Gats.

You know that Taylor Swift song, the one about Band-Aids not fixing bullet holes? Now that I have some experience with both Band-Aids and bullet holes, I can now say without a doubt that yeah, they don't. At least, Owl's bandages never fixed my broken face. Sure, my healing factor must've kicked in, because around hour three the bleeding stopped, but it didn't help me much. I was still stuck there, so woozy I didn't even think about finding an escape route, let alone try to make a break for it. So I slept instead, hung up on the Velcro straps, my back bent and chunks of mattress torn up in my claws.

But now, Owl has me slung over her shoulder like a rolled up rug, her black-cloaked guards flanking her on either side. The whole healing process took a lot out of energy from me and still does, even now. My stomach rumbles, striking me with something I've deliriously contemplated before. What if she doesn't feed me? I swallow hard. Even if I am special, maybe she'll just let me starve to death. She said she could make use without me and she tried to kill me before, so I don't see why she wouldn't do it again.

And you know what? I didn't reflect on anything, if that's what the villain wanted. A frustrated purr wells up in the back of my throat. I only remember how the new flesh crawled up the wound to seal it shut, and if I weren't so sleepy I think I would've cried. But I didn't. I just laid there, feeling the blood clot up and scab over. And eventually, I faded.

I look up to see Owl chew the side of her dagger. A thin film of sweat builds on the back of my neck. I try to tense and still my trembling, but my mind is racing. I don't know if I can take a stabbing; I'm already pretty scuffed up as it is.

Owl and her guards are as silent as a funeral procession. I don't want to speak. Nothing I say will make this easier for me; I know that now. As I contemplate a mode of action, my face throbbing and my body as flimsy as unshaped clay against her, Owl's phone rings in her pocket. She stops sharply, jerking me to a shor stop while cursing bitterly in another language. Multiple languages, telling from the flow and ebb of the sharp and soft phonetic sounds in her dialect. The guards stiffen like corpses, but my fingers hang limp and cold over her shoulder, my breathing labored and sickly. A word enters my mind that I focus on it for a  flash of a second.

Death.

I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't thought about it. A lot. But it always felt too abstract to be real. 

How can I die now, when everything was so perfect only a couple days ago? When Angel insisted on playing Monopoly. When Heaven kissed me in the hall. My breath wavers. Why can't that ever last for us?

Owl answers her phone. "You have three minutes to explain why you're speaking to me on my personal cell, Poison. I'd like to know where you got the number—what? Well, yes." A pause that makes me squirm. "Yes. I can do that."

Owl fits her phone into her jeans pocket, and then she rolls me off her shoulder and I fall into the crook of her arm.

It's a sudden move. I kick with resistance, but it isn't much of a fight. I'm as limp and fragile as a paper doll, a feverish ache spread all over my body. It burns, eats me up on the inside. I bite hard on the inside of my cheek, tearing a ragged seam into the soft flesh that singes my tongue with the taste of blood and salt. Owl grabs me under the arms and hefts me into the air like she's picking up an overstuffed toy. She smiles. And I see her perfect white teeth, her dimples, the way her black patch shines in the glow of the domed hall fixtures. Everything around us is white: the walls, the floors, the lights. My cold fingers clench into fists. Owl and her guards are the only things of color in the papery halls.

I'm about to work up enough blood and saliva to spit at Owl when she redirects her attention to the guards. At her cool gaze, the two figures bow, cloaks fluttering like sails out around them.  The hairs prickle up on my arms. I mean, if some psychopath came up to me and was like, "hey, you wanna serve my every whim and bow to me every time I look at you?" I would politely decline. What did she say to these people? What things did she do to make them fear her like this?

I don't want to know, but if I don't get out, I have a hunch I'll learn.

"Ma'am?" I slur. I know if Heaven were in my position she would fight until they tied her down and I know if Angel were in my position he would talk like a madman until they gagged him. But me? I 'm not strong enough to fight and I'm not brave enough to speak up.  Maybe I've become too soft, but I've seen more than them. I know when to play along, and all the ego in me is too wounded to convince me otherwise. Owl stares at me, eyes narrowed, and I wonder if she even thinks of me as human. I doubt it. Her dove hops on her shoulder, its white wings spread. It's still looking at me with its hard, beady eyes, and I think it wants to eat me.

She's still chewing the blade of her dagger, the entire sharp side shoved in her jaw. A bead of blood springs down her lip. "Take care of this prisoner," she says to the guards, the both of them now on their knees.

"Yes, ma'am."

She drops me. I flip and land delicately on my feet. Without a thought about it, I bolt. At least, I try to. A guard snatches me by my arm and yanks me against them. I never see my captor's face; the shadow from his hood blots it out like a mask.

Owl grins, the hilt of her dagger pointed at me like the white part of a cigarette. 

"And if he escapes," she starts through a mouth full of shiny metal. With a cheery smile, she flicks her head back and sends the blade flying. The guards jump and the dagger clatters to the floor, spit-washed shiny. "I will see to it I have your spleens. Personally."

"Grand," mutters the guard with his arm on mine.  At the lilting tone of the cloaked figure's voice, I realize the 'his' should be a 'her.' "Yes, ma'am!" she says at the top of her lungs, her tone bright and perky.

I peek up through damp strands of white hair. I have to get out of here.

Because I know things will end very badly for me if I don't.

***

Heaven.

