Angel.

The key is multiplication tables.

It isn't a perfect solution, that I'll admit.  As Poison scowls at me, his lip curled into a snarl and his eyes narrowed, shadows slide and drip at the back of my vision the floor like oil splotches. There are voices, too. Slit his throat, they tell me, no one will know.

The voices? I don't know who they belong to, maybe me, though they don't sound like they do. So high, so sneery. 

Or maybe you shouldn't slit his throat, maybe you should wait on it. Wait and put him through half as much pain as he put you through.

No. No. No. Twelve times twelve is one-hundred-forty-four. Twelve times thirteen is one-fifty-six. Twelve times fourteen is...is...

"What do you know?" My voice is level. My heart slams against my chest, the stench of waste and throw up and decay burning in my nose. I try not to gag. The cat is back now, the big fluffy white one with the shiny blue eyes. It rubs against my leg, kneading my socks with her paws. The darkness dims what little I can see, the heat the type that cooks you from the inside. "Poison. I can stab you, many, many times. And I really want to."

It's still hard to wrap my head around me catching him, but he's here. All of him. Tall and wiry, his scratched leather jacket tight around his chest and waist, pretty boy face still healing from my fists. He glares, the snarl slipping. Thinking, probably. 

Hold him down and beat him to a bloody pulp.

My fist trembles. One-sixty-eight.

Crush his skull.

One-eighty. Twelve times fifteen is one-eighty. And twelve times sixteen is one-ninety-two. It's all an act of restraint. The voices inside screaming to get out, clawing at my bones and muscles through sharp, violent bursts of pain. They whimper between my ears like pups on a chain. Let us out, they seem to whisper. Like ghosts. Ghosts rattling around inside my body, scratching up my insides. You really should destroy him. "Get out," I mutter. "Out, out, out!"

At least slash his neck, like what Owl did to Heaven.

The scary part is I don't find that such a bad idea. Poison flinches when he hears me. I can't help staring. He looks a lot like Gats, his hair white and well kept, brushed over to the side and tapering down the back of his neck in neat, feathery layers. He's just taller is all, and a villain. His wings, small and fluffy, fold neatly behind his back. I almost feel a sting of jealousy. Mine are frumpy, preferring to crumple over folding. Snap his. Tear them out. 

My hand seizes up, the shard nearly flinging out of my fingers. Oh, mayday, limb control, mayday. The edge touches the underneath of his chin. Poison cries out and grabs for his neck, blocking the shard with his knuckles. His eyes are two wide, terrified pools, darting to the glass every so often and back at me. His free hand flies up, a surrender gesture. "Okay, okay. Syndicate got him. Ease up!"

"Tell me something I don't know."

He sneers, lip curled back in that ugly snarl, all the fear in his expression suddenly hidden. It's like he slid a mask over his face. "Like what? Like Owl having his guts on a platter? You know she killed all the old superheroes, her and Dad and Juni—"

I smack him so hard with my free hand his face smashes against the bars. The cage rattles. If he and his lackey hadn't beaten the tar out of me for twenty-thirty minutes straight, then maybe I'd feel guilty for the blood I see. As it is, not so. The barks and whines of the animals pitch to a near shriek.

 "You made a deal with Jaylin." My chest squeezes into a knot when I mention her name. "What did she say about Gats?" For good measure, I poke the side of his face with the shard. He winces, and I stop, though a sadistic urge itches inside me to tear his flesh to ribbons. And it's such a scary feeling, wanting to do awful things to people, finding it funny. Everything seems funny. Flames eat through me, tendrils of purple wisping around inside my head, making me giggly and drunk. Twelve times seventeen is two-oh-four. Even the multiplication tables slip. I can feel it all shifting inside me, the hole of clarity I opened up about to collapse in on itself.

Poison peels his face off the bars, his mouth open, feathers of white hair in tufts and flying out all the wrong ways. He shoots me look, touching his fingers delicately to the bloody parts, like dabbing the long, shallow wounds with a napkin. 

