Setting: Earth, April 16th, 1997

Savanna's POV

Adam was the sort of person that intrigued me more than others. He had a mysterious quality about him that caught my attention, from the day we'd first met; it seemed like he was always pushing forward, like nothing was enough for him.

The day we'd met, in math class on my 2nd day of school at Mesa Verde Middle School in 7th grade, I had noticed him first and foremost because of his red hair. He was the only redhead boy I'd seen so far at the school, and he reminded me of my sister, Julianne. We'd been seated next to each other, and our hatred of mathematics brought us together.

For the longest time, I'd had the most insane crush on him, and tried desperately to squeeze something out of him about if he'd go with me. He never talked about other girls or having a crush on anyone, so I always hoped somewhere in the back of my mind, that it was because he cared for me the way I cared for him. He even took me to a few school dances, but it never turned into anything. He was walking me home from one of these dances when I finally found out who he was.

We had our arms slung over each other as we sauntered down the sidewalk, Adam a little more than tipsy. Some idiot had snuck a bottle of vodka into the dance and enticed Adam with it, and he couldn't resist.

"You're hawwwttt…" Adam announced in a whiney voice, and I felt my cheeks flush, until I noticed he was pointing at the telephone pole we were passing.

"I'm sure the pole feels the same way, but come on, we need to get home before the cops see us," I gently urged him.

"You feel the same way? Oh, it's meant to beeeeee…" Adam cried happily, and wrapped himself around the pole.

I couldn't help but stand there cracking up like an idiot, slapping my legs in laughter.

He pushed his cheek hard up against the pole, making his face look like a chipmunk.

When I'd finally stopped laughing, I said to him, "Come on, if the cops find us we're going to be in deep shit, now move it!"

"Right, right, I'm going." Adam said, letting go of the pole and putting his arm around my neck, squeezing tighter as we walked.

I squeaked, "Not so tight Adam, I can't breathe," and pulled at his arm.

He looked shocked and apologetic, pulling away and putting his hand over his mouth. It made him look like he was about to vomit every ounce of the vodka in his stomach all over me.

"Oh…mygod…did—did I hurt you?" he asked from behind his hand.

I laughed and hugged him from behind, circling my arms under his so that I was holding onto his shoulders. I whispered in his ear, "Not the way I'd like."

Adam was appalled. He stopped walking and turned to look at me, making the most hilariously disgusted face.

"EWWW, you NASTY! Dirty hoe." He sounded like a black chick now.

"Just walk," I said giggling, letting go of him. The way he said dirty hoe was enough to make me want to act like one. I loved how he was acting so goofy and dramatic; I made a mental note to have him over and get him drunk sometime. I just wanted to kiss him right then and there, push him hard up against a telephone pole and taste him. And, after all, he was a little drunk, maybe he wouldn't remember…

I leaned over to make my move, but got terrified at the last moment, and gave him a big smooch on the cheek instead. So, maybe not as bold as I'd planned… oh well.

"EWW COOTIES!" Adam hollered, and I burst out laughing. "COOTIEEESSS! EW, THIS GIRL HAS COOTIEEES!" he called out into the nearly empty street on our right.

I couldn't keep from laughing, but I wanted him to shut up – if the cops saw us, we'd be in trouble.

"COOTIES! SHE GAVE ME COOTIES!" he shouted to a passing car, pointing at me.

"Shut up, no I didn't! Just walk, in a straight line! ... or try to." I yelled at him between bubbles of laughter.

"Straight lines suck..." Adam mumbled, his light blue-grey eyes wandering left and right aimlessly. "They're so… straight. Straight SUCKS." He pointed an accusing finger at me, his hair flopping into his eyes as a car whizzed past.

"Oh my God, Adam just came out of that dirty little closet didn't he?" I shrieked jokingly, faking a shocked expression and batting my hand teasingly at him. We were walking by a huge empty parking lot, and it made me nervous, so I wanted to stop fooling around and really get moving.

