Poison.

Sneaking into supervillain headquarters is hell after midnight. You have to watch for the snipers on the roof and the little red lights that sweep over the fortress's sides going deet deet deet every few seconds. The building frowns on the opposite side of the street, a band of algae gleaming under a lamp post's glow. A copy of Super Weekly trembles in my hands. The pages are darker than usual, the articles mostly about the supervillain population growing and how the government is mad and yada yada yada. I want to rip it to shreds. Stupid Luce! Stupid Juniper and her stupid squeaky husband!

I huff, focusing on the dreary pages. Dad hates it when I go out alone. He even attached electrified bars to my windows to "protect" me. I shiver.

The night is cold. The wind, brisk. I don't want to go home. There's no place in the whole world I hate more, but I don't have anywhere else to go. Basically, I'm screwed.

Crappy little police cars buzz up and down the city street. Pathetic. Galaxy could get wherever they're going in a tenth of the time. I smile at the rusty nail by my shoe and give it a good kick. Too bad for them she's out of commission. Forever. I almost crack out a 'muahahaha,' but Dad says to use those sparingly, lest I become one of those cursed 'hand-wringers' he hates so much. The breeze whacks a few early blooms off the garden trees that spring from the sidewalk and I frown up at an eighth floor window.

The light's on; a series of lit up rectangles broken by shadowy bars. Ceres is a genius. Crazy, but a genius. Surely he'll have found a new way to short-circuit the electricity by now.

When the street is finally empty, I snap out my wings, flashes of white shining under the full moon.

When Dad dumped me and Ceres into the same room, Ceres asked me why I'd never just taken off. I had the whole world if I wanted it. I could go anywhere, if I dared. I remember smacking him and reminding him food wasn't free. Besides crime, I had nothing. He shrugged and whapped me back so hard I slammed into a wall forty feet away.

I coast, resting on my upward momentum. There really isn't a better feeling than flying, especially when people are shooting at you.

"Hey! Ceres! Hey!" I study the building's west side. With a shriek, my window's bars peel away and an upturned thumb slides out of the yellow square.

"Down here kitty Kat!"

"It's not Kat," I say, wind stinging my cheeks. Ceres probably can't even hear me, but I say what I usually say anyway. "It's Katris." I've gone by dozens of fake names. Robin, Jared, Colt, Bella, Rupert, Cliff.  Dad didn't name me, either my dead mom or one of my many dead uncles did, and they must've been crazy.

"Katris. What does that even mean?" Ceres asks for the thirty-thousandth time.

"Dunno." I sigh. No one calls me that anyway. 'Catalyst' and 'Katris' sound too similar, and Dad says 'Katris' is too prissy anyway. I mean, I like it. But no one seems to care what I like. "Coming in for a landing!"

I slam through the window, landing hard on the polished floor. The impact nearly sends me spinning, so I drop my fist into the ground to ease up the pressure.  

"You owe me fifty bucks," is the first thing Ceres says when he sees me. He smirks an easy, quiet smirk that sharpens his already handsome face and makes him particularly model-like. He's two years older, two inches taller than I am, dark haired and eyed with a hint of a stubble, a sort-of-not-really-adult who's too young to drink but still downs scotch like ginger ale anyway. It's the only crime I've ever seen him commit, and he can't get drunk anyway, so I don't think it even counts.

"I do not." I plop on the lower bunk and flick my eyes to the walls. Once I spray painted a scene from a fairytale on them. It took me weeks of penciling, priming, tracing, and painting, and even now, I can still see traces of a phoenix's wings smothered under the coats of gray, begging to breathe.

"You failed, Kat-Poison. I told you not to mess with the Fibbs. I told you you were gonna get your butt kicked." Ceres waves his hand and curls onto the floor by a checkerboard. After he sqiurms into comfortable position, he jumps a black checker over a red piece, captures it, and stretches his hand across the board to move a red king.  Apparently he's been playing checkers with himself for the past three hours.

I prop my chin on my hands. I can't help but watch with an almost morbid curiosity. The guy's bonkers. I mean, he once called himself the freaking Incredible Labelmaker, so there's your proof in the pudding.

"I didn't get my butt kicked," I mumble, touching my throbbing cheek. I need a new plan. I can't let Dad get Galaxy first. Sure, I have her. She's too frail to get away, her powers too weak and the SE drugs Snare sold her brother breaking her on the inside. But in her state, I don't know if Dad will find her useful enough to keep around. Syndicate is gaining. Supers who can't hold their own are of no use to us.

And as for Luce...

Ceres knocks his hand into my face, sending a fresh wave of pain where Luce caught me with a kick. I yelp. "Yeah, no. There's a lump. Cough up the money, bro."

