Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Heartbeat thundering in my ears, I feared that my throbbing head would explode and spray buckets of blood everywhere. The curse had made me weak. Weak and incredibly angry. My hunger, my sheer thirst was driving me to the breaking point. I couldn't concentrate. I wanted to binge. Binge feed on gallons of the red stuff. Even then I knew it wouldn't be enough. It would never be enough. Nothing would ever satisfy the hunger unless I gave in to Lisette's unwavering demands. For a split second I actually considered it. If only I wasn't so stubborn, this could all go away. But at what cost? Would I have to give up my soul? The thought made me panic and I called fire. I could feel the flames licking over my skin, scorching me alive. They rolled over all of my limbs at once and made my eyes burn, but I wasn't frightened. I welcomed the blazing heat that comes with being completely engulfed by my own fire. I didn't burn because the flames were mine to control.

I heard the shouts of alarm, and for a horrifying second I thought the pumpkins had found their targets. When I glanced up to find them sailing across the sky above, they too became immersed in flames like great balls of fire. Jerry Lee Lewis would definitely not be impressed by me bringing his song to life in more ways than one.

So much for control.

Everyone started to scream. Especially me.

Vycandor took hold of one of my hands and called ice. Sheet after sheet of glistening crystals snuffed out the flames, but the effect only increased their weight. By a lot. So, now, instead of flaming pumpkins they were gigantinormous snowballs. And they were closing in on the massive crowd of stunned onlookers who had forgotten how to run to get out of the way. Like their feet stopped working or something. Humans. Mouths opened wide, heads titled back, they gaped openly at what they saw coming their way. Hell, even the little girl stuck on the top row of the bleachers was no longer crying. She was busy watching the show just like everyone else.

As usual, the only thing missing was the popcorn.

I closed my eyes and tried to wrap my mind around each colossal sized frozen pumpkin with the intention of forcing them to change course. But it was no use. The ever expanding balls of ice were locked on their targets like heat seeking missiles. Or frozen ones in this case.  

Thomas shoved Vycandor and I out of the way. A beam of light—no, scratch that...a hundred tubes of light like great brilliant cylinders—shot up into the sky, turning night into the bright white of day. A massive explosion like an atomic bomb rocked the ground under our feet, all but obliterating the pumpkins. The force of the blow turned them into mush that landed all over the place, blanketing everyone and everything in orange colored slime. Gradually the sky grew dark again, the brightness fading once again to silver by the light of the moon.

"You two are supposed to protect humans. Not smash them with pumpkins," Thomas accused.

I pointed at Vycandor. "It's his fault. He's the one who turned them into frozen squash bombs because he thinks he's the Abominable Snowman."

Vycandor pointed at me in return. "It's her fault. She turned the pumpkins into fire bombs because she thinks she's Bubbles."

I opened my mouth to argue and that's about as far as I got. "Wait. What?"

"Haven't you ever watched the Power Puff Girls?" Vycandor inquired.

"I beg your pardon. I'm not Bubbles. If anything, I'm Liliana of the Veil."

"Your name is going to be mud if you don't stop using your angelic powers in public," Thomas warned.

"What about him?" I shot Vycandor a scalding glance. "He did it too. Don't just yell at me."

"Shut the front door!" Carmen exclaimed. "You're an angel?"

My breath hitched in surprise. Truth be told I forgot she was still here. I'd done gone and spilled the beans. Big time.

Damn.

"Look, Carmen," I began, backpedaling as hard as I could.  "Forget everything you think you know about angels. We're not all flying around like tiny cupids with bows and arrows. Some of us are dangerous."

"She's the dangerous one," Vycandor pointed out, still sulking."

I called fire again, this time holding the flames in the palm of one hand. "Don't make me use my Blossom powers and give you a well balanced beat down."

"Children, enough," Thomas said, lowering his voice. "We've got company."

Skylar sauntered up to me, looking like sex on a stick again. Yeah, he was just that mind-blowingly hot. I swatted my hand against my hip to extinguish the flames.

"There you are, Chaos. I've been looking everywhere for you. Did you see what just happened?" His eyes did a double take. Reaching up, he picked a pumpkin seed out of my hair. Or attempted to anyway. Slippery little bastards. "Never mind. I'll take that as a yes."

He leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. Brown eyes gazing into mine, he leaned in even further and gave me another kiss on my wet lips smeared with pumpkin guts, as if reluctant to let the contact end. Despite not wanting to kiss him back right in front of both of my boyfriends, I found my mouth moving with his against my will. Our tongues met in one magical moment and suddenly and it was like rain in the desert—all moisture mixed with heat. Filled with desperation, our tongues glided over each other until I felt like I was floating on clouds. Eventually, Skylar came up for air first. The way he kept looking at my mouth sent a shiver all the way down my spine and back up again.

