Angel paced around the block, going on lap three. He rehearsed what he was going to say to Nyx in his head over and over, but couldn't seem to get the words right.

How hard is it to apologize?

Though if he were being honest with himself, it was not the apology he was having a hard time with.

I don't know what to tell her. I don't want to hurt her, but I can't let her go.

He kicked a pebble as he came around the corner to face Nyx's cabin once again. The red paint peeled away and made the siding patchy. Clumps of clover, daisies and Queen Anne's lace filled the overgrown yard, almost hidden behind the scraggly blackberry bushes on the property line. The front porch sagged into the earth, clinging to life by the mercy of a few solid boards that had managed to avoid the moisture and rot.

This place needs so much work.

It had taken Angel a year to repair the major faults in his own house, and it still wasn't completely finished.

Nyx probably doesn't want my help. She doesn't even need it.

Finally, on the next loop around, he forced himself to approach the cabin and let himself in through the front door. He kicked his shoes off in the porch and went into the empty living-room.

Nyx's house was bigger and more open than his own, with no wall separating the living room from the kitchen. The space smelled of floor cleaner and fresh air from the open windows. It had yet to be filled with the bussiness of lived-in clutter and knick-knacks.

The bare yellow walls waited for pictures and decorations to be put up. Cigarette butts crammed in the ashtray on the coffee table and the skateboard propped against the wall were the only signs of Nyx.

The rest of the furniture was sparse. A small side table sandwiched between the mismatched armchair and sofa. The circular kitchen table and its ring of dining chairs occupied the corner between the living-room and kitchen, marking the barrier between the spaces.

Angel followed the sound of rummaging and movement to the kitchen and was surprised to find a strange woman chopping carrots at the counter. Potatoes boiled on the stove behind her. The grey t-shirt she wore hung to her thighs. He recognized it as one of Nyx’s… or perhaps it had even been his own at one point. Acid wash jeans were cinched to her waist by a black belt and rolled up at the cuffs.

This must be Kismet, the girl Alice told me about.

"Hey, you're not Nyx," he said. "Is she around?"

The woman jumped at the sound of his voice, squealing, in the span of a second, her hand slipped and the knife came down on her finger.

“Damn it!”

She jolted away from the counter, clutching her hand to her chest. Blood oozed between her fingers.

“Oh, shit!” Angel exclaimed, rushing toward her. “What did you do?”

Tears swam in her eyes, but she bit them back. She gingerly extended her hand, showing a deep gash in her left index finger. Blood dripped onto the white linoleum floor. Angel sucked air through his teeth.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s not your fault. I didn’t feel you come in - I mean, I didn’t hear you…” The girl stammered. She stared at the floor, brown curls hiding her face. “I got spooked, I guess. Maybe it needs stitches?”

The blood would not stop. She wrapped her finger in the edge of the t-shirt, pressing hard with the opposite hand. Blood soon soaked it through.

Angel’s heart raced.

This is all my fault.

“Here, can I see it again?”

Kismet brought her hand out. On second sight, the wound was deeper than he first assumed. Without further thought, Angel took her hand in his.

Her life-force was unlike anything he’d noticed so far. It swirled in dual streams. One was much deeper, and steadier while the other overlapped it in a parallel rush. It spun in the opposite direction, quicker, like the rapids in an overfull river.

He drew attention to his own energy and tugged it toward the surface, gathering it.

I gotta fix this, but how?

He guided the warm energy toward his hands, amazed it obeyed his unspoken demand. They both stared in awe as an azure glow emerged in his palms.

“What are you -” Kismet began to ask, but the tiny spark of light grew into a larger ball, enveloping her hand. She gasped, watching the blazing glow. “Your powers are like -”

Eventually, she withdrew. They both marvelled at the fresh, healed skin. She turned her hand back to front, looking at it from every angle.

"That's incredible!"

Angel released his focus, letting the ball dissolve into the air again.

The room spun, blurring his vision. He staggered to the side, grasping for the nearest chair before he could fall. Kismet saw his fumbling and took his elbow, guiding him into a seat.

It feels like I was the one that was bleeding… what the hell?

Angel braced himself on his knees to keep from throwing up. Exhaustion flooded him, dragging his eyelids down. Consciousness played tag with him as he faded in and out, seeing sparks.

