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El threw Beta down in a chair, his hands tied firmly behind his back with a string. He looked up at the hybrid and smiled. Willow and Faith had been ushered out of their own room, the others not wanting the two Queens to witness whatever they decided to do. Only Hershey, Matrix, El, Halsey, and Beta remained. The villagers were recovering from the disturbing outburst and Willow and Faith were trying to clear the air. “Fix this,” Faith hissed to El before leaving the room, and he promised he would.

“Okay,” El said, breathing out. “Obviously you’ve lost your god-like powers or you wouldn’t just be sitting here with such an insouciant expression like you’re wondering what’s for lunch. So, my question would be: Why the hell shouldn’t I kill you?”

Beta put on a face like he was thinking about it even though he wasn’t. He smiled. “Well, for two reasons. The first one I’m sure you’ve already guessed, but I’ll give you a bit of a reminder anyway.” Beta whistled, catching Halsey’s annoyed attention. “Untie me.”

Halsey, with a reluctance, walked over to the chair. El, staring Halsey down, stepped in his path. Halsey avoided eye contact, something he rarely did. “El, move.” His voice was small; another thing he rarely did.

“Halsey what’re you doing?” El whispered back, stepping an inch closer. Matrix, somehow, sensed Halsey’s uncomfortableness and took a hasty step forward. But as he did, Hershey was right there next to him. “Wait,” Hershey said, putting a hand out in front of him. “This isn’t your problem yet.”

Halsey shoved El aside, earning him a hurt expression as he untied Beta willingly. Beta stretched his hands and sighed, sitting more comfortably in the chair. “Just to clarify,” Beta began. “No, I did not put him under a spell, I made him a deal and he willingly took it.”

“Not much of a choice,” Halsey muttered under his breath.

“What the hell did you do to him?” Matrix asked. “He was on the ground screaming.”

“Isn’t it obvious, mate?” Beta said, fluttering Halsey’s wings as if they were his own. El saw the pain in Halsey’s crisp blue eyes as Beta did it, almost able to feel the tension and conflict coming off of him. “I took his wings.”

“No…” El said. “You ripped them from his body, then threatened to never give them back if he didn’t make a deal with you…but it was more than that, wasn’t it?”

There was a pause as Beta and El stared at each other, tension rising, leaving Halsey, Matrix, and Hershey to try and catch up. “Don’t,” Beta warned, but El did anyway.

“See I didn’t know much about Beta, because he had all these walls up in his mind. I always thought it was a little weird,” El went on, explaining. “But there was one thing you let slip, one thing you couldn’t control…and that was your power—”

“Shut up!” Beta hissed, but El kept going.

“Beta has this one consistent power that he can’t control, and it makes people do things, it makes them act on their greatest desires…in this case Halsey’s wings.” Halsey blinked and looked at Beta, feeling a sudden pull as he did. He didn’t realize it until then. “And they’ll do anything for that, anything. That’s what happened when Julia was murdered, wasn’t it? When the whole dining hall went crazy just because you were ‘passing through.’ And at the foster home, when the table erupted into a mass of ‘whatever says, goes?’ That wasn’t because of the foster home, Beta, that was because of you—”

“Stop it.”

“And now you’ve done it again with Halsey. Tell me then Beta, what’s this deal entail? What’re you gonna do with Halsey? Maybe you’ll leave him on the floor in agony like you do every other living thing you touch—”

Beta shot out of the seat. “This is how Ciders are supposed to be treated! You’re nothing but a filler species. My kind and yours should have never conversed!”

“Beta you are the only Perna in the world!”

“NO I’M NOT.” The room fell silent once again as Beta’s face turned red. “I’m not.” His eyes dropped down to the floor as he sat back down again, much calmer. “Or maybe I am…” Beta thought hard for that moment, feeling the side of his neck where the mark pierced. “You stole my mark, Elias. The octagon with the tear drop inside, I earned that from birth. And you…you disrespected it…you disrespected me.” He sucked in a breath and willed himself to explain the rest.

“Everything I’ve told you up to this point has been true…but there are some things, some feelings that I didn’t share.” Beta’s nostrils flared and he pursed his lips, trying to control the way the words came out. If he just let his emotions spill, he knew it would come out wrong. “I’m what you might call an angel…and Ciders are what you would call demons.” El scoffed at his absurdity. Seeing this, Beta spoke quickly. “It’s not this battle of good and evil. People like us and people like you are separated by who we follow. You follow the ignorance of humankind and its oblivious tendencies, but we follow Nature itself.

