Velo was already late for work. Still she didn’t hurry. No reason to. There was never a reason to. She ran her claws through the feathers that sprouted from her leathery flesh and iridescent scales, trying to straighten them and failing as ever. They’re growing darker, her mother would’ve said, had she been there, had she not been in the Gorge that day. Meteors never knew when to leave well enough the fuck alone.

She brushed her teeth and flossed out the lingering strands of chicken meat stuck between them. She obsessed over her teeth, long and sharp and pale as the winter. Rexy always said she had the best smile. Her cell phone buzzed by the sink, nearly shaking into the bowl.

Rexy (Sexy): you comin in today

Right on time, Velo said in the mirror, wiping a bit of frothed toothpaste from the corner of her mouth. Damn feathers won’t lay back.

She nearly forgot to take her pills. One for chipperness she didn’t have, one for the anxiety she would. No matter how prominently she displayed the orange bottles on the bathroom counter, she still willed herself to forget they existed.

Everyone takes them these days, Rexy told her that night. I wouldn’t worry.

I don’t worry, she’d said, but even the best smiles don’t hide that kind of lie.

But Rexy didn’t push. He never pushed anyone. He’d joke about his arms being too short, his personality too winning.

Her closet was a full hamper of laundry to be done, the bare clothes hangers dangling like ornamentation. On top of the pile was her black hoodie. Her mom bought it for her when Velo moved away to the city and said, You can never have enough hoodies. She picked it up, careful of her claws, trimmed yet sharp. She didn’t have to bring it close to smell it, so she grabbed the Febreze from the shelf and did what she had to.

Before stepping out, Velo looked back at the room. The tattered chicken carcass rested tangled in the sheets of her bed. She’d been good. Charming for just a chicken. She’d clean her up and wash the sheets when she got back.

***

Velo stomped along the sidewalk, her talons clicking out a fuck you tune. Her black hoodie did little to keep the constant rain from soaking her. Her mother had always said, Just because they knew, doesn’t mean they had to see.

A huge truck roared to a stop next to her, the kind only mouth-breathing roosters drove, and the rooster driving yelled out at her. It didn’t matter what they said. It mattered that they said it. It mattered that they didn’t know that she gutted little birds like them in the back alleys. She always carried Tupperware in her backpack. It mattered that they didn’t think about her talons and how they were built to carve up other saurians, and that their hollow bird bones were little more than toothpicks to her.

But they said that thing.

Velo stopped and carefully plucked the earbuds from her ears and stepped up to the window of the truck, clicking those fuck you talons as much as she could. Tricia said they were her best weapons, curved and sharp, because they did not lie. They told everyone exactly what they are about.

The rooster in the driver’s seat looked down at them, at her strong legs, her long tail. Where you heading, sweetheart? he said. He smiled back at the other roosters, as if he’d fooled her, as if there was a joke between the birds that she didn’t understand.

She smiled back under the dripping edge of her hood.

You’re all wet, he said, and the other roosters crowed.

Her smile turned to a snarl, and she clawed the door of that big truck, digging through the paint and into the metal.

Whoa! The fuck? Fuckin’ bitch! he said, screamed it at her as she stomped away. She didn’t have to turn to look. She knew they wouldn’t get out of the truck.

***

Velo used to have a thing for eagles, and now whenever she thought about them, or saw one at the market, the anxiety crept back. She thought that maybe it was their eyes and the way they seemed to look straight through her, like she couldn’t hide. Or perhaps it was their figure, strong legs and wings and sharp talons. Eyes that knew exactly what they were about. She dated one for a while about a year ago, a golden eagle with a charming accent. They’d wake in the morning and go for a run. Or rather, she’d run in his shadow as he flew. She’d hear the beat of his wings as he tried to push the pace, but she too had strong legs, and he could never quite outpace her.

He always wanted to go to the aquarium, and Velo thought now that the fish he’d loved had been the start of their problems. They would go, and he’d stare with those eyes through the glass at the fish that stared back with their bubbly eyes so full of wonder. She’d hated every single minute in that blue, glassy buffet. Even the tiger sharks would stare back at him and lose all that made them predator.

