelic face. "But I have a condition."

"Name it."

"I want to be your queen for real."

I'm left silent for a few moments, first processing the meaning of the request, then finding a response. I wanted this, before. A light breeze ruffles my hair, stings my cheek. And then I laugh. A howling laugh that might sound cruel to her, tears flying from my face as we stand there, staring back at each other. And all at once I'm laughing and sobbing while she and the city look on. I wish it were night. So I could see the stars and feel the thrill of dark. There's a reason all the cool fight scenes are set at midnight or in space. "Jay, that's—that's the cheesiest thing I've ever heard you say, and you're a supervillain."

My knees wobble. This time, I'm holding on to her for support. She looks over me, and the tiniest smile creeps across her features. Maybe she's thinking the same thing. "What?" she says. "It was valid. You threw the king-and-queen analogy at me."

"No, you did. In the kitchen. I was bandaging you up and you asked me if we could be, like, partners in crime and stuff, king and queen, and I sort of freaked because of all the crap you did to me."

I sound like a kid. In my filler words, in my speech patterns, in my everything. Yet, I don't feel like one. That big hole of grief, it's welling up inside me, the shock of the few days threatening to shred me from the inside. I'm shaking, the fear of getting sucked into so pure, so terribly. I don't want to become a shell. I don't want to be so wounded by what I've seen that I can't love anyone anymore. Jaylin slides her hand into mine and squeezes. And somehow, it helps. The pain doesn't go away, but it's like someone's stuck feeling it with me. Two kids, whistling in the dark.

Kepler butts my thigh, so I make my strides long and choppy, Jaylin propped against my side, still in the throes of her healing process. Her hand is small in mine, and I wonder if she can feel my pulse, as loud and fast as it's beating.

"I had to do what I did."

"I know. I just—" I just what? I just wish it wasn't so complicated? Wish I didn't feel like I was handing over the shreds left of my self-respect to her when we touch after she hurt me for kicks? Wish I knew who she really was, for sure, without the fear of waking up one night with a cannister held at my face while she laughs that cruel, mocking laugh with her golden eyes glowing in the broken light of the stars? Jeez, I sound manic. My thoughts are manic. My pulse, her pulse, thumping together in the most simple of harmonies. Should be just as easy. "I just don't trust you. I want to because I like you, but I'm still scared you're going to knock me out and take me away one day because you can and because you think it's cute when I'm scared and because you've gotta drag me to your overlords, okay?"

She winces. It's such an odd thing to watch her do, and the look of pain so genuine that I feel bad, like my words cut her, though I never suspected words could cut someone like her at all.

"I rescued you." The tendons bulge in her throat, her face flushed the brightest shade of pink natural should anyone flush at all. She looks down at our clasped hand. "I lost everything, and everyone I cared about. God, Angel, Owl was my idol. I wanted to be her. And she tried to kill me. And now she's dead."

I never noticed the tears until now, now that they spill down her bloodied face in streams. The air smells of salt and sweat, and I touch her face. She smacks my hand away. "Did you forget about that, Angel? Of course, you did, you only care about yourself. And Heaven. And Gats. Your stupid little group." She shivers as she hobbles out of my grip, her head hung. Messy ringlets fall over the back of her neck, dripping almost. It occurs to me how lonely she must be as she curls against the corner of a shiny building, her head tucked between her knees. "I'm sorry, Angelos. Sorry I hurt you. Sorry I'm the type of sicko who found some of it funny."

I don't know what to say. So I just shuffle toward her, Kepler nudging at me, and I wrap my arms around her. My hands are clammy, and we're so close, her against the wall, me with my back to the world, we're like, like a burrito of distressed teenager. She's shaking and so am I. She's crying, and it doesn't take long for me to start as I wipe away her tears. My wings unfurl behind me, like a feathery barrier between us and the domesticated society we cannot and will not ever become fully a part of.

I don't know what I'm feeling and what I'm supposed to be feeling and how to differentiate the two. My niggling paranoia tells me Jay could just be playing me again, like she was all along when we flirted and danced and kissed back at the school. Right now, though, I'm kind of sick of listening to Niggling Paranoia. Reminds me of Luce. Just want to let go and live, really live, without the fear. Without the stress.

She's looking at me so intently at me now, and I'm drunk off exhaustion, so tired, so confused. My mind is a fog. Everything hurts and I just know don't want to hurt anymore and I don't want to be alone.

She glances down at my mouth, up at my eyes. I notice all the curves of her face, the way her nose just upturns a little and how thick her lashes are. Even bloody, even dirty, there's something so attractive about her, though I guess that's not what I'm really thinking about right now. I just want to ease the pain, hers and mine.

Her fingers trace my jaw as I lean in. I kiss her. A light peck on the lips at first. Hot sun scorches me through my wings, but the cocoon of feathers make even the afternoon sky the blackest night. Her response is a sluggish one at first, as if she just woke up from a nap and oh, hey, there's a guy kissing me. But then it builds. And we're not just kissing but making out, eyes open. My arms wrapped around her, tightening. Her hands running up the back of my neck and through my hair. I can taste her faded strawberry lip gloss as we press up against each other, scrambling for better handholds. Heat and salt and strawberry and cotton. A barrage of feeling, taste, all at once, balled up with a ticklish tingling running up and down my body like the world's most pleasant poison.

I've never kissed like this before, maybe fantasized about it once or twice before dubbing it lame and going back to tossing and turning in my sweat-drenched pajamas. This is feverish, my breathing ragged for the first time in weeks from something that isn't trying to kill me. It's nice. Finally, I close my eyes and stop hugging. I play with her hair as we sink lower to the ground in our delirium. Funny, the stuff I do.

We're on our sides now, kissing. A medicinal thing. Making out on a sidewalk corner because you watched someone die, someone you hated but were supposed to love. Someone cruel but someone connected with you in a way you can't unravel no matter how hard you try. The hole's grown bigger now, an unnamable ache hammering every part of my body. The raw grief stings my good eye with tears, so I kiss Jaylin deeper, trying to figure out how this stuff works. Hev and Gats have it down pat, but I'm inexperienced, and I think, so is Jay. But nonetheless, it feels pleasant. Feels like something to fill the hole. She kisses me back harder, and I realize it's Jay filling some of that pit, not just the kissing, though the kissing is nice. Jay saved me, and I just hope I saved her too.

"I'm so confused," I say when we finish, lying there on the pavement. We're curled against each other, her hand in mine. My heart still beats a little faster when I think of what we've done, but I won't let it distract me. "I think of you one way, then another, then we make-out." I sigh.

She shrugs against me. "We have time to figure it out. With people wanting to kill us, next time. You and your empire."

I knit my eyebrows together, looking for any sense of how she's feeling. She looks a little woozy, her eyes rolling up like she just jumped off the same emotional carousel I did. I find her hand and squeeze it. "We're in this together?"

"King and queen." She tips my head up and kisses me again, lighter this time, on the nose. I scrape myself off the concrete and sway to my feet. I feel like I've been sleepwalking, and I've finally woken up. Kepler weaves between my legs like a fish and I help Jay up.

"This is going to be weird," I say.

"Yeah, but we've gotta try, right?"

We don't kiss again. My hand is on the small of her back as we head deeper into the labyrinth, we walk, and we try not to think. Her head leaned against my side. The smell of sweat and the city, mingled under a sun too hot for spring. The streets come alive again, and I close my eyes.

Fight back. We're going to fight back.

But right now, all I want is to feel Jay's hand in mine and know we're going home.