Gats.

Someone needs to rewind.

Before Hev and Angel made their equally dramatic entrances, before Owl told me that my foster parents are the same people who abandoned me all those years ago. I want someone to rewind back before today, before yesterday, before the weeks Heaven had been asleep, before Heaven and I dragged Angel up to that roof in the first place.

I want to rewind back to when everything felt normal. Maybe it wasn't normal, sure, how normal can two rich adopted brothers be? How normal could even Heaven be, a social outcast who lied to us on the daily so she could strap on armor and save kittens from trees?

But now, there's nothing. Nothing normal to grasp onto, no shred of logic to pull me out of this, whatever this is. When Owl tells me Juniper is my mother—that my freakishness is all her fault— the thought that she's lying only feels like a wishful fantasy. I squeeze the sword so tightly I can't even feel the blood in my fingertips, can't feel anything but my pulse. The world is spinning faster than usual, and I'm so light headed I just want to curl up with my hands over my face. I just want to breathe.

"What." It's not a question. It just comes out, a croaky gasp of a sound while I remind myself how breathing works. Air in, air out. It's not that I wouldn't want Juniper as a mother, it's that she hid it from me. Lied to me. She squirms toward me, still bleeding, speaking so quickly that I just stand there, listening, my grip on the sword tightening, tightening as the words rush past by my hot ears.

"It's true, honey, it is. I would've told you earlier but we didn't know if we had to let you go again. And we didn't want to raise your suspicion." Beads of sweat cling to Juniper's lashes. "We didn't want you to think anything was wrong."

Wrong. What an understatement, now that all the skeletons have been dragged out of the closet. If I dare even think that. There must be more, there always seems to be more. And yet I've cried so much today I can't even think of crying anymore. I feel like a kid. And it's scary, so scary. The world is so much older than me, all the people out to get me. The cherry on this twisted sundae? The world I've known has been lying to me all along.

"You sent me away." My voice trembles, and out of the corner of my eye, Owl's knowing smirk grows across her face, her gloved hands folding demurely in her lap. She settles in a creaky oak chair, and with her in it, it looks like a throne. I gasp. The air is stuffy, choking me.

"We wanted to protect you." Storm opens his eyes, dry blood browning his lips and throat. His eyes are piercing through his broken glasses, and yet I can't face the intensity of his gaze. All of me feels empty, my back, my shoulders, my legs like I've melted away. Not even enough strength to stand, let alone run away like my heart begs me.

"Do you always hurt what you're trying to protect?" Owl asks. She curls a strand of her ponytail around her forefinger, other hand cupped under her chin. The gesture so innocent and so young it breaks my brain, just a little. This immortal woman, this creature, acting so human.

The henchmen mull by the door, scattering like birds when Heaven's thrown into the room. For one horrible second I think she's dead, watching her roll and thump like that, but then she springs up, off her knees. She looks so fragile to me now, thinking of all the other, older, stronger people guarding us. Her scent makes me gag, her usual gentle vanilla musk buried in the stench blood and charred skin. I recoil, and when the woman calls her a prisoner, I find I do have enough strength to run. The sword thumps and drags on the carpet as I stagger for her. So much sorrow, so much regret. She wanted to hold me and I wouldn't let her, but now that she's a prisoner, I don't have to be the one to hurt her. So I fly to her, wanting to hold her, bury my face in her neck and breathe in the softness of her scent underneath the burn. I want to feel her against me and know everything is okay.

Her dark eyes are hard. She looks at me, glares. My heart freezes in its cage, and so do I.

"Stubborn little thing," Owl says. The chair creaks when she stands. Heaven breathes heavily, each harsh gasp echoing off the walls. She crosses her arms over her shirt, singed hair thrown back over her shoulders and her chin tilted up. So poised I'm gawking, gawking at her to ignore Juniper and Storm. To pretend they don't exist. I don't want them as parents anymore, I don't.

The villain's fingers trail the back of my neck, cold armored gloves finding the crevice where my collarbone and throat connect. I try not to tense. "You sure are your mother's daughter."

A deep blush blossoms in my cheeks. Owl wouldn't know anything about Heaven's mother if I had just kept my pretty mouth shut. Heaven's eyes go big, but only for a moment. The muscles in her face and fists go tight, and she crouches down, shreds of shirt quivering with every with every gasp and sigh. "You don't know anything about my mother."

