Jaylin.

"Oh, my God!" the girl squeals as she sniffs the air. "Food!"

I stifle a sigh. Heaven's body hangs limply over my arms. Her bleeding has long stopped, and I don't know if she's asleep or just pretending to be, but I can only guess she's too prideful for the latter and frankly, I stopped caring an hour ago. Many a time as Silver Girl and I picked our way through the undergrowth has Heaven woken up to fresh pain, muttering that she can walk if I just set her down. Many a time have my knuckles grown raw from knocking her back to sleep. The little hero glares when I do it, Heaven struggles. I just yell at both of them until they're both sufficiently silenced.

"Shut it, kid! I could kill you! And you." I'd squeeze Heaven until she made a little cry, and I have to say, that was hard to drive from her, the prideful little thing. "Have a taste of your own freaking medicine! I'm just trying to protect you, here. Go to freaking sleep and stay in it!"

I think she hates me now more than ever. Well, at least she isn't dead, though I'm beginning to wonder if breathing life back into the ungrateful brat was a wise move on my part.

My nose twitches. The prickly forest is behind us now and night has fallen. Darker than obsidian, thicker than oil. The stars, usually such a beautiful sight over Starlight City, are gone. Like someone smeared them all away. Tufts of green and brown clover spring up over the hills, and the slope is sharp under my feet, steep enough to break necks if one isn't careful. 

My face and hands throb from encounters with thorns and low branches. The air smells sweet with spring greenery and savory with the tang of cooking meat. I narrow my eyes, staring at the back of the brick building and the giant slab of a gray door. Gray chains dangle around the handle, padlocks hanging off them like keys from a lanyard. I smirk. They won't be an issue. "Food," I say with a sigh.

My skin is grimy, sticky with sweat. The girl glances up, her ponytail limp with grease and the glitter of her mask rubbed away in patches. She smiles. A tentative thing, probably expecting me to punch her in the face for it. I don't. My stomach rumbles, starving. Us supers, we eat a lot. Our strength comes unnaturally, every bit of sugar and fat metabolized in a queer sort of way that leaves researchers drooling over us. I was never interested in the science of it, not really. I know the name of certain chemicals, the ones that make my powers go berserk. But that's it. 

It's a lousy power, the catalyst-ism, I mean. The only good it does is occasionally bringing out sleeping superpowers in an oddball kid or two. Or blow things up. Tech stuff, usually. If I try to channel the power and stimulate reactions in machines, they usually can't take the surge and the world goes 'boom.'

"So. Do you plan on breaking in? Or can we just waltz in through the doors?"

I snort. "In your get-up, you'd be dragged to the machines in minutes. Plus, I kind of have a bounty on my head, so I'm just as much of a target as you. With better fashion sense." I nudge the girl in the ribs, playful-like. She looks up at me with such fear you'd think I vaporized everything I touch. And that only happens sometimes.

"M-machines?" She flinches, running a finger under the edge of her mask and sweating buckets. Her face betrays terror, even with the mask. Not very hero-like, but eh, they can't all be Heavens.

"Yeah, machines. Sap your powers. Scary things. Boo!" I crouch low, digging my hands into the loose layer of gravel on the parking lot. Tar-filled cracks weave 's's on pavement, and I know we're at Starlight's very edge. 

Mayor Curtis allots a fat chunk of the city-state's budget to infrastructure with all the loose-cannon supers hanging around, and since Starlight spends so much on keeping streets sturdy, the city likes to make them pretty, too. As for Old Newport, Starlight City's closest neighbor and biggest rival, their money goes into their police force. Their streets are safe, but they suck to drive on.

 I stare at the 'S's. Snare. Syndicate. Supervillains. I glance at Heaven, still limp in my arms like a doll. Superhero. Sycophant. 

She looks like a doll, too. When Poison and I were kids we'd line up Barbies and toy soldiers, pick up aluminum bats, and smash their plastic bodies until they lay in mangled piles. I'd say ex-Galaxy looks like a doll after one of us got to her. And that's more of the case than I'd like it to be. She sighs. Opens her eyes, dark and gemlike. Then she comes to and a piercing scream rips the air.  Something primitive. I shudder. The hero's past pride at this point, and that's a bad, bad sign. I need to get her some of that stuff Toby bought from Fallout's guys, the drugs made from the auras of healers.