“Ciders and Pernas were the original ones, the ones that died with honor…or as cowards.” El rolled his eyes. “But, it’s not what you might think…Ciders and Pernas actually worked together many times, were friends even. But…raised as a Perna and hearing the stories, I never really understood the hype.

“Time and time again I would question: Why would we work with such unwilling bodies? Such impure and corrupted creatures? But, they could never give me a straight answer.” Beta paused, feeling his anger rise. “I met a boy in High School, a good friend of mine. We were close, which made it easier to see the signs…of suicide.” Beta shook his head. “I knew it was inevitable, that you could never truly fix what’s already been broken. So…I just couldn’t let him do that to himself…I couldn’t let him become one of you…” Beta looked up at them, staring Halsey down. “So I killed him.”

Beta didn’t see Hershey’s reaction to it, but he knew it couldn’t have been good when Matrix held a hand out to hold him back. Beta went on before Hershey could say anything. “I made it look like a suicide, everyone saw it coming anyway.”

“That story you told me at Ah’s house,” Hershey spoke up. “He was a Cider?”

“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react like this,” he said, looking up to face Hershey. He could see the hurt in his eyes, and Beta reflected it in his own gaze. “None of you could ever understand—”

“You killed someone!” Hershey exclaimed, raising his voice in a way he didn’t do often. Matrix looked at him, taking his hand off of the Nat’s arm. “I comforted you when you told me that story and…” Hershey shut up then, his eyes shifting as he remembered. “Elias was finding out, wasn’t he? Ah was breaking down your walls and El saw right through you. And you let me cut off the connection, made me think I was doing something good for you.”

“Hershey—”

“I should’ve let El take your body out for a spin and then never give it back—”

“You don’t know what they did to me!” Beta screamed, cutting Hershey off. His face was turning a new, brighter shade of red this time and the sad hatred bubbling up inside of him showed visibly on his face. “Nature, the voices, the other forces, they were all furious at me for what I had done. But, being honored with the title of 1st Perna in this new generation to die and be reborn, they couldn’t strip me of my powers…not just yet. So instead, they ratted me out to the human world and told them what I had done. I was with my adoptive mom at that time, the only one that ever cared about me…” Beta looked at El as he knew exactly the woman he was talking about, the one El had made haunt him over and over at night. “…The only one that I ever really loved.” Beta’s nostrils flared. “And they took me away from her when they found out. I didn’t end up in jail only because my foster home covered it up for their own sake…but I knew that that was never the point of the sabotage. Nature knew exactly how I felt about her…and they took her away to spite me.” Beta scoffed. “And if that wasn’t enough, when I died they made sure not to bring me back! They left me to rot away in Plato like I was just some normal…dead thing like the rest of you! Like I didn’t even matter! And now…now they’ve stripped me of my powers for trying to put a little weasel in his place—!”

“Easy now.”

“No! No I am done being easy! I’ve had to be easy all my life, promised a better life after this one! But what did I get instead? Disrespect!” Spit flew from his lip. “I told them…I told them not to trust so easily. I said, ’These, these dead, these Ciders, are flawed!’ But they didn’t listen, instead they punished me for my common sense! So you know what? When your kind burns the world down, and I’m not there to fix it? Don’t turn to ask me…ask them!” Beta’s muscles had gone stiff and Halsey wasn’t sure if it was due to his anger or his power somehow.

El raised his eyebrows. “Oh, we’re doing poetry now? Okay then, Roses are red, violets are blue…eat me.” Matrix couldn’t help but snicker. “You think you’ve felt hard times? You’ve been blessed by Nature, power, the ability to have actual meaning in your life where so many people are lacking? You can’t accuse every Cider out there of being weak and shameful when you yourself have no idea what we’ve been through. You completely missed the point of the lesson they were trying to teach you. They were trying to tell you how to be human. If you can’t learn the pain and suffering of our kind…then how the hell do you plan on saving us?”

Beta blinked, dumbfounded. He didn’t have a response, not one comeback, remark, factual counter…his brain felt like it had just shut off. Beta’s nose flared, his gaze still stone cold. “Then I intend to learn,” Beta said.

“I told you there were two reasons not to kill me…the second reason is because I think you need me.” Beta looked up at Matrix and Hershey, ignoring El. “I’ll follow you on missions to stop the Syncs, provide information, not to mention I can shoot the hell out of a bow and arrow—”

“What else don’t we know about you?” Matrix uttered.

“—and, although you are correct that I don’t know the ways of…you…I’m not wrong in the notion that you are unfit to lead this team.”

“Like hell I’m gonna let you lead it,” El countered.