Kismet hovered.

“Are you ok?” she asked, shifting her weight from foot to foot, wringing her sleeves.

“I don’t know -”

The uncertainty quickened his pulse and formed a sheen of clammy sweat on the back of his neck. This was unlike anything he'd ever felt before.

“Here, I’ll get you a drink.”

“Yeah, whiskey would be -”

“I’m getting you water,” she said, hurrying to the sink.

Angel focused on the sound to keep himself grounded. He closed his eyes and kept his mind on the chair under him. Kismet pressed the cold glass into his hand. The condensation helped him maintain consciousness.

What have I done? It’s hardly been three days and I’ve already revealed my powers to a complete stranger. I’m doomed.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Fuck, I shouldn’t have done that. Nyx will kill me. She’s already mad enough -”

“I’m sure she’ll understand,” Kismet said softly. “Just drink your water.”

“I gotta clean up all this blood -”

Kismet nudged the glass toward his face and Angel finally took a sip, his mind still spinning.

I’m so fucked. Why do I ruin everything?

The water helped. but he still felt woozy and nowhere near ready to stand.

Ivy will find me out in no time if I keep this up.

“I’m Kismet by the way,” she said, taking the empty cup away to the sink.

“Angel,” he muttered.

“I figured,” Kismet said, coming back to sit with him at the table.

He looked up at her, fighting against the ebbing nausea.

“Please don’t tell anyone. Only Nyx, Alistair and Cass know about this and we gotta keep it that way. I don’t want to risk Ivy finding out.”

“I completely understand,” she said. She evaded looking at his face, hiding behind a curtain of hair as she looked toward the window. “Thank you for healing me anyway. I promise, I won’t tell a soul.”

“You wouldn’t have been hurt if it weren’t for me in the first place.”

“It was an accident,” Kismet assured him, finally meeting his eyes. He was surprised to find how sharp they were, boring straight into him and he shifted slightly like a bug under a microscope. “Daisy was right. My powers don’t work on you at all. Normally, I can sense people coming, but you snuck right up on me.”

Angel leaned back, finally feeling more settled. The duality of her life-force intrigued him.

“What are your powers anyway? Alistair didn’t say.”

“I’m an empath.” Kismet averted her eyes again, fiddling with the cuff of her sweater. “Daisy is going to help me.”

Lucky. I wish I could talk to Daisy about my powers.

“Are you scared of Ivy too, is that why you didn’t go to The Academy?” Kismet asked.

"Sorta.” Angel didn’t want to admit it, though he supposed that’s exactly what he was. “Nyx is right. It’s best to keep it quiet, but ultimately, I think if someone represses an essential part of themselves, it's bound to creep up one way or another. It's more dangerous to ignore it."

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees to cradle his face in his hands. His cheeks were warm under his palms.

I wish I could do what Nyx wants, but it'll kill me to try.

Kismet nodded, nibbling her lip. "Well, maybe you could find some other way to practice?"

“How? Maybe you could help me?”

“I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Maybe you could teach me what you learn from Daisy? Anything will help.”

Kismet stared at the surface of the table, drumming her fingers against the wood. “I dunno -”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

Kismet didn’t respond, instead she got up from the table to clean. Now feeling better, Angel joined her. Blood splattered over the floor and counter. The carrots would definitely need to be disposed of. While he scraped them away into the garbage and set about scrubbing the cutting board, Kismet wiped the counter.

Angel resigned himself to not receiving an answer while they cleaned in silence.

“I’ll try my best to help you,” she said finally, still scouring the counter top. “It may not be perfect, but we can try.”

The tension of uncertainty clenching a heavy fist in the center of his chest finally let go, if only a little.

“Really?”

She nodded and moved on from wiping the counter to moping the floor.

“So, this is what all the fuss is about then?” Kismet asked. “Why Alistair thought you were dead, and then you weren’t?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I didn’t mean to get them all worked up,” Angel said, and went on to fill Kismet in on the situation. Telling the story again felt surreal, like it happened to someone else.

“How horrible,” she said when he finished. The pity in her eyes made him look away.

