Treachery and illegality stung in the rising flames of the bonfire, Winnie felt the uneasiness of the line of delinquents that followed it. Babyfaces blended in with those already battle scarred from their time on the Ark, Murphy fell in the first category, Winnie in the later.

"You sure we can trust him?"

Murphy's tongue oozed poison into Winnie's ear, she had to resist the temptation as his breath intoxicated her air.

"I trust Octavia and the fact that Bellamy will do anything to protect means he might have the right intentions," She whispered her reply, "But he's a snake if ever I saw one."

It had been a joint effort to set up their enterprise of breaking wristbands. Breaking their tie to an establishment, it was the anarchist at the heart of every delinquent that they appealed to.

"Tell me what you did up there Blake." Winnie asked as he positioned a crow bar between the metal and Winnie's arm.

"Something I don't regret." The answer was cryptic and Winnie liked it but she would have liked the name of the crime more.

"Who then?" She has seen the blood, she could piece together an obvious puzzle.

Bellamy was saved from his reveal the second the metal split at the pressure. Winnie cursed as the two pins dig down into her skin.

"That stung like a bitch."

Next was Murphy and the team were quick learners, the trick was to melt the metal slightly in the fire before ripping it apart.

The next volunteers made Winnie's day, a group of boys christened 'Bellamy's Angels'.

Winnie knew all their faces as the cold steel in their pupils had been present since they were children on the Ark. She didn't know the exact stories of how they came to hate the Scarfone name but it was a blood feud, she knew that, let them be in peace was her plan. Worry about the outliers later.

"Stop you're hurting me!" The cry of the youngest girl she had seen, Charlotte, rung in Winnie's ears.

"Stay still." Bellamy tried to respond in a soothing tone but found it hard with gritted teeth.

He was struggling to pry the wristband off her small wrist as it was made differently to fit her. They could blame engineering for the girls pain.

"Let me do it." Winnie commanded without moving, letting Bellamy dramatically drop the utensil and walk away from the scene.

"All yours." His voice had resentment to it as he stood next to Murphy.

Winnie moved silently and swiftly to his seat, Charlotte's eyes widened as she took in the new person now in charge with a dangerous grip on her arm.

Charlotte didn't feel safe, the knotted hair and the sharp corners of the witches long nails sent the young girls already dangerously low confidence straight to Hell.

"What's your name?"

"Charlotte."

"Now because you're down here I know you can't be a coward so tell me, do you want this off?"

Winnie didn't enjoy wasting time, but she had to ask the question to decipher the girl's response. And she had to be something she wasn't; friendly.

The witch slowly tightened her grip as Charlotte's brain drowned in newfound adrenaline.

"Get it off me." A flicker of mischief became evident in her eyes and Winnie saw it immediately, the sign she had been waiting for.

"Right answer."

Before Charlotte could fathom a single thought her hand was thrusted into the flames along with all of Winnie's arm, reaching further in then any of them had gone before.

"No!" Murphy and Bellamy both protested, stretching out their arms in an effort to save the pair. They couldn't stand the heat, they could do nothing to stop her.

The flames engulfed the flesh of the pair, Charlotte's first instinct was to scream but her vocal chords never released. She wasn't burning, she wasn't feeling anything.

Winnie muttered words nobody but she could hear to the flames as the wristband dissolved into her hand with ease. She let the fire enter her veins and fill her bloodstream with a sensation she has never experienced before.

Charlotte withdrew her hand and looked at it completely anew, not a single discolour on her skin. The only evidence of the event occurring being two pinpricks in her arm.

Confusion and amazement, Charlotte couldn't decided which one she felt more as Winnie still stood with her arm darting in and out of the flame. She looked to the rest of the camp for help but they stood still with the exact same emotions.

Murphy thought he knew Winnie, but as the heat of the fire mixed with the feeling inside him he realised he had only scratched the surface.

The right corner of his lips turned to a grin that could rival Winnie's as Bellamy's and his Angels' let the darkness engulf them for a moment more. The calm before the storm.

