“Protect me?” I bristled. “I have spent years leading this flock, making split-second decisions based on well-honed instincts,” I growled. “You have been alive for, what, a minute? And you’ve spent the past few days having a well-documented meltdown. Now, after almost murdering Fang, you have the nerve to show up here, to insist that we follow you because something weird is about to just… fall from the sky?” I was hitting a fever pitch. “Who do you think needs protection more, Dylan, me or you?”
His eyes were pleading, but I wasn’t moving. “It’s coming now,” he said. “Please.”
I sighed. “Dylan, just… go.”
“Fine, stay here. I’m getting the rest of the kids to the caves. I’m not having their deaths on my head.” Dylan sighed sadly. “I know you don’t trust me anymore, Max. But I’ve never lied to you, not once, and though it might seem like I’ve done some questionable things, I’m not crazy. You have to know that everything I’ve ever done, I did for you.”
I cringed as he turned his back on us, his shoes crunching over the broken glass.
“And Max,” Dylan called from the doorway, “after I get everyone to safety, I’ll be back for you. Even if it means dying with you out here. That’s the only way I want my life to end. With you.”
81
“WHO DOES THAT guy think he is?” Fang exploded after Dylan was out of sight.
“Seriously!” I was as cranky as a wet cat and pacing furiously. “What the heck does he think he’s doing barging into my house”—I gestured dramatically—“in the middle of—” I locked eyes with Fang. He raised an eyebrow, and his smirk sent a buzz through my whole body. “In the middle of the night. Trying to freak everyone out?”
I yanked an upturned table back over and slammed the door Dylan had left open.
“Max,” Fang said cautiously. When I turned around, there was uncertainty on his face. “Do you think he might’ve really seen something? His vision is crazy sharp, isn’t it?”
“Oh, please,” I huffed. “It’s not that great. And I don’t know if he’s short-circuiting or what, but he’s clearly not the brightest bulb right now.”
Fang nodded and bent to right an overturned chair. One of the reasons Fang and I work so well together? He keeps his mouth shut when I’m in fire-breathing dragon mode. Unlike Blondie down there.
At that point, I’d almost gotten used to Dylan strapping us in for his own personal roller-coaster ride of highs and lows, complete with lingering nausea at the whole rotten experience. This, however, was on a whole new level.
I was made to protect you, he’d said, his sea-blue eyes begging me to trust him, still full of that same fierce drive he’d shown when I’d taught him to fly, not so very long ago. But that dopey innocence, which had seemed almost endearing then, was nowhere in sight now.
I shook my head. I couldn’t afford to be sentimental. Not anymore. Sentimentality is for suckers. And a sucker, I ain’t.
Harden your heart.
Done. My heart is a freaking diamond. Only less glittery.
I bent to help Fang pick up the pieces of glass from the shattered window, and I couldn’t help staring down at the havoc Dylan was already wreaking on our little paradise. The place had gone from zero to sixty in minutes, and I watched as he herded dozens of hysterical kids into the ultra-secure underground cave system.
Abuse of privileges. Mom was gonna freak.
“Gazzy!” I shouted when I spotted him moving along in his bobbing gait. “Nudge!” Iggy was with them, consoling Ella as they hurried toward the caves. Even Total was barking anxious orders at Akila in their dog language. “You guys, he’s delusional. Cuckoo. There’s nothing to worry about!”
In the chaos, they didn’t seem to hear me.
“Oh, no,” I fumed. “This. Will. Not. Stand.” Making a mess was one thing. Hijacking my flock was another. “Wait, where’s—”
“Angel.” Fang pointed at the ragged-looking ball of feathery fluff zooming toward us through the trees.
She was sobbing as she crashed into my arms.
“Whoa,” I said, cuddling her close. “It’s okay, Ange. You’re okay.”
Angel shook her head, her soft curls framing her tear-streaked face.
“You guys have to get to the caves,” she said, hiccupping. “It’s coming. Dylan saw—”
“Yeah, I’m going to put a stop to that,” I reassured her.
“No!” she wailed, her blue eyes wide with fear. “Dylan knows what he’s doing. I saw things when I was in that lab, Max. Horrible things.” Her little face contorted, and my mother-bear instincts raged. As soon as we get off this island, I swore, I am going to hunt down those sickos who hurt my baby.
“But we’re never going to leave here, Max. We can’t leave. You promised!” Angel cried, reading my mind.
I wiped the tears from her face and cupped her tiny chin in my hands. “It’s okay, sweetie. Deep breaths. What did you see in the lab?”
“I saw trees falling over like dominoes. This place, coated in ash. The light comes first, then the sound. And you and Fang, blown out of the sky.” Fang’s dark