"Heaven?" Her eyes roll back in her head. She makes a sound and her entire body limpens.

The girl shudders. "How's her healing factor?"

I heft Heaven over my opposite shoulder. "Not great, she—"

The door explodes outward, chains snapping like they were strung together out of legos.  I jump back, swearing miles a minute. Chunks of gravel fly in my face, stinging like wasps. Yellow light pours through the door, a tall silhouette of a woman dripping from the frame. She holds a curved blade over her head and I recognize who she is immediately. That's the thing about supervillains and superheroes, they all have their different weapons, their different stories. All weirdos in their own special ways. You meet 'em once and you don't forget 'em.

"Cleo?" she whispers. I freeze like a deer staring into the headlights of a stolen van. "Is that you?"

The little superhero is smarter than I thought her to be. She takes off. I don't. For a whole second,  I sort of stand there, and I'm damn glad Heaven's not awake to see it and laugh.

 The woman takes advantage. Sickle in one hand, whip in the other. I hear the crack before I even think about running. She moves in a flash. One minute leaned in the doorway, abstract as a blotchy shadow, the next she's nearly upon me, the folds in her dress and the strands of her loose white hair so clear I nearly scream. Instead, I spin away from her, toward the woods the little super scampered into in her escape. But I'm not fast enough. Heaven is the speed demon, not me. Cord snaps around my ankle, ensnaring my leg in the woman's whip. It stings in a way that makes my eyes tear. I draw in a long breath and hit the ground when she yanks. I don't put up much fight, either. Can't. With one leg caught and two arms squeezed around Heaven to keep her from shattering upon impact, the only thing I can do is flail my left leg like a flipper and dignity won't allow for it.

"My name isn't Cleo," I say through a mouthful of gravel. I know the woman. Her name is Maggie. She's been in Starlight since the early nineteen-tens and a good century or two she used to be a farmer in a little village. Reaped her crops herself with her trusty sickle and super-strength. Used a whip to drive horses and mules. People thought she was a witch, but, eh, she made a living. Pretty cool lady, though she makes a name for herself by assassinating opponents of dirty politicians for a price. Curved blade. Quick slices. Sheer brutality. "Reaper." That's her villain name, and she didn't even give it to herself.

"No, that's right, it isn't. Cleo's your mother."

I threw my whole body weight over Heaven, curled in a ball around her small, limp form. Still, my face hit the ground and my forehead throbs something awful. I take a risk. "Yes." 

My mother's somewhat well known, though her name is rarely spoken. Sometimes I forget she exists at all. She was Syndicate's first leader, until she fell in love with a superhero named Jupiter, he had to die, I sort of happened, and Owl had to step in and do my mother's dirty work because she couldn't kill my dad. Jacob, the guy my mother left in charge of me before her arrest, says Jupiter was a jerk that ditched her and me because he didn't want to ratty up his reputation anyway. Doesn't matter. He's dead now. "I'm Cat."

"Catalyst, right, right." Maggie laughs, and her boisterous voice makes me sigh with relief. "It's been so long! I ought to invite you in."

"Even if Fallout and Owl want my head?" Another calculated risk. But I think I might have an ally in this villain. I lift my head and blink one, two, three times, all against the ugly dark that slithers in on all sides.

The whip unravels around my ankle. I hear it swish back to its master and I breathe out. She laughs again. I decide I like the sound. "I have an allegiance to no one. But what d'ya do to make them so angry? Run away with their son?"

The ghost of a smirk touches my lips. "Sort of. He was choking me and all, hostage-taking-style, but I was supposed to escape and drag him back. I'm a little overdue." I stretch my legs out, roll my shoulders, and readjust Heaven. Still breathing. She wakes again, moans, long and grating, and slips back to sleep. Her twitches are violent and I pat her for comfort. Not that I'm good at that. I think I just worsen the pain. "He loves me, anyway. Told me so. Then I tried to kiss him and he yelled at me." I cock my head and purse my lip, my best attempt at looking miffed. The woman is tall, big. Her jowls sag a little, like a bulldog's, and a long, hook-shaped scar runs through her eye. Smells like cigarettes and rib-eye. My stomach pangs. She has all her wrinkles intact, odd for a super who can have it all erased. Her smile is wide and genuine. I like her.