Now both our lips were covered in orange slime.

"You don't know how long I've wanted to do that," Skylar admitted. "I've missed you so much."

Thomas began to make those annoying little inarticulate noises again like that time when Skylar serenaded me with that Rihanna song. He didn't like him then, and he most definitely didn't like him now.

I had to squash this before things got real. "Skylar, you don't know anything about me."

"Yes, I do," he insisted, lips curling slightly upward in an attempt to be reassuring. "I've been in love with you from the moment we first met in your backyard."

I swore under my breath. He had the kind of smile that could make a girl forget her name. He wasn't playing fair. Like at all. Still, I had to find a way to lay down the law with him. And it wasn't going to be pretty.

Dropping my eyes, I forced myself to look away before I lost my nerve. "Skylar, you have to let me go."

His breath hitched in surprise. "You can't mean that." When I didn't offer a rebuttal, his voice filled with pain. "Why?"

"You wouldn't understand. I'm more of an acquired taste." I paused to lick my sticky lips. With him standing in such close proximity to me, it's like my heightened sense of taste and smell went into extreme overdrive. No longer filled with festering body fluids like when he'd been zombified, this time he smelled sweet. Well, sweeter than usual. Like an extra, extra sugary glazed doughnut.

Yum.

Did I mention I love glazed doughnuts?

Part of me wanted to take a bite out of him. A really, really big bite. But that seemed wrong. And more than a little rude, considering we were friends and all. I was still trying to figure out if I cared when I glanced up and saw the careful look of controlled rage on Thomas and Vycandor's faces. I also knew exactly what they were thinking. How many more guys was I going to allow to come in between us? They might not get along, but on this they were united.

If Skylar noticed the two male angels currently glaring daggers at him he didn't say anything. I wasn't in the mood to push the envelope with either one of my boyfriends more than I already had. Clearly, neither were they. Now I really needed to crush Skylar's advances before things got even more out of hand. But I had to do it gently. He deserved at least that.

There was just one tiny problem.

He smelled so good that I was about to say, "Screw it!" and sink my teeth into his neck. Good for me. Bad for him. Especially when he reached up unexpectedly to smooth the hair away from my neck and began nuzzling my earlobe.

Voice thick with emotion he leaned into me, pressing his mouth against my ear and whispering so low that it was like he was breathing into my ear. "Tell me again that you don't want me." 

The very last of my self restraint, swiftly unraveling, it was all I could do to try and compose myself before I made a meal out of him. And it would be anything but happy. "I strongly urge you to move your face back to where it was."

See? I can be gentle.

Skylar slowly backed away, eyes filled to the brim with confusion. Reaching up, he tore off the blonde wig and attempted to smooth the defiant layers of his Zelda haircut. It was such a relief. I was glad he hadn't colored his hair for real. Black as night, a silky fringe of his bangs swooped dramatically across his forehead, while the depth of his brown eyes looked like a chocolate ocean. Thankfully, he didn't appear to have any lasting effects of the eclipse that had turned him, and every other teenager for that matter, into flesh eating monsters. Seeing him up close and personal, he was just as amazingly handsome as when I had first laid eyes on him, in a model-perfect sort of way. Well, that and the way he dressed practically screamed Emo goth, which I loved. The look of pained introspection etched on his face only added to his beauty.

Thomas cleared his throat to get my attention. The tension brewing between us was palpable.

I shook my head as if coming out of a fog and attempted to clear my throat. "Right. Look, Skylar...there are basically two kinds of people in this world. Happy morning people, and cranky morning people that fantasize about killing happy morning people. Guess which kind I am."

"The second kind?"

I nodded. "Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. Johnny, tell him what he's won..."

At first he could only stare at me in confusion, which rapidly changed to fear. "Chaos, you're making a big mistake."

"Oh, yeah?" I flared. "Well, it wouldn't be the first time. And it probably won't be the last."

Risking a final plea, he pointed over his shoulder at Thomas and Vycandor. "Is it because of these two jokers? What do they have that I don't?"

I sucked in my breath. Seeing the pain in his eyes, pain that I was causing, hurt me more than it did him. It was the very last thing I ever wanted to do. But he deserved to know the truth about me. "I have so much to teach you, Grasshopper."

He thrust out both arms and opened them wide. "Then teach me."

It was my turn to point over my shoulder. "For starters, it's not them that you have to worry about. It's me. You didn't see what just happened. You don't know what I am. What I'm capable of."

"You're right, I don't know," he insisted, reaching down to hold my hand. "And I don't care. I still love you. No matter what you are."