Beta sighed again, each time he did it making El want to punch him more and more. “I’ll help make decisions then.”

“And if I say hell no?”

“Then I’d do good to remember that I still hold power over your friend’s wings.” Beta smiled sweetly. “Not all my powers were stripped from me.” El was shocked at how adorable he could seem while hiding something so dark and corrupt. When the silence stained, Beta rolled his eyes. “Come on, I only want to help I swear,” he posed.

El’s nose scrunched and his teeth clenched. “Fine,” he hissed, restraining himself.

Beta perked up in his seat before standing. “Great!” The Perna snapped and the wings he wore fluttered in a blinding, dark array of feathers and flaps before they disappeared off his back and reappeared back on Halsey’s. At the sight of the wings ripped from Beta’s body and returned to Halsey’s, El’s first thought was to put a nice, round bullet in Beta’s head. But, seeing the slight regret on his face…he restrained himself. Halsey looked relieved to have them back, watching El’s hesitation in using his gun. The brand mark that once stained his cheek faded into nothing. “Then we’re in business.”

“Yeah, guess you are,” Halsey piped up, saying nothing else before grabbing his gun from El and storming out of the room. El furrowed his eyebrows. “Halsey!” he called, following him out.

“Halsey wait!” the hybrid called, catching up with him once they were on the castle’s ledge. Halsey leaped over the railing and let his wings spread so he glided to the forest floor. El did the same. “What is wrong with you?”

“Currently?” Halsey said, turning to look at El as they walked through the village. “A lot of past triggers just resurfaced that I was not ready for. I’m half expecting Beema and Talon to somehow find their way here.”

“Who?”

Halsey ran into a slightly taller chest and took a step back, ready to apologize when the larger body spoke up. “You knew Beema and Talon?”

Halsey and Elias looked down at Ah standing there wide-eyed. El hadn’t expected to see her back so soon. She was already sweating even though the sun was going down, making him believe she had been running around. “Yeah, I do.” Halsey lit up. “You know them? Wait, they’re not actually here are they?”

El sighed, shutting his eyes. “You can’t be serious,” he said. “Halsey’s the one you’ve been looking for?”

Halsey turned to El. “How do you know about this?”

“How did you not tell me that you were living with two Syncs before you even got here—?”

“Stop!” Ah shouted, making the two stop bickering and turn to her. “El I’ve waited a very long time for this, do you think you could give me five minutes alone with him?”

El rolled his eyes but accepted her wishes and left Halsey alone with the strange woman. “Okay so do you wanna tell me what all this is about?” Halsey asked.

Ah couldn’t move at that point, overwhelmed with everything. She had gone through absolute crap the last few months just for that moment…and she had no idea what to do with it.

Yet her hand was moving toward him, slowly but surely. She knew it wasn’t her own actions, but the forceful feeling resonating inside of her. She didn’t fight it, and neither did Halsey, getting a feeling that he shouldn’t. Her hand landed on his cheek, and at that moment the whole world just sunk around them and she could feel everything that Beema and Talon had ever told her about this man.

Her hand shook as the tears began to build in her eyes. She chuckled a nervous laugh. A part of her thought maybe, just maybe, the love she already felt for Halsey could replace the love she had for her husband…and that maybe she’d be alright after all. “You…You feel just like they told me you would. Just like…” Ah dropped her hand quickly, seeing a glint.

“Wh—” Ah blinked hard, as if it would just suddenly go away. She stared at his eyes as they changed color, but in the way a Cider can’t.

In the way a Sync could.

His eyes’ hues slipped colors and his eyeballs began to move in his skull. His pupils went into slits and the white in his eye receded. His eyes turned a glowing yellow, Ah assumed for defense as she drew near. “The Syncs found you, didn’t they?” Ah said.

“Look—”

“They experimented on you? I-I couldn’t help you? Oh my God I couldn’t get to you in time.” As Ah leaned forward to give him a hug, Halsey backed away, his eyes drifting back into their normal orange color.

“Where…are Beema and Talon?” Halsey asked, swallowing the bile in his throat. “Where…” As tears started rolling down Ah’s cheeks, Halsey shut his eyes and sucked in a breath.

“No, wait, Halsey,” Ah said. “You don’t understand, they’re still with me, with us—”

“Stop,” Halsey said, pushing her away. “There is no us. Get the hell away from me and stay away.”

Halsey walked right past her, brushing her shoulder with his as he passed. Ah held her stomach, turning to watch him go. She shook her head and smiled, the Sync in her saying so. “I’m not letting you go that easy…not again.”