Damsel[ed]: Some Rescue Required (#2 of the Damsel[ed] series)

Chapter Sixty: Fallen

Heaven.

The sky is pink.

I'm in love with Poison.

And for Starlight's sake, someone needs to slap me in the face.

It's easy to forget your priorities when you're tired and hurt. I know that now, but Ceres' accusation still stings.

 I draw up a shaky breath. The street is all but empty beneath me. Cut with scraggly cracks, filled with black tar, and framed with broken, brown trees. It's my priority to kill Owl, I tell myself, remind myself. Save my friends. That's what matters.

Poison twitches. He's heavier than he looks, all the wing mass making him dead weight in my rubbery arms. Beautiful guy. Tall, strong, delicate-featured. There's something about him that feels dollish, more porcelain and lace than bone and flesh. The smell of him lingers on my skin, and it's divine. Musky and sweet, all in the same drag.

And this is how I know my head isn't mine. Maybe it was a bad idea, asking him to pull me under his influence before a big battle. Scratch that—it was a bad idea, plain and simple. But I'd rather think about my new eternal love for Poison than anything else. Less distracting than Gats, than a new home, then my status as prisoner.

"I cannot believe this." Jaylin clenches Natalie's shoulder as she flies up to my side. As for what she's not believing, I have no idea. Me and Poison, or the sky, maybe? It's gone a soft sort of violet, darker purple churning up ahead on the horizon. Sirens wail, but only from behind us, in Old Newport. Ahead, where the city thickens with sprawling skyscrapers, it's silent. I strain my super-senses, but I only hear a crackling hum. Something like electricity, hissing on a scale I've never heard before that burns my ears and scalds through my skin. The sky pools with a deep purple. And to me, it spells trouble.

"Does anyone know what that is?" I ask. Poison shifts, curling an arm around my neck and shoulders. My stomach flips. His goofy smile makes me go all gooey inside seventh-grade-crush mode. It makes me want to pummel myself.

"Dunno." He looks up, the light catching his eyes. It makes them glow like a cat's. "A doomsday device. Like a portal in the sky from the movies and stuff." His smirk makes my focus fizzle.

I'll spare you my thought processes for the most part, but so you know what I'm dealing with:

He's perfect. Does he know just how perfect he is? A paragon. A freaking paragon of beauty. Of strength. Who do I think I am, holding him? He's too beautiful to be touched. I hope he loves me. How can I deserve his love?

This. This is my brain. My disgusting, unliberated mush of a brain.

My heartbeat pounds in my ears. The speed and altitude of my flight makes my ears pop and I crook myself flat on the breeze, a hot sweat pooling through the thin cotton of my shirt.

Thoughts like these loop in the back of my head, now as natural to me as my own breathing. Learning to balance the voices in my mins is a scary sort of soothing, and though I know I won't be able to keep up forever, that's not important now.

"Doubtful, Katris." His name, though foreign, makes my lips tingle. "Any other suggestions?"

"Can't believe it," says Jaylin again, "just can't believe it."

"Little girl!" Fallout shouts. I glance back. I've almost forgotten about him. His hair whips back in his flight, his thick eyebrows snapped together and his teeth bared. His entire face is red. And though normally a supervillain's wrath is something to fear, I've stopped thinking of him as a supervillain. To my mind, he's become The World's Worst Chaperone On Our Field Trip to Hell. And who can blame him? Poison, Jaylin, me, Nat, we aren't the most normal kids. If I had to supervise us, I'd sip imaginary whiskey out of my imaginary #1 Dad cup and watch the world burn. "If you say that one more time I swear on Tauras's ghost I'll have you all shot!"