Owl looks up. The muscles in my neck and throat ache as I follow her eye. She cuts the air with a deafening howl. It's the most natural laugh I've heard from her. "Little girl." She pounds her fists to her chest for breath. The plates in her armor squeal and creak, reminiscent of the tin-man from The Wizard of Oz. If only I could laugh. "I knew your mother better than anyone else. I made her who she was."

Heaven straightens, stiff. All the muscles in her body look wound up like springs. She raises her fists in a guard, panting, gasping. Sweat glazes her forehead, black char dripping into her eyes.

"You're lying." Heaven paces in long, lopping strides. A crash of smashed glass behind us. I glance back. Angel flings himself through the shattered window, slivers of glass thrown up in a dust like glitter. His shadow flickers on the floor, jerking at random intervals. It makes him look like a glitch. He's masked now, the wrinkled diamonds lengthening out his face. His good eye glows, the iris blazing purple. The other is black. My heart throbs in my chest. His shirt's torn, strips of fabric wound around his knuckles torn ratty and bled red. Still, he grins, a wicked curve that matches the shape of his mask. Says something in character with his new, sickening form. It's enough to make my head explode.

But what's more, instead of his usual flames, he pulses. Purple light unravels around him in soft bands, trailing on the floor. He looks like radiation, like his own sort of star. But he isn't what matters, and my focus bounces between my two old friends like a tennis ball plunked from racket to racket.

Heaven lunges for my sword, a blur of red and brown and black. I offer it out to her, my head lowered into a respectful dip. I want her to win. Really. If it doesn't work out, Owl will take it out on me for sure, but I want my best friend, my girlfriend, to make it out of this okay. Even if I don't.

As soon as the hilt slips out of my fingers, Owl digs her hands into my throat. Lifts me, I thrash my legs, The air is thick, choking. Can't think. Can't breathe. Sweat pours down my chin and throat. I paw for her glove, but my fingertips slide free, no traction to be found on her cold, smooth armor.

The room spins. Green papered walls, velvet drape, luscious rich furniture. A table, a chair. I drink it all in with a cry. Mostly, Heaven's eyes, dark and gemlike, bleeding into mine.

"Whoa, hey," Angel says behind me. I flip, arch my back the wrong way to get my heel closer to Owl. New pain snaps through me like whiplash. The popping and moaning of tendons and flesh all sound distant, like I'm watching it happen instead of it happening inside me. I pull my toes back and bash my foot into the base of her spine, but it's protected by plates and plates of armor. Birdies twitter 'round my head my head, her grip stronger, tighter. The stones in my head seem to drip, drip, into my skull and neck. She lifts me, dangles me over Heaven's head. Like she's holding a toy over a little girl's head. She likes to do that a lot.

"Your mother fell into my trap," she says. In the distance, Juniper wheezes and moans to speak. The henchmen have her. All the rage in me feels heavy know, so heavy I can't even lift my head to look at her. "She died in her sleep for your father."

Heaven looks up, her eyes glistening in cold, calculated rage.

"Let me go!" Screaming has never been my style, but I indulge for now. My voice is a raspy shriek. "You said you wouldn't treat me like this. You said—" Hot light burns through my lashes, the knot tightening in my throat. I force myself silent. I won't cry, not now, not anymore. Frankly, I'm all cried out.

Even as she squeezes harder, so hard I can hear the roar of stopped-up blood pounding behind my temples, the world is still disturbingly lucid. My vision is a blurry collection of stars and splatters, white light that pours through my eyes, into my brains. Could I fake my death again? I've suffocated so much in the last few days I wonder if the villains think because I'm less human, I'm less mortal.

"Stop it!" Juniper struggles against her captors, Storm limp and still on the floor. His spectacles lie a few feet away from him, both of the lenses now punched in. Slivers of glass, glimmer like stars from this angle. My mother's face is red with blood, her eyes squeezed shut. Clumps of corded veins bulge out of the side of her neck, thin strands like threads at either side of her face.