—

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Bellamy started the storm just as Winnie took her hand out the fire.

"Getting the job done." Winnie was good at conserving words when she didn't want to explain herself.

She nodded at Charlotte to move along and the girl looked at the trio with respect and wonder. For Winnie it was her first real taste of power and glory, one she had gained all by herself.

"It's exactly what we told you Bellamy." Atom's voice emerged from the Angel's crowd.

"And what's that?" Murphy answered.

He craved information on Winnie, he knew so much but the incomplete lines drew him crazy. How he followed the girl's strings only to end up back at the beginning, leaving him more disoriented then when he started.

Criminals can fall into two categories, dim or bright and The Angel's were split down the line. They showed elements of dimness, mainly their following of Bellamy based on nothin else that he had a gun, was covered in blood and was the eldest.
Yet they were also somewhat smart, they were figuring out how to fix a card game to their advantage.

Today, Mbege decided to test his intelligence, "You really want to know?"

"Do you have the courage to say it?" Winnie posed the question to the crowd, she wasn't going to get played. The camp would know of her secret soon enough, but on her terms.

Winnie lived on intimidation, she began to flex her long bony fingers, the echoing of the popping mixing with that of the logs on the bonfire. It cast an eerie shadow on Winnie, a glow which could be seen as a halo or horns.

Atom stood forward and Winnie raised an eyebrow, he didn't have what it takes to be intimidating, none of them could. Winnie never thought much of other peoples abilities, most of the time she was correct but if she is ever wrong she would pay a dear price.

"Enough," Bellamy bellowed in his usual tone, it seemed to Winnie and Murphy that he couldn't speak in any other way, "Winnie, give me your wrist."

"I don't take orders from you Blake. Ask nicely or not at all."

He grimaced, "Please."

"Better." Winnie showed her arm and Bellamy wrapped his hand around it and shoved her towards him. Which caused Murphy to involuntarily twitch at the way Winnie was being handled.

Her wrist was in it's own way perfect, the blue veins stood out against her pale skin and the bones created sharp indentations. No burn marks or blisters; no evidence.

The crowd was still listening, they were like mosquitos to the light. Curiosity killed the cat but they had to understand even if it was impossible.

"How?" Bellamy's voice couldn't come out firm.

Winnie let silence hang in the air, before drawing the heat of the fire into her lungs and letting it swirl ignite every single cell before entering her arteries.

She drew Bellamy's foreign body against hers. Both felt a sense of repulsion, like they were never meant to touch but both stood deathly still, feeling the weight of Winnie's common secret in their breath.

Winnie stared at Murphy as her cheek rested on Bellamy's neck. Her confession wasn't loud or quiet but everyone heard it.

"Magic."

And magic it was, magic that ruled Winnie's life. Murphy's mind was a minefield as he saw the girl - not in a new light - just with a brighter bulb. A brighter bulb that burned pages of books and pieces of strings. It was a wildfire that raged through all he thought he knew about Winnie Scarfone and it was controlled by the witch herself.

Bellamy's body shuddered as his neck became cold. He knew it was magic, but Bellamy was a logical man and his brain refused to listen to a witch talk of her practise. He rationalised his fear into a deal; if Winnie was a witch then she was going to be a leader.

Some took it as sarcasm, 'Bellamy's Angels' had their suspicions of Winnie and her witchcraft and they were waiting for the real confession. A confession which Winnie and her Scarfone name would burn for. They weren't Bellamy's Angels at all, they were Hells and they hated their Queen.

And as for Murphy, he did know what to think. Of course he had suspected something like this, it explains the cryptic horoscopes and prayers he had heard from the girl next door. But he was the only person in the camp to think as he did. He thought that Winnie Scarfone could not get become any cooler.

Bellamy caught Murphy's eye, he hoped that Murphy would stop this; that he could save her. All Murphy did was wink. Let them fear Winnie. Let her fire burn and let her cauldron bubble.