Angelos.

"Kiddo," the man says, "hold your breath. This might hurt."

I've been holding my breath for minutes, so I give him an incoherent sound, not even a spoken response, a grunt.  My face is jammed into the steel table so that the bruises under my eyes and down my cheeks throb with fresh pain. The exhaustion, the pain, physically and mentally, it all sets in. I'm sitting in a crooked oak chair with the back digging into my spine and exposed wings which flex automatically. It's a nervous feeling, how my wings move on their own like that. It's like having hands that flail up out of nowhere. The feathers, too, they fluff up like cat fur.

"Kid?"

"Do your worst."

He slams the crowbar down on the links between the cuffs. The metal loops dig deeper into my wrists with each crack of the tool. My breath quivers. The table, I decide, is a nice color up close, and cleaner than you would think it would be. It's sleek and cold, like the stainless steel of my refrigerator at home. My heart pings in my chest, like one of the moving pieces in a pinball. Who would've thought home really was where the heart is? That the thought of it could make you cry. 

Adventure books are fun. You'd think the real stuff, at least the stuff real in my life—I'm almost wondering if my life isn't that real at all—would be equally as fun, but instead, it entails a lot of blood and a lot of pain.

"Oy," the man groans. "This might take awhile. Are you adverse to acid?"

"Um." I swallow hard. "Yeah. I mean, I don't like it, if that's what you mean."

His footsteps shuffle on the concrete. He had huff like the snort of a tractor-trailer. "Well, then. You're going to have to suck it up. Wait where you are. "

And so I do. I just listen to my own breathing and think. I think about a lot of things. I think about Gatsby being taken and Heaven collapsed in a limp heap on my bed and Jaylin trying to kiss me. I think about Ceres and Poison beating me and the crowds watching, not a single one stepping in and saying, "Hey, you're going a little far, aren't you?" And my mind goes hundreds of other places from there. Thought experiment: if you break the fourth wall, but you aren't fictional, then are you really breaking the fourth wall? And if you are fictional, but you don't know it, and you talk to an audience, is that a fourth wall break? Example: you are my hypothetical audience. This is all in my head. But what if you, hypothetical audience of hypothetical ladies who want to marry me because I'm a hypothetical gentleman, are not hypothetical at all, but real, and I'm just, like, a figment of your imagination? Am I breaking the fourth wall, right now, by talking to you? Or am I not, because I'm madly rambling in my head and don't really know you exist and—

So this is what insanity feels like. It feels like trying to talk yourself to death, like the madness of thinking yourself past reason feels more structured and gives you more control than reality does.

The man sighs and sets something cold by my elbow. "Interesting stuff this is made of, but I've seen it before," he says through a mouthful of something. He's a kind of chatty guy, and I like to listen to him speak. "In blades, mostly. Handcuffs are an interesting choice, but ingenious, come to think of it. You came to the right place."

"Fate." I swipe my tongue over my teeth, trying to rid the taste of blood from my mouth. "It's fate right?"

"Fate wants you dead, kiddo," he says after smashing the crowbar down once more. I bite down hard. The cuffs make me bleed, and I clench my fists until my knuckles feel like they're about to pop through my skin. He never heard enough of my story to warrant the "fate wants you dead" line, but I can't help but agree, and so I nod, never lifting my head, just rubbing my face against the cool steel table. It feels oddly nice, like I'm ironing out all the wrinkles in my face.

"Aha!" he cries. A link splinters and I yank my hands free.

I can't help but make a little sound of relief as I grab at the cuffs. I'm bleeding where they reopen old scabs, and throught it all I think I am something of a walking injury at this point, and I chuckle under my breath. The man picks my hand flat off the table and sets it back down on a folded lump of fabric. I barely lift my head up. "Thanks."

A shirt. I hardly even think about it as I fling it over my head and stuff my arms through the sleeves. Not my size, a little short around the midsection and a little tight up near the shoulders. My bulging wings strain the back to the edge of breaking. The kids in Max Ride have wings that expand from inside their backs, so they don't have to deal with this, and the Generation Icarus kids havw some pretty ingenious ways of hiding theirs. Angels in paranormal shows can sometimes make theirs just go invisible. Luckies.

As for me, well, I'll figure something out. Eventually. I can't have people keep mistaking me for Poison (Poison!) and I have to find a way to snap my wings out if I have to fly, baby, fly my way tp safety. I guess I have to get used to it. I'm going to be hunted all my sorry, miserable life, all because of a psychotic mother, a sadistic brother, and a shadowy father who probably doesn't care if I live or die.