I pressed a finger of my free hand to my lips, lost deep in thought. How could I make him understand that I was no good for him without hurting his feelings even more? That this was all my fault. Not his. I continued to mull it over until I found the right words. "You see, Skylar. Redheads are like volcanoes. Especially me. We appear calm, but only for a little while. Until, BANG! We explode without warning and destroy every living thing in our path. And then we go back to being calm again." I gave a shrug. "I guess you can chalk it up to unpredictable mood swings. I may appear to be deceptively sweet, but if you piss me off I've got a pocket full of crazy just waiting to come out." 

He shook his head. "I never said you were sweet."

My lower lip stuck out in a pout. "That almost hurts my feelings. Almost, but not quite." He opened his mouth as if to apologize, so I shot him down. We were making progress. Progress is good. Why would I want to go and ruin it now? "You're right. I'm not. And you would be smart to stay the hell away from me. Very, very far away. My wrath can be far reaching. Just ask the good citizens of Kalamazoo."

He turned around and left without saying another word. I never got to say goodbye when I dropped him off at the hospital with the others. And, now, I didn't want to either. I think what hurt the most was watching him walk away.

"What happened to Kalamazoo?" Carmen asked, clearly unfazed that I had just broken her cousins heart.

"You didn't hear?" Vycandor interrupted. "Chaos went nuclear."

Carmen's glorious face filled with surprise. "Are you for cereal?"

"That was so not my fault!" My self-incriminating blush was sudden and hostile. What can I say? She brought out the two-fer in me. "You can't give a newbie angel a shit ton of explosive super-powers, and then expect me not to blow shit up. I'm not built like that."

"Yeah, you should have seen it," Vycandor added in a dry voice. "There's nothing left of the city. I'm just lucky she didn't destroy my home."

I gave him angry eyes. "Wow, thank you. I'm sure that was meant to reassure me, not blame me for all the destruction. Right? I did have help, ya know. You conveniently keep forgetting that part."

My mom came rushing up to us next. "Chaotic, are you okay? I saw what happened."

I nodded. A gigantic chuck of pumpkin guts fell off my head, landing on the ground with a splat. "I'm fine, Mom."

She reached up to smooth a fringe of heavy wet bangs out of my eyes. "You should tell that to your face."

"Mom!" I jerked my head away, scowling at her. "This is not the time for your insults." If possible, even more pieces of pumpkin guts landed on the ground at my feet. When I glanced up, I caught Thomas studying me. "And you wonder where I get it from. That's my mom. A parade of crazy."

"You know what they say, like mother like daughter," she interjected. "But, seriously, how are you doing?"

"Oh, you know me. Hangin' in there like hair in a biscuit."

She nodded. "I don't doubt that for a minute."

My stomach growled like I'd swallowed an angry lion. "I wouldn't do anything for a Klondike bar, but I'd do some pretty sketchy stuff for a pickle right about now."

 Mom hollered over her shoulder. "Get my daughter a pickle. Stat. And make it a big one."

We both grinned when Chief Madden arrived, carrying a clear plastic barrel swimming with nice, fat pickles in juice. He calmly screwed off the white lid and waited patiently while I reached in and plucked out the biggest one I could find. "I'm not sure if I can eat it all, but I'm sure gonna try."

Maybe it was just me, but I felt better just holding it.

"That's my daughter." Mom smiled at me proudly. "I could always tell what kind of day you had at school by the size of the pickle you ate. If it was a giant one like this, I knew better than to ruffle your feathers."

Funny, I never knew she noticed.

I gave a shrug. "What can I say? Some people drink beer to decompress. I eat a pickle." As I prepared to take a bite, I said the words that had become my mantra. "Guess what time it is..."

"Time for you to place food on your body instead of in it?" Thomas replied with a lopsided grin.

"Ha, ha. You're not funny."

"I don't get it," Vycandor said. "Why would Chaos wear food on her body? She's not Lady Gaga. 

I rolled my eyes. "Never mind. It's just something I do."

"Yeah, something strange," Thomas added with a wink.

The corners of Vycandor's cherry red lips curled up into a smile, revealing the deep dimples in his cheeks. "No one's stranger than Chaos."

"Can I get everybody's attention for a moment?" my mom called out, holding up a mason jar filled halfway up with a green liquid. "I'd like to make a toast." Before she began, she looked directly at me. A tap on my left shoulder made me turn my head. Chief Madden handed me a mason jar. Judging by the smell it was full of pickle juice. I held it up and met my mom's eyes as she spoke. "To the most independent, inquisitive, silliest, judgemental, overly-dramatic, and incredibly beautiful daughter I was ever given the gift of being a mother to..." She paused to lift her jar in the air. "You are the reason we are all still alive and we owe you our lives. I'm so proud of the angel you have become. To Chaos."