"I made calls for your dopey friend," he says. "Owl, she has Gatsby, but she wants you. I was gonna trade."

"Oh?" My fingers clench around the glass, shattering it in thousands of little splinters. The pain makes my aura flare big time. Kill him. Kill him. KILL HIM. I'm gasping to regain control. Woozy, my stomach twisted up in pretty unnatural ways, I drop off the twelves and start over at the twos for comfort. Two times two is four. Two times three is six. Two times four is eight.

Poison looks back at me with those wide, terrified eyes, and I'm seething. His fear seems to fuel the flames and I feel all the more drunk, all the more giggly, and all the more sadistic. The world whooshes around me, like I'm standing in the eye of a hurricane, watching the destruction tear past.

"Drop the aura and we'll talk, huh?" His words are soft and cowed. He shrinks back, just a little, and a grin spreads across my face in spite of me. I want to scream. Stay in control, Angel. Stay in control. I stumble back, hands clutching my face, so dizzy I almost fall over. I want to "drop the aura"—he doesn't know how bad I want to "drop the aura." But I can't. The ghosts have made themselves comfortable in my body, nestled deep in the darkest part of my mind. Limb-control is out the window. My hand shoots out, grabs Poison's neck. His eyes are so wide they're watery. I almost expect them to jump out of his sockets like the world's worst Jack-in-the-Box. The voices are louder, hissing, louder, louder, louder, until they're the only things taking up space inside my skull. I'm squeezing, laughing. Though I don't know what part of me finds sinking my fingers into the soft flesh of Poison's neck so entertaining. Two times five is ten. Two times six is twelve.

Twelve, darn it! It's not working. Poison makes a strangled cry and digs his fingers into his own skin, trying and failing to escape my hold. All he succeeds in doing is tearing long lines down his neck. The sight of blood, his and mine, makes me shaky as energy zaps out of me. I squeeze my eyes shut, focus with everything I can to muster down the voices. His neck is so delicate, the bones small and thin as they bob up and down under my fingers.

"Angelos?" His voice cracks, grating like a musical scale dragged over gravel. "Stop it."

The cat rubs up against my leg, purring happily as it bats my jeans. It's just a quick distraction, but it's just enough for me to notice a man's whistling down the cage's row. Voices chatter, mingling in the dark. I freeze.

"How'd they get here?" asks a girl. A man grunts in response.

"The Angelos boy asked, the other one chased him."

My hand drops and I whip around. Poison hears and makes a sound like a boy being drowned. Any semblance of calm, of the haughty mask he slid over his face, is gone. He wheezes, grabs his neck, and struggles against the bar welding him to the cage. Tugging, twisting, and writhing like a worm on a hook. Complete and utter panic, flashing on his face like a neon sign. 

"We're in trouble," he says, his voice still small and pitched and broken. Bruises dabble his neck, purple and green, slash marks from his own nails leaving the pale skin shredded into bloody strings. He doesn't even seem that mad I choked him, but I'm weakening. Some part of me knows I can sap all the life force out of him and use it as my own if I want. But I don't. Instead, I collapse. I hit the floor on my knees, the flames flaring up one more time before whisking out of existence. My eyes roll back in my head, the world's loudest groan escaping my lips. I feel like I've been hit by a bus, but Poison looks it.  A bus to the neck, that is. All stringy and bloody.

My brother glances down at me, eyes darting nervously between me and the rest of the row. His entire body trembles and I never thought a villain could look so scared. It seems years ago when he pulled Heaven under his spell, though it still fills me with anger, if only the cold type. Kepler the wolf pokes the back of my neck with her cold snout. I bite a hole in my cheek, my hands dripping red. Rusty spots stain her soft gray fur as I pet her. Crouched down, I listen to the approaching shuffle of feet.

I hear clinking. The dragging of chains on concrete floor, the picked up howling and whining of trapped animals. I shudder. Every part of me feels like putty, like that aura boiled my muscles to mush. Poison gives up, ends his struggling. He leans back, shakes his head. Squeezes his eyes shut and grumbles under his breath. His fingers hang limp over the bar, his arm raised above his head, the above and below of his wrist stained pink and purple. I wince. I didn't mean to do that, hurt him so bad. I don't know if I can get my aura up or if I can stay in control for so long, but I rise to my feet and ask, "Do you want me to try and free you?"