Cat never made good on her threat, or at least, she never killed me. A minute in, and I decide I'd rather she did. There's nothing more humiliating than getting scolded by a supervillain—No. I take that back. There are a few somethings more humiliating. Say, being dragged back to a van you helped steal, followed by a would-be superhero who asks: "Are you alright? Are you okay?" again and again while you can hardly stand straight because you, the once invincible hero, are in too much freaking pain.

There. That's humiliating. Cat flings the passenger side door open, her eyes drawn into slits and voice shaky. Her face is as red as a cherry Mustang and it would be funny if I weren't the person she were mad at. As it is, it's threatening. Just a little bit.

"What's wrong with you!" She grabs me under the arm and slams me into the seat. I don't speak; my head hurts too much. I just need to take the lickings and get it over with. Fighting with Cat isn't what I'm supposed to be doing anyway, I'm supposed to be helping people. "Gats and Angel are in trouble, and what do you do? You run off! You suck at heroing, Hev, okay? You suck at it!" She's screaming now, the veins in her neck bulging. The masked girl just looks on, her thin, wavering shadow spread on the pavement. I think she's shaking.

I raise my eyes and wave a hand at her, motioning for her to go back to where she came from. She can't help me here. Cat slaps my hand so hard I nearly cry out. But I don't. I drop my pounding hand to my side and silently count off. It'll all get better, I tell myself. Eventually. As soon as we find the boys and save them.

"Who are you?" the girl asks. Her voice is almost a whisper, and Cat stamps her foot with another raged shriek. That's another thing about supervillains, they have anger issues, and the serious kind. Not just a flushed face or quickened breathing, but screaming and stomping and chucking things. People may say I have a temper, but that's because they've never met a supervillain. I roll my eyes and snap my seatbelt in place because it would suck to die in a car accident of all things now. It would almost be funny, if death was the type of thing that's funny. Cat slams the van door shut behind me, but I crank the window down to hear her response.

"I'm the girl from your nightmares," she says with her hands making big, spooky gestures by her sides. Really overdramatic, that Cat. I flick the glove compartment open which is sticky with grease and nearly jammed shut at the hinges. The delivery man keeps cookies here, and though they're a little hard and a little stale, I pull a chocolate chip one from a bag and take a bite. The cookie nearly breaks my teeth, but boy, am I starved.

"So you're a supervillain?" the would-be superhero asks. Distant gunshots ring out and I flinch. That's where I should be right now, helping the police. But instead, I'm powerless, flopped against the scratchy seat of a stolen van. My heart clenches. I can see myself, armor flashing, deflecting the bullets that could kill a non-super. I can see myself chasing down those crooks and pinning them for the police. If I were there, no one would get hurt. But I'm not. I'm not there, I don't have shining armor and I don't have powers. There's nothing I can do, nothing of myself I can sacrifice, even if I wanted to.

I'm useless, and the thought is feels worse than death itself.

"What tipped you off, princess?" Cat hisses back. She punches the door so hard it crumples on the inside into a fist-sized dent. I bite the inside of my lip. It isn't fair she's so strong. It doesn't even make sense.

Something's wrong with you. Something happened to you when you fell asleep, those drugs Toby bought with your freedom, they did something to you.

Yeah, no kidding. The deep sleep, Toby's bargain he made with Snare for the drugs to save my life, they feel like they happened to someone else in an entire different era, but something Poison said chills my blood.

"Those drugs we gave Toby, they could be destroying you. You might need us more than you think."

"Do you, like, do crime stuff?" the superhero girl asks, and her voice, so soft and young, snaps me back to my senses. The air is warm, the smell of it rich with decay and hamburger grease.

"No." Cat storms to the driver's side. "I'm a supervillain who doesn't do any criminal activity at all. I just think the title is so freaking snazzy!"

The girl flinches, and hate to be someone to think this, but the kid reminds me of myself. At least, the me I was when I first tried my hand the superhero schtick as a thirteen-year-old with only a plastic purple mask and the urge to make a difference. I don't think anyone has superhero material in them. We just do what we do because we can, and no one else will, so we have to.

The girl catches the handle of the back door and swings in just as Cat buckles up in the driver's seat. Cat groans and slams her head back against the chair. "Get out."

"What are you going to do with her?" The girl presses her elbows onto the edge of the empty glove compartment and motions toward me. With a quick glance in my direction, she grabs a cookie from the bag I tore open and stuffs it in the side of her mouth so one cheek puffs out like a chipmunk's. Not the most intimidating move, but hey. Free food is free food. I offer her a small smile.

Cat flashes the superhero a smile, her entire face strained as if the gesture hurts. "None of your business. Go home or I'll kick your skinny butt out the window."

The girl frowns, blonde ponytail swishing. She gives me another glance, green eyes wide and electric. "Ay, I'll be fine," I tell her, but my voice is gruff and strained. I hang my arm out over the window and sigh at the darkening sky. Soon, it'll all be over. My boys will be back and everything will be okay. Yet despite that knowledge, my fists still tremble. How unfair is it Cat is stronger than me? My mind refuses to let the subject go. How can it be?

The girl looks back at Cat. "If you're a supervillain, then do you know why those guys ganged up on me?" She pauses thoughtfully. "Does that happen to a lot of superheroes? Is that why they're all going missing? Do people just catch them like—like Pokemon?"

Cat glances at the back window and slams her foot on the gas. "Not the best metaphor you could've chosen." The car jolts and the girl looks up wildly. I grab the window.

"Cat—"

She laughs. It's a wild sound, like a thousand birds taking flight all at once. "But yes. Gold freaking star for you, Sherlock."