"No one says 'bro' anymore," I grumble, teeth clenched from the pounding in my cheek. I pull out my wallet. He snatches the bill and whoops a victory whoop. I shoot him a long look. "You're supposed to be an adult."

"So?" He waves the fifty in my face. "You lost a bet. I get the right not to be an adult."

I roll my eyes. He settles back on the ground, face leaned in his hands. "So what's your little issue, little bro?"

I try to ignore him and flop my full length on the bunk's sheets. I fish my hand under my pillow. "We need a new plan." My laptop's cold plastic case meets my fingers, and I tug it onto my lap.

"Well, yeah, I was wondering when you'd ask me about that." He double jumps over two black checkers, hits the end of the board, and kings a red piece. "I mean, 'Oh, I'm just going to break into The Fibbs' apartment and capture their precious, kind of crazy adopted son' was probably the worst ideas you could've thought of." He stares at the board for a second, giving me a moment to rub my temples. "You're getting desperate, Poison. Don't get desperate."

The screen's blue light burns for a second. I close my eyes and stab in the keys to my password. "You." Click. "Don't." Click. "Understand." Click click click click.

"You keep a freaking diary," he says, sweeping away the checkers. I blush. I do not keep a diary. Not daily or anything. But sometimes, I'll crack open the yellow pages and write so hard my cursive rips through the paper. "One with a flimsy key that never works. You know how many times I've read that thing? You sound like a deranged beat-poet. I sit there for hours, trying to figure out why you're so mad all the time and why you're so obsessed with Galaxy. Still got nothing."

"It's a journal." I lift my hand with a haughty flourish like Cat does when she thinks she's in the presence of lowlifes. "And that's fine. I don't care if you understand me or not. We need to get Galaxy and Luce before my dad does."

Ceres won't have it, squinting up at me like I'm a museum display. "Why do you like Galaxy so much? I mean, she isn't crazy hot or anything. Girls look like her all the time. Plus she's kind of mean, so you tell me."

I glare down at him. "Well, she's..."

I stop. I don't know how to explain it to him and I don't think I want to.

Heaven Brooks, I guess, is pretty in a salt-of-the-earth kind of way. Dark brown skin lined with healing scars, large eyes, and curls that fall a little below her shoulders. She's the sort of attractive that creeps up on you. You'll look past her every day for weeks and months, then suddenly, you start taking long glances at her between Moby Dick and dance lessons, studying her features the way astronomers study the stars. She's just awesome, strong, fierce, and it's like that awesomeness bleeds into every part of her. Every scar, every grumpy scowl, every pissed slew of cuss-words she sends in your direction. That's what makes her sexy.

"Yeah?" he asks.

I unzip my jacket, peeling off the heavy leather layer as I try to explain my case from a logical point of view that will win his approval. "If I can make her like me, if I can make her a friend instead of an enemy, maybe Dad will respect my powers. Maybe he won't cast me off. But then there's Luce, and if Dad gets to him first, then I'm out. For good."

"If, if, if, maybe, maybe, maybe." Ceres sighs. "Why don't you just kill Luce then?"

I open a fresh Google doc on my computer. "I think that window of opportunity has closed up. His powers are growing stronger, and soon enough he'll be immortal like you, me, Dad, Owl, Jacob, Juniper, Rain or Storm or something, Cat--"

He holds up his hand. "Good God, I got it. Just...let me think, huh?" He stretches on the floor, hands clasped behind his head.

"Well, we need to move fast," I say, staring at the blank page. My head's still swimming. Snare will take action within the week,  and Syndicate is gaining territory. The entire supervillian community is on edge.  We can't afford any more mistakes.

"We?" He huffs. "I ain't helping you with any of this. Your dad told me to keep an eye on you."

"You're a prisoner." He is; sort of. I mean, Dad technically  told me to watch him and Ceres is technically being held against his will. But he seems content to stay here, locked away playing video games, reading, and training in the basics of assassination.

I leave the door open a lot. I always hope he'll run away, but he never does.

Ceres laughs drily. "Don't lie to yourself, Kitty Katris. If I'm a prisoner, then so are you. A puppet, more like it."

 "Yeah, well, one day I'll be the puppeteer." And I will. When Galaxy's mine, when Luce is dealt with, when Catsby is shut up where he belongs, Dad will hand over the reins, I'll take care of Syndicate, and all the wrongs in the universe will be righted.

Ceres stands up. "Uh-huh. I think I have a plan, but we have to strike soon. Now, if we can."

***
Hey guys, apologies for such a late update! Life's been a bit crazy, but hopefully this won't happen again!