Adam was about to reply, when a car pulled up next to us and rolled down its window. The man in the window smiled at us with white teeth. There were barely any cars on the road, so it made me a little nervous.

"Hey, hate to bother you two, but I can't find my way to the apartments on 28th Street. I just drove all the way from Nevada and I got no idea where I'm goin', and I'm moving in there," his dark eyes gleamed at me from under the cover of his car, wide and hopeful. Adam kept walking as the man was talking, stumbling and swaying a bit, leaning on a telephone pole.

I didn't know the way to the apartments on 28th Street any better than the black-haired dude in the car, and I had to keep a hold of Adam before he wandered into the road, so I said to the man, "Oh, I'm sorry, but I dunno how to get there either, I've only lived here for a few years," while stepping closer to Adam and pulling on his shirt collar to make him back away from the road.

The man's face crinkled as he watched Adam smile a cheeky smile at him, and nearly trip over his own feet.

"Somethin' wrong with your friend there?" he questioned me.

"Oh, no he's fine," I said, rushing to think up a lie, "he got his wisdom teeth out earlier, and the anesthesia's not worn off yet." That was a damn good lie – I was pretty proud of myself.

"Good luck finding the apartments," I said, and began to walk away, but the dark-haired man in the blue car wasn't done.

"Well—hey, I could help you out if you want, I aint in no hurry."

He opened the door of the car and started to get out. His expression was a little too happy for my comfort.

"Oh, no, I'm fine, thanks though," I said, starting to panic, and tried to pull Adam along. "C'mon Adam," I urged.

The man didn't seem to care, and kept walking toward us, dressed in black. He looked to be a little on the short side, but he moved faster than lighting. Before I knew whether to scream or run, he'd grabbed my arm and tugged me away from Adam and into the parking lot. I heard Adam make a noise of surprise as he fell backward, having been pulled by my hand still hanging onto his shirt collar.

I wanted to scream, but the man had his fingers wrapped around each of my arms, and was tugging me backward so fast that I was scrambling to keep up with his pace and couldn't catch my breath. It seemed like we'd been backing up for ages, when he finally stopped and threw me onto the pavement. My shoulder hit the ground, and pain shot through my body, and I let out a cry.

"Shut the fuck up," the man hissed, turning me over with one hand and pinning me onto the blacktop by straddling my waist with his thin legs.

Help! I thought, but I was too terrified to say anything. All I could do was lay there and tremble as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a pocket knife. At the sight of it, I lost it, and started struggling to get away, but I was trapped under his weight and I couldn't pull my wrists free of his grasp, so I ended up wiggling in place like a worm underneath him.

"Please," was all I managed to squeak out.

"You been good so far," he mused, "But if you say one word I'll kill you." He flipped the knife open and held it in his right hand, while grabbing my wrists and holding them above my head. His hand glided down my chest, caressing my left breast as he went.

I tried to breathe, but I was shaking so hard I could barely suck in a breath. All I knew was that I was scared out of my mind, and I couldn't think straight. I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to see what came next, and it forced hot tears out of my eyes, and they ran cold down the sides of my face.

Suddenly realizing I was too afraid not to see what was coming, I opened my eyes.

The man was struggling to unbutton my jeans and tug them down my thighs, and the bulge in his jeans suggested they were getting a bit too tight for him. He was staring hungrily at my lower section. The tears poured out of my eyes again, forcing myself to think of what was coming.

God, just let me die, I silently begged, just let it end, please.

I heard myself whimper, and tried to stifle a sob, but the sudden slap across my face released it from my mouth. I shut my eyes tight again.

Then, suddenly, the weight on my hips was released, and I heard a muffled cry. At first I thought it was my own, but it sounded too masculine to have come from me.

I flicked my eyes open. The man wasn't sitting on me anymore. I turned my head to the side, and found myself staring through Adam's legs. I knew they were his when I saw the shoes; dirty white sneakers he always refused to wash.

Peering past his jeaned legs, I saw the dark-eyed wanna-be rapist kneeling on the ground, clutching his chest and his shoulder, and cursing.