The crowd of on lookers held up various bottles, cups, and mason jars in unison. "To Chaos!"

My cheeks filled with a fiery blush. I knocked back my pickle juice and frowned. I didn't appreciate the toast. Not one little bit. Especially when so many people had perished because of me. No matter what anyone said, I weighed the losses more heavily than the ones I'd saved. And probably always would.

When the crowd eventually dispersed, my mom took the jar out of my hand and sighed. "What's wrong, Chaotic, didn't you like the toast?"

I took another bite of my pickle before answering. "You know what they say...if at first you don't succeed, tomorrow is another opportunity to fuck it all up again."

She frowned. "Don't talk with your mouth full. Why does the glass always have to be half shattered with you?"

Thomas came to stand right beside me protectively. "I tell her that all the time."

Mom paused to press a palm to my forehead. "Do you feel okay, honey?"

I pulled out of her reach. "I'm fine."

"Listen here, young lady. I don't appreciate the attitude."

Both eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. "Oh, my bad. Did I roll my eyes too loud?" She looked hurt and it made me feel bad. But only a little. "I'm sorry, Mom. It's just that I'm in a weird, angry, hungry head space right now." I took another bite out of my pickle and chewed thoughtfully, although it was doing absolutely zero for my growing appetite for blood.

She attempted to tuck another heavy fringe of bangs behind my ear. "Look, I get it. You've been under unimaginable pressure. When I think about Serenity and her flock of witches..."

"Coven," I interrupted. Mom stared at me confused. "It's a coven of witches, not a flock of witches. And, trust me, I know what the stakes are. I'm still trying to save millions of people that managed to survive...uh, most of them teenagers...but still people no less."

"Chaos, don't try to make this about the ones we've lost. This is about the ones we have left. It's about teens and the kind of world they're forced to grow up in now." Mom placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Please, you have to trust your father. He has a plan. He knows what you've been fighting for. You may have stopped the eradication process that Serenity started, but your father said there's still so much more work that has to be done before this is finally all over."

I wriggled out of her hold. "If Dad thinks this is about him, or about chasing glory, then he has another thing coming. Things aren't even close to being over, Mother. I know I've made mistakes. I know I may not always be right. But I'm never wrong. Not when it comes to this war that's raging."

"Do you know how to stop it?" she said, voice hopeful.

I started to walk away and spun around on one heel to face her. "No. As a matter of fact I don't. Are we done with the interrogation?"

"I'm not interrogating you, Chaotic. I'm trying to support you."

"Well, you could've fooled me," I flared.

Her hands were suddenly on her hips. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means, Mom," I spat the words at her, "that you left me all alone. You knew what was happening to me and you didn't say anything. You didn't do anything! You left me to figure this shit out all on my own."

The look on her face was so caustic, I swear, I thought the flesh was going to melt off my face.

"If you think it was easy to watch your angelic powers develop, knowing there was nothing I could do to help you, then you have another thing coming." Her voice trailed off, anger quickly turning to doubt. "I don't know, maybe your father was right. Maybe you were born to cause chaos and destruction."

My breath hitched in surprise. She knew exactly which buttons of mine to push. Probably because she had them installed. "Don't give me that head-shrinker horse shit. You know I hate that."

It was Thomas' turn to try to calm me down. "I know you're upset, Chaos. But you can't take your anger out on your mother."

Vycandor chimed in. "Yeah, she's just trying to help."

Blood beginning to boil, it singed in my ears. "Hold my pickle."

Carmen reached to take it out of my hand. I didn't look at any of them when I replied. Instead, I stared directly at my mother. "You know how a shark must swim or it dies?"

"Yes," everyone around me answered in unison. Well, everyone except for my mom. She must've known what was coming next.

"My mom's the exact same way. If she stops nagging, she dies."

"I always knew this day would come," she replied in a dark voice.

"Knew what, Mother?"

"I always knew that, one day, you would find your own path in life. I just never knew that you would have to walk it alone without me to look after you."

I reached up unexpectedly to give her a hug. "I'm not alone. I've never been alone. I know that now." Pulling away so I could see the confusion written on her face, I added, "This may come as a complete shock to you, but I'm immortal. Remember? I don't require adult supervision."

"Yes, you do," she insisted, wiping away a tear. "It's called being a teenager." Worry was clear in her voice. "You know what I just realized? Teens outnumber adults by a thousand to one. Possibly even more. It's no secret that they are the ones who will be in charge once this war is over. It's going to be up to our youth to run the world. I just hope they're up for it."

I smiled with the new-found knowledge. "I know, right? It freaks me out too. But the possibilities are endless."