But that's okay, I tell myself, that's okay. Some guys get dads who give them small loans of a million dollars and some guys get dads who hunt their own sons down until their child's life is in such a state of disarray if you opened a dictionary and searched for "hot mess," you would find a copy of their memoir somehow stapled in. I bury my chin in the collar of the borrowed Polo. It's a clean, white shirt that smells of deteregent, and it's so comforting, I could bawl into it. "You really are the best," I say to the guy, who buzzes like a worker bee around his store. His illegal drug store. What reality did I fall into, or more appropriately, what reality did Poison drag me into?

"How much do I get paid for this?" he asks, never looking back at me.

"How much do you wanna get paid for this?" I bite one of the cuffs around my wrists, the one being the left one. Granted, the metal is pretty hard stuff and kind of hurts to be chewed, but it feels good to do something. My eyes droop. I didn't sleep last night. I didn't sleep much today,  except when I blacked out after my aura came out, but I don't consider that sleeping. More like pseudo-sleeping. I stand up, shaky on the balls of my feet. Wearing a shirt, I feel like a leading man. When this blows over, I'm buying lots of shirts. Like, man-fashion shirts. I'm going to get into clothing and I'm going to be the slickest looking shirt-wearing guy anyone's ever seen.

"Hmm. A pack of cigarettes?"

I frown, tossing my hair out of my good eye. It feels good to move my hands and it feels eceb more good to speak. "How about the candy ones? They're better for your health, sir."

The man snorts and throws his head back, black eyes glowing like a flash of obsidian. "Ay, kid, you're a card!"

I've never been called a card before, but I think it's better than 'punk', 'villain,' and 'criminal,' the usual stuff I get these days, so I stuff my hands in my pockets and smile, folding my wings neatly against my shoulders. The cuffs are now a little spitty and still dig, but if I had a million dollars for every [insert quantifiable measure of choice] of care I gave, I'd still be pretty flat broke myself.

"Okay." The man strokes his chin. "How about a thousand dollars in small bills exact?"

"Dude, you went from, like, a four dollar death-carton to a thousand freaking bucks. A jump, much?" Sassing a guy, I feel like a normal teenager, and so I almost giggle. Uncuffed. Wearing a shirt. Not being publicly beaten by my brother. I think a legitimate tear of happiness springs to my eye.

Gosh, it really doesn't take much to keep me satisfied. Maintenance-wise, I'm like the goldfish of teenage boys. Read that ladies? Marry me.

"Sass me again and I'll make it ten-thousand." The man cocks an eyebrow, the link of my handcuffs clenched in his teeth. I chuckle and pace. The adrenaline fading from my system, I assess where it really hurts. My ribs, my back, my face, my shoulders, and most of my midsection, for that matter. Each breath sends a shudder of pain through me, so I try something else: I run my hands through my hair. It's shorter now, tapering to the nape of my neck, my once glorious mane greasy and tangled. "Fine, sir." I miss the days when my biggest concerns were making my hair lay correctly and whether it was Pantene or John Frieda that gave it the right amount of shine factor.

He gives me a victorious nod. "What's your name?" he probes, spitting the link into his hand and taking up a bottle cap instead.

"Angelos."

He beams. This man doesn't miss a beat. "Are you Greek?" He pulls up a stool beside the chair I sat in earlier, and I take it as a gesture to sit down. Believe it or not, even sitting hurts. I grind my teeth as I plop down, the pain in my back and thighs the smoldering type that doesn't seem to leave no matter what I do. I shrug.

"I don't think so. I think my guardians are just eccentric and like puns." I point at my wings.

He grins, pulling the cold cup he set at my elbow away from my arm. "Watch this," the man says, and I do. I stare hard as he flicks the link from finger to finger.  Firm jaw set, he drops the it into the glass of water.

And then it explodes.

Well, okay, the explosion part is a little bit of an exaggeration, but not much of one. The link ruptures in a bright red aura, and I even jump out of my chair, gasping. The flames bubble and hiss in the solution. The flames die, melting into a red liquid that stews on the top of the solution. My heart pumps. My mind races. Another aura. Another color. Belongs to a thing, not to a person. I'm not alone.

"How?" I squeak. I don't even bother to think up a full sentence or even a full question.  My jaw twitches, my hands seized with tremors. "How are you—"

"Angelos, kiddo." He slaps his arm around my shoulders, sandwiching my wings under his hands. They're still a little sensitive, and I grind my teeth to forget about the pain surging through the twisty web of veins. "Have you heard of power harvesting?"

I go stiff. Oh, spit. I'm dealing with a guy who sells illegal power pills. Maybe I should ask for his number and split.

I mean, I have heard of power harvesting, and I heard it from a "don't sell if you're swell" spokesperson at school. Even when my aura went berserk, I never once considered power harvesting an option. Never even cast it a thought. It felt about as plausible as, "Hey, my leg hurts, so why not shoot myself in the face? I mean, yeah, it'll kill me, but then my leg will stop hurting."