I struggled to push myself up off the ground, and managed to sit up in time to see the man standing up. I was so confused; Adam was drunk – how did he manage to get over here in the first place?

The attempted rapist was still holding onto his pocket knife, and he held it at Adam as he stood up. Still shaking and scared beyond belief, I whimpered without even thinking.

It was enough to distract the man long enough for Adam to reach over and grab the man's wrist. Even though the man was short, he was still a bit taller than Adam, and probably much stronger, which is why it utterly shocked me to see the dark-haired man howl in pain and drop to his knees, releasing the knife – all without Adam doing anything but squeeze his wrist.

When Adam finally let go, he left behind a startling sight: all the skin on the man's wrist where Adam had touched it seemed to have been melted off.

Seeing the blood beginning to drip from the open wound, I instantly emptied the contents of my stomach onto the pavement beside me.

The man on the ground was whimpering in pain now, squeezing his arm below his wound.

I was unable to see Adam's face to get any hints about what he was doing. Maybe it wasn't even Adam? I looked up and saw Adam's tattoo of grey angel wings and a strawberry blond head of hair; it was him alright. But none of this made sense, and I was sick and dizzy and terrified, and still shaking like a leaf.

While I was staring up at Adam, I vaguely saw a quick movement on a lower level: the dark-haired creep reaching for the knife. But Adam's foot beat him to it, and, try as the man might, he couldn't move the knife or Adam's foot one bit.

It was at this point that I started to wonder whether I was just imagining all of this.

And, apparently, the man on the ground was getting nearly the same feelings I was, because he just stared up at Adam, glowering in hatred, pain, and confusion. That thought sickened me, and I nearly vomited again.

Then, all of a sudden, the man exploded up off the ground, lunging at Adam. But he never touched Adam. I didn't need to see it to know it. Why?—because Adam stunned us both.

The instant the pervert moved, Adam's back seemed to explode. Taken by surprise, and being so close to it when it happened, I screamed at the top of my lungs and hid my face. The second I looked up, I swear my jaw hit the ground.

There, attached to Adam's back, were two enormous grey wings.

I had no idea what was going on now.

Someone had put crack in the punch bowl at the dance.

I was asleep in bed at home, dreaming this whole thing.

Hell, even my mother giving me crystal meth in my sleep would have been a reasonable explanation for why I was seeing two huge feathered wings protruding from Adam's back.

The wings were connected where Adam's shoulder blades would have been visible, and they stretched far beyond the width of his body. I could see each individual grey feather, and they all moved slightly as Adam's breathing caused the wings to subtly rise and fall.

Out of instinct, I backed away, unable to tear my eyes off the wings.

I couldn't see past Adam's wings, but I heard the awful man behind them utter, "What… the bloody… fucking… hell."

Without seeing his face, I knew Adam was smirking. I could just feel it.

"What the fuck are you?" the man shrieked, with a mixture of terror and pain in his voice.

I was actually interested in the answer to this question as well, and waited for Adam to respond.

I watched as the wings on Adam's back compressed; closing, and then as they became paper thin, and shrank down, and finally coming to rest on his back.

In the exact image of his tattoo.

I made an uncontrolled noise of shock, somewhere halfway between a whimper and a giggle. It sounded truly pathetic and ridiculous, but I was too stunned to care.

Adam finally answered the man on the ground:

"I am just another person like you, protecting his friend from a rapist."

The man's expression didn't change, he didn't try to stand up or lunge at Adam; he didn't even reach for his knife when Adam took his foot off of it. The only movement he made was his chest rising and falling with his breathing, his mouth hanging open.

Adam turned to face me. He offered me his hand, and I – in my retarded daze – just stared at it blankly.

Adam didn't say anything; he just took me by my shoulders and picked me up off the ground, and took my hand that was dangling at my side.

Any other time I would have been freaking out inside my head, but given all that had just happened, it only added to my theory that I'd imagined all of this. Though, as time would prove, I had not imagined one detail of that night.

Not one.