My clawed fingers find a slit of skin between Owl's gloves and her armor. I slash. Heat floods my body from my face down. Heaven holds the sword steady by its hilt, the silver blade glowing in Angel's purple light. He's turned to Juniper and Storm, but he won't use his aura to save them, his wings spread behind him like a shield. He won't even look at Owl. He must've taken her warning to heart.

Heaven's face is a mass of scars and burns, blank. Even without the metal and polish, her mask is on. I know her, and right now, this isn't Heaven.

This is Gal.

"Drop it," Owl says, shaking me again. My brains rattle against my skull. Blood pours into my sleeves, splatters my chest. Claws catch around something corded and stringy, but she doesn't seem to notice. She lifts me higher. Each breath burns my throat like the sear of gasoline.

Heaven lunges, blurring again before my eyes. Owl blocks her, a knee thrown up, catching the side of her face. All I see is the blood, arcing up and splashing the floor, all I hear is the crack. I scream. She's thrown back into the crumbling wall.  I mrow.

My voice is shot. Meow after meow, pleas for Heaven's salvation crushed into plaintive wails. Owl grips me so hard my rasp is cut off. And I'm left begging in my head, begging for someone to rewind. For someone to take me back to when everything was okay.

"If you love this boy, drop it."

Hev peels herself off the wall, dust and crushed stone caught in the knots of her hair. She grabs her bleeding jaw in one hand and pushes it back in place with a 'pop.' The sword is raised in the other. Angel's pressed up against the wall now, his hands combing through his hair, his aura flickering and flaring. He crumples. Sobs. There's something wrong with him. Broken. Because even through his sobbing he's smiling.

Heaven looks down, then up at Owl. The silence is heavy. Then, the blade balanced flat on her hands, she lowers it. It falls flat on the carpet with a 'thunk.' It flashes again, laughing. Another mrow leaves my throat, croaky this time.

She throws me down. I hit the floor hard, my back arching a little too late for me to land on my feet. The impact jolts me on my side, the steel-toe of Owl's boots jabbed into my rib. Heaven looks on, her hands offered out, open and empty. "Please. He's my friend."

"You selfish little girl." I can just imagine her crooked smile. She has Heaven in a corner, and both of them know it. How could I let this happen? "You're willing to let your citizens die, all so you can have your boyfriend."

Heaven winces, wounded. But the expression flashes by so quickly I wonder if I imagined it all. The drapes flutter, a leathery thup-thup-thup, like the beating of wax wings.

"You really are your mother's daughter, aren't you?"

Heaven steps to her. My side throbs with a fresh wave of pain and I stifle a groan.

"You know nothing about my parents."

Owl squats low, her shoe still buried in my ribs. She reaches out and takes the sword in one hand, arching it up and down in a few brisk chops. I can't help but twitch.

"Your father died on his knees, begging."

I struggle, a weak, sporadic series of flails. We have children. Could it be? The super begging for his wife's life, sobbing that he had children?

Hev grits her teeth. Her fingers curl up and then fall flat again as if she has to remind herself not to clock Owl. "Stop–lying!"

"And Nebula died trying to save him. Him and her children. It's funny, isn't it? How time passes in cycles." She whistles and lifts her foot off me. And yet still I can't move, lying in a heap on the bristly carpet. Blood taints my sense of smell, a drowsiness stealing the clearest of my thought processes. I want to sleep and dream, to take myself away. The sword cuts a smooth path in the carpet.

Heaven's head snaps up. Her eyes flicker with recognition. "Yeah, it is, isn't it?"

"A stubborn little hero fails to save her city, and she and the person she tried to save dies in the process." Owl laughs, harsh. My entire body prickles with gooseflesh. "Last time, my organization fell apart. This time, it won't."

"No." Heaven flings her arms open wide, but her voice is smooth and even. "Let him go. He did nothing to you. I'm the one you want. Your henchmen just got the wrong guy." Her voice rises, smooth and deep. Her Galaxy voice. "Kill me if you must, but let him go."

"Oh, Heaven." Owl's voice is smooth and breathless, matching Poison's. It makes me shudder on the floor as Storm stirs, his eyes bloodshot and wide as he struggles to speak behind someone's smothering hand. My eyes fall shut, the lull of sleep suddenly too much to resist. I want to get away. Need to get away. "Do you want to die?"

And her voice is fragile in the thickening silence. "Yes."