It must have been his eyes.

He’d look at everything and everyone like they were running in his shadow, like they were the prey, like they could neither hide from him or catch him.

And when the time came, she’d taken him for sushi. Her treat. She hadn’t met him at work, so he wouldn’t know that she could rarely afford sushi. She’d hidden the frozen tilapia she so despised. Sitting alone at the table, he’d pointed out how good the salmon was, how it was his favorite, and smiled. But she saw through it, how when he looked at the creamy orange flesh, his eyes lost what made him a predator. How it returned when he looked at her.

The bill painfully paid, she’d led him back to her apartment, pressed him down on the bed.

She still had the scars where his so sharp beak had nipped her neck. She’d placed one taloned foot on his chest, thumping her best weapon playfully on his feathered chest. The trick was to make them feel how sharp it was, to make them feel the danger, to tap just enough to draw blood, to get their heart uttering. She remembered how his eyes narrowed, as if he finally had the salmon in his talons.

She’d sunk the talon deeper, through the feathers and skin and sternum and all four chambers of his heart. Even as his blood stained the sheets, as she fed, she couldn’t hide from him. He’d had just enough nerve to die there.

***

By the time she stood under the huge neon sign, the nerves had died just enough for her to pull her hood down. Not that she could hide in that light. A giant glowing apple pinched between the jaws of a viper. Red and green like Christmas. The place was called the Garden of Eden, and apparently it was a busy night. The customers lined up, hugging close to the cigarette scarred wall and shaking the wet from their feathers. Not the usual pigeons, though. Ring-necked pheasants, loudmouth gulls, a few jittery, young roadrunners. A few roosters scraping each other with their claws. Two swans flanked a rather cross-eyed mallard, elegant despite their drunk slurs.

Velo went around the back through the alley, pulling her hood down and feeling the last spattering of rain in her feathers. Rexy stood big as a house at the backdoor, his black t-shirt wanting to split at the back and the sleeves too big for his arms.

Tricia isn’t all that happy tonight, he said when he saw her. But he smiled. Oh, fuck, that smile. Just enough to get her heart uttering.

Is she ever?

You know what I mean. Might slip into the dressing rooms quick and keep your head down.

She wondered why she’d invited him up that night. Looking past his great jaws, he still carried the scars where she caught him with her teeth. They looked like hers, like he’d kept tearing them open so they wouldn’t heal and disappear.

I’ll do that, she said and winked. Winks hid things smiles can’t. She ducked under the doorway, and Rexy said something. Good luck, maybe.

Inside the Garden, the green neon lights and cigarette smoke mingled, always taking her back to something Velo only remembered in instinct. Something primordial and wild, an earlier age. She saw it in her fellow dancers, the way they walked and cocked their heads, every bit the predators they once remembered being.

We once ruled the world, her mother had said. She was the last person Velo had heard say the words completely sober, to say them proud.

Velo stepped around the throng of patrons lining up at Winger’s booth. She always had a line. Petite Winger with the same draconic look as the rest of the dancers, but covered in such colorful feathers. Velo knew they lined up for her so that they could believe that they too could be saurian, if only for a moment.

Passing the bar, Tricia caught sight of her ducking through Winger’s line, and waved her over. At the bar, Tricia poured a finger of Espolon into a tumbler followed by a single rock and slid it across to Velo. She lowered her head so that the three horns pointed at her in accusation. You’re late again, Velo.

She threw back the tequila and crunched ice between her teeth. I am, she said.

You can’t make a habit of that. I like you, but I’d have to let you go.

But would you?

Velo had meant it to sound doubting, petulant even, but it came out pleading. The horns lifted a bit, and Tricia’s voice came out raspy. I’d have to.

***

After her shift, Velo pulled on her hoodie and caught Rexy’s eye at the door.

Is that the breakfast look? he said.

Only if you’re hungry.

At the diner, they ignored the looks of a few nosey herons a few booths down. Old birds with long necks and too much curiosity.

Rexy scarfed down all the food put in front of him, while Velo carved her bacon into smaller and smaller pieces. She listened to the sound of his great jaws doing what they did best, but she did not look up. She couldn’t risk it.