“It wasn’t great. That’s why I really need to figure this out before I make anything worse. I don’t know where the fuck these powers even came from, why they’re so much like Ivy’s and I can’t ask anyone about it because they might report me.”

The words poured out of him in a rush, like they had been buried just under his tongue all this time, dying to get out. The stress he’d barely crammed into the pit of his stomach shifted and rose.

There’s no way I’m gonna cry in front of a stranger.

Angel straightened up. He continued scrubbing, unable to turn and look at Kismet. He placed the clean cutting board in the dish rack with the others, before starting to dry them and put them away. Why Nyx always left them out afterwards was beyond him.

It takes two seconds just to dry them and put them in the cupboard…

Kismet’s sudden hand on his elbow made him flinch, nearly dropping a plate.

“Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to scare you, but are you ok?”

“Ah, yeah, I’m fine.” He turned and continued to stack the dishes.

She frowned up at him. “If you say so - and I’m not trying to be offensive - but you really don’t seem like it.”

Oh you know, just the usual existential dread, questions on mortality and doubting the nature of my entire existence.

“Nothing to be worried about,” he said with a reassuring smile. “How are you? What’s your whole deal?”

Kismet pulled up a chair and sat down while Angel continued to organize the dishes.

“Are you always like this?” she asked.

Angel finished the dishes and took the dishrag to the counters again, clearing up all the sections Kismet had missed.

“Like what?”

“Well, I dunno, this sort of jittery?” Kismet squinted at him. “I can’t see your colours at all. Maybe I could if I tried.”

He tightened his grip on the dish cloth, scrubbing at a stubborn piece of hardened food.

“How should I know?” he shrugged. “You could try to use them if you want to?”

“Oh no,” she said quickly. “I don’t want to do that. It’s just that this has never happened to me before and well, to be honest, it’s kind of interesting.”

“Interesting?” he laughed. “Daisy always thought it was annoying.”

Kismet got up and got another batch of carrots out of the fridge.

“It’s a relief, really.” She rummaged for the newly cleaned cutting board again and started to slice.

Angel cleared away all the green tops and discarded chunks. It was hard to picture how being without one’s powers would be relieving.

Sounds like a total nightmare.

“So you don’t think there’s ever a good time to use your powers?” Angel asked.

Kismet tensed. The heavy knife carved through the thick carrot in a steady, thunking rhythm.

“There are some occasions that call for it, but that’s part of what I’m sick of too. I have to constantly use my discretion, and who am I to make a decision like that? It would be so much easier to just turn it off.”

Take your powers away completely? That’s nuts.

“Your powers are part of you,” he protested.

Kismet turned away to scrape the carrots into a pot of water while he got the steak out of the fridge.

“So, you wouldn’t go back to how things were before?” she asked.

“Not a chance,” Angel exclaimed. “Well, on the surface level I do. Like I wish I hadn’t found out that way, you know? But I love my powers. They’re the only thing about this whole situation I don’t hate. How could I live without my heightened senses, my resilience, my wings, or any of it. It’s all one in the same.”

“You have wings?” Kismet asked.

“That’s hardly the weirdest thing about me,” he laughed, pulling down a mixing bowl from the cupboard. He poured in some cooking oil. Just enough to fill the bottom before tossing in the spices.

Kismet flushed. “I suppose that’s true.”

They continued cooking together, making small talk to fill in enough gaps to avoid talking any more about the larger issues at hand. It crossed his mind to ask Kismet if Nyx had said anything about their argument at all, if she’d said anything about what he could possibly say or do to make it better. Girls talked about these things, didn't they?

Nyx told me what she wanted, I just don’t want to hear it.

To answer Kismet’s earlier question, he would go back if given a chance, but not to the fight, or to the moment his powers manifested, but back to the shed - to the moment they laid on the mattress, staring at the dust dancing in the light and she asked him to move in.

What if I had said yes instead?

While Angel cleaned up the cookware they had finished using, he let himself imagine an alternate reality where he’d simply pulled her close and agreed. He’d tell her that he was happy to have her, that he’d only been waiting for her to ask.

Or maybe he’d go all the way back to their senior dance. Instead of complain about the stuffiness and the formality, he’d just ask her to go. This time, they wouldn’t sneak behind the bleachers, he wouldn’t let her get dirt on her dress.