"Men," she huffs.

"Boys," I agree. Though I guess Angel had a little more reasons to reject me than 'Oh, silly boys with their man-hormones.'

It leaves a little niggling feeling in the pit of my gut. I was mean to him, cruel even. To him, his friends. Even after he opened his home to me. I guess I just thought he'd take it. He's good at that. Maybe I didn't expect him to fight back, and it's my own fault he pushed me out. I just don't know how to treat a boy, though I guess that isn't entirely true, either. The last boyfriend I had was Poison, but that lasted three days and he's a villain. He and Angel are two sides of the same coin, but if I said something mean to Poison he'd shove me and if I said something mean to Angel he'd bottle it up and pretend it didn't hurt. Weird things I'm not used to. Plus Stockholm Syndrome, I guess, though I still don't know what it is exactly.

I whistle for the superhero and she comes bounding back, peaking through the woods at first and then running down when she realizes there's nothing in the forest. Maggie snatches Heaven by her saggy shoulders and looks her over as I tell the hero's story; the villain grins like she found herself a real collectible. "Careful," I remind her, though I take care not to speak too harshly, "that one's delicate. A real princess."

She leads me through the door, a slight bounce in the old woman's step. "No more princess than you, heiress."

"Heiress?" What a laugh. "No, ma'am. I'm a nobody."

I look up at Heaven slumped over Maggie's shoulder, the woman's whip and sickle hung from her belt, a place sickles should not be hung. Hev's arms dangle, curly hair wild and matted, falling like a curtain over her face. She looks so dead I almost shiver. Dead and a pretty little thing, still. It's like her soul is reflected in her face. Bruised and busted up in every way, but I can't help finding her beautiful.

The door creaks as the woman kicks it open. The girl hero leans her elbow on my shoulder as we walk, flaunting our height difference. I almost punch her, but I force self-restraint. Maggie leads us in the back room of her little restaurant. There's a chestnut table, two lounge chairs, and a giant clock that fills the entire room with ticking. The place smells like lemon Pledge. 

Her shelves are filled with bottles and bottles, each of them glowing a different color. I recognize them instantly. Auras. All of them except the purple one, the rarest at the end of the spectrum. There's a reason Angel was built and bred, and the aura has something to do with it, I'm sure. She lays Heaven down flat on her back. The hero's entire body fits on the coffee table, which I find funny until I remember she's my height. The woman watches me skim my fingers over auras.

"Like 'em?" she asks.

I nod. She walks over and taps the glass.

"They're like stock, prices always changing. I always keep one or two for when the market shift and it's profitable to sell them."

My eyes settle on the one I was looking for: the green one. My heart leaps. A healing aura. I can inject it into Heaven and she'll heal, fully heal. Maybe only temporarily, until it cycles out of her, but pure aura is stronger than any drug someone can make out of it. It can kill a non-super or a weakling one, but Hev's neither of those. I grip the bottle by its neck. "How much for this one?"

The woman with the blade suddenly smirks. "A couple million."

I nearly choke on air. "What?"

"If you want to save the hero, it'll cost you two million dollars."

I suddenly feel dizzy. The Fibbs are millionaires, but that's a lot of money to access on short notice. I squeeze the bridge of my nose, a headache starting to well up. Food is the least of my concerns now, and that's saying something. "What's the reward the allegiances put out for my capture?" I ask. It's the only thing I can think to ask. I know Fallout put out a two million dollar reward for Angel, but I'm no Angel. The woman considers.

"A few grand. Four, five tops."

I sigh. Dead end there. Not that I want to sacrifice myself or anything, but it was worth a try. "Will you take anything else?"

"No."

I eye her sickle. I'll have to disarm her and fight, but I don't want to. I'm tired. Hungry. "Oh, okay." She whistles and ruffles my hair. I almost hit her. My fists ball but I drop them at my sides, fingers twitching all the while for a fight.

"Poor thing, I ought to feed you, shouldn't I?"

"Well—"

My voice is cut off by a cry.

A girly cry, distinct in every way, and all too familiar. Every moving part inside me stops, a coldness I've never felt before rushing through my body. It comes again. Shakes the ground from under my feet. My heart stops. The machine level.

Angel.

They're gonna rip him apart unless I stop them. I snatch the bottle and take off running.