What did Tricia say? he finally said.

That she’d have to let me go if I kept showing up late. But fuck her, right? I can do something else. I could do anything else.

His great head cocked to the side, and his eyes went doughy and earnest in a way she always wanted to shame, but never could. Yeah, he said. You could.

She wanted to believe him.

Is that what you want? he said.

She ate some of the bacon. It felt waxy in her mouth. As if the pig had never really been a pig, but a thing purchased at a store, made in a factory. Like it had never broken snout- first through the brush or rooted around in the dirt.

Why didn’t you ever come by my place again? she said.

I didn’t think you wanted that.

She would have preferred those long teeth of his reaching across the table and shredding her there and then to hearing him say that. She wanted him to be the terror he should be. But those puppy eyes looked back at her like oranges a little overripe. Her claws scraped into her plate, and Rexy looked over his shoulder to see if the waiter saw.

Do you remember when you threw that turkey out for flogging the girls with his wings?

Rexy looked at the table, his head hanging like a scorned child.

You chomped down on him and spat him out the door. When you turned around you saw his wings had fallen on the bar. Feathers were in all the drinks. Feathers and blood.

I got in so much trouble. I wish I hadn’t.

And I wish you would have eaten him on stage for all those birds to see.

The herons shuffled nervously out the door, not taking the time to look back. Velo didn’t care. Let them eat their little fish.

***

When she came out of the dressing room before her next shift, Velo thought she was ready. She prowled alongside Winger’s line, her head watching for wandering eyes. Don’t look too hungry, just enough to make their heart utter. Her talons clicked on the floor, and a few looked, inching with their avian instincts, wanting to flee skyward.

But that was not why they were here.

She should’ve known better though. Her unruly black feathers were not like Winger’s, and no one took the bait.

You’re better than they deserve. It’s what Rexy would’ve said. Had said.

Velo started towards the bar for another drink, when a voice crowed to her. Hey there, sweetheart. The rooster from the truck stood there, drinking a tallboy and wearing a smirk. I thought that was you, he said.

She felt the familiar tingle run up her spine, felt her lungs shrink to a terribly inefficient size. We used to rule the world, she thought.

You did a real number to my door, he said strutting forward.

Maybe your door should’ve known better.

Rooster clucked. Never really learned to keep my mouth shut. It’ll cost me one day.

Her lungs seemed to stop..

Maybe tonight, he said and pulled out a few twenties. She looked at the bills and imagined what he’d tell his rooster buddies, how they’d laugh and grin, how he’d crow. She led him to a private booth and took the money. Rexy was nowhere to be seen.

She scarcely breathed during his dance, but hoped that breathless quality worked for him. But as she watched him watch her, she saw him shift from attentive to bored to frustrated, like a child whose toy didn’t quite work anymore. She hated him all the more for it and felt her lungs expand and breathe an air not of the current age, something wilder, something before meteors, when she ruled the world.

He nearly jumped out of his feathers when she turned and planted her foot on his chest, and he saw that sharp fuck you talon hovering so low over his heart. A long exhale, and all he said was, Sweetheart.

She growled at him, the sound like thunder rattling a ribcage. If you knew me, you wouldn’t call me Sweetheart.

He clucked and said, What do you say we pay off that door now? She saw the two hundreds slide out of his pocket.

***

Velo led Rooster out the back door right past Rexy. She caught his eye. A look that did not judge, did not stop her, understood, and broke her all the same. As she led him around the corner, Rooster looked at Velo, not even trying to hide his gloating. She heard him and his friends in her head: That taught her. It was worth the door. I knew as soon as I saw her. She heard his story in her head, all of it.

But his story was not hers. It mattered that he forgot that. It mattered that she did not.

He leaned in to peck at her, but was so outside of himself he didn’t notice how she peeled away a wing and a leg, then another and another. She let him fall to the concrete. He was actually confused. She saw it in his scrunched face. He tried to squawk, but she’d had enough of his story, and crushed him underfoot, his ribs breaking all the way up to the sternum. She sank her talon into him, but his heart was already still. She doubted it had ever beat for anything his whole life.