I'm getting morbid. I guess that's what living sort of on the lam will get you. Morbid metaphors.

"Yes, sir, I've heard of it, but I'm not interested."

He raises an eyebrow, and I shrink back in my chair. Maybe this is why he was so nice to me. He saw the wings and knew I had some sick powers. I straighten the collar of the borrowed shirt, heat flushing my face so I feel like I stuck my head into a skillet. He knew Poison was after me because of my powers and he took me in so he could steal the spoils. I cross my arms and glare at the shelves of bottles.

"You sure?"

"Yes, sir."

His fingers trace the veins of my wings. My shoulders jump.

"You have wings. Kid, if I could have those cut, the power harvested there—"

"No." The chair screeches when I stand up, the legs scratching the neat white tile. "Thank you for your help, but I can't give you my wings." My breathing comes heavy. It's almost funny how smoothly the words escape me. My life would be a lot easier without wings. No one would question the glowing bulges under my shirt and no one would mistake me for Poison. Granted, I like flying and I guess the wings are part of me now, but...

Do you know what power harvesting does to you? You go the injection route and it cuts the very strands of your DNA, the stuff that makes you you. Done by nonprofessionals, you know how dangerous that is? How easy it is to cut the wrong genomes and make you mutate? You go by machines and you're all dead little kids. The force of them, the bolts, they'll tear you apart. Snap your skulls in two and rip the very skin off your flesh. You survive that, you'll go insane.

That's why I'm not so keen on losing my wings, I guess.

The man smooths a finger down the side of his face, the wrinkles in his forehead flat and his black eyes so bright and buggy I know he's plotting something. A smirk curls on his bottom lip. I turn toward the door, and the man laughs. Slow and easy, supervillain laughter. Shivers prick my shoulders. "Go on out there, Angelos. Poison's friends will snap you up in three seconds flat."

I whirl around, my hands flat against the shelves. My lip curls, hands instinctively clenched for a fight. This, this is bad. "Is this a trap?" If it is, I'll fight with whatever strength I have left. I'm already sizing him up. I'm hurting everywhere, limbs achy and bruised. The healing factor must be kicking in, keeping me from falling over half-dead. If it is, then it's buggy as all heck, but I'm grateful for it.

The man's smile fades. "It was only an offer, punk. Don't get paranoid on me."

I cross my arms over my chest and glower. I'm not a punk. I hate being called a punk. "Well, thanks for taking me in, anyway." I really am, even if it doesn't show with my growling and all. He shrugs, the red flush leaving his cheeks.

"I want to see that money." He stalks off, through the back door, and my eyes draw back to that chain link, drowned in its own aura.

In the cup's side, I see my reflection again, and I nearly scream. At least, I would if I were remotely shocked at "surprising" stuff. As it is, I just draw in a long, trembling sigh. My reflection is the one I saw earlier when I woke up after my aura came out and I ran away from home. My eye, the one covered by the patch, blacked over. My mouth twisted into a smirk. My aura blazing.

This is you. Get a good look.

Another voice in my head, darn it.

"Wait!" I cry, knocking the cup over with the side of my hand. The solution pills over the edge of the table, bubbling and hissing like a witch's brew. The man peers out from behind the door. He's been watching me, but I don't care. In the red of the tainted water, I see the other me and hear the same voice in my voice, cool and distant, hisses like whispers. This is who you are, this is who you are, you can't escape it, this is who you are—

"Shut up!" I hiss through my teeth, smashing the glass into a million pieces under my fist. I'll get a paying job and I'll give this man money for his cup and shirt, but right now, I want to make the voice and reflection go away. That's all I care about, can care about. The solution hisses as it drips down my skin. The man comes back, a victorious smile clear on his smug face. A purple liquid pools under my fingertips, driven out of my skin by the solution. It burns. I squeeze my eyes shut. "What was it you said about power harvesting?" I murmur.

"Violet," the man mutters under his breath. "Holy crap kid, your aura, it's...kid. "

I'm sick of this, people gasping at my powers, talking about how special/horrible/evil I am when I don't even know the rules of the game and how to play it.

He grabs me by the collar of my shirt, snapping the chair to the floor with a sharp jerk. I tumble back, kicking and clawing, my arm pounding with fresh pain.

"You wanna learn about power harvesting?" He sounds like he's laughing, and I swallow hard, my chest heaving. I don't know where I am or who this is or where Gats is being held. 

Still, I nod. I need to know what's happening, what my options are, what I can do to quell the aura that nearly destroyed me.

And yet, as the man pulls me to my feet, I know this is a very, very bad idea.