Poison's eyes flash, lips white and trembling, his face dripping with the sort of look a horror protagonist would give after a poltergeist banged up all their stuff. He shakes his head again and replaces the look with a sneer. It's clear how I make him feel. Which makes two of us. He beat me and strung me up and I strung him up and half-strangled him. No brotherly repentance and love in either of us, now that we're face to face. I didn't mean to hurt him this badly, but the guilt I feel is so little, nothing like when I nearly killed Galaxy/Hev out in the park and started to bawl. All I feel is a little prick of pain. A little uncomfortableness at how close I came to damaging him for good.

"And risk you tearing my head off my neck?" He pays me a smirk, a slight nod. I almost think it to come from admiration, but I'm not that naive. "I think I'd rather take my chances with Dad. He's...not gonna be very happy with me." He lowers his eyes, and for the first time, he doesn't look like he wants to rip out my livers. He actually looks tired. A little sad.

The chains rattle louder, the slow sound of applause reaching my ears. I whip around. Poison makes a tiny sound, something like a squeak. The drug guy, an orange-haired teenager, and a  tall, chuckling man stand at the end of the row.

My father.

He raises a hand, graying hair tucked neatly behind his ears. His jacket is long and black, flowing behind him like the tail feathers of a raven. He looks like a shadow, gliding soundlessly toward me. Poison shrinks back. I hear him whisper jumbled slews of disjointed sentences, but  I can't make out each individual word.

Some part of me thinks he's praying.

The pretty girl with the bright orange hair carries something her arms. Something gray and heavy that lies in a bundle, cuffs dangling over her arms and jingling with her bouncy strides.

A shiver shoots up my spine.

Manacles.

Poison's eyes fly open. "Run, you dimwit!" He smacks me across the head with his free hand. I don't even blink. Too shocked, too scared. My entire body stiff as a gravestone.

"My son," Fallout says with a sly smile and a twitch of his raised fingers. Tremors rock my body. I stare, heaving to breathe like his very presence sucks all the air out of my lungs. My wings flex, preparing for a flight. 

"Come here." He kneels like he's talking to a stray dog. He doesn't even pay Poison a glance. "I won't hurt you." The man's voice is so soft, so gentle when he speaks to me. His dark eyes are kind.

I want to believe him. Every part of me aches to believe him.

He beckons me with two fingers. His smile is small, aimed to comfort. He tips his head to the side good-naturedly. "I won't hurt you," Dad repeats.

And at his words, I think of Heaven, asleep on a hospital table. Gats trembling in his arms. He doesn't seem so good-natured any more. 

"I hate you!" The words sting my tongue as I spit them. Fallout looks up, wide-eyed. He has trusting eyes. Wondering why I'm so angry, I suppose, so scared. Wondering why I don't run up to him and squeeze him into a darn bear hug. 

Poison chuckles. The girl darts forward, lithe little body springing off the floor in a way that reminds me of a deer's. Her hair bounces off her shoulders, fanning out behind her like she's moving underwater. The manacles clang. I back up with long, gliding steps, listening as Poison starts to howl. Kepler whines.

"Son, don't make me chase you." Fallout stiffens, bobbed gray hair tumbling out from behind his ears in messy waves. His hair uncombed, his jacket wrinkled, he shouldn't  look so dignified. So intimidating. Like he could squash me if he just felt like lifting his three-hundred-dollar boot.

"I let you go before. Repay the favor. You're a skittish boy, one wrong move and you run." He yawns. "But I tried to give you enough slack, let the little prize stallion run until he tired himself all out and came back to his stall." Fallout's smile grows malicious. "I can't afford to lose you again, boy. I'll drag my prodigal son back kicking and screaming if I have to."

Kicking and screaming.

The girl races for me. My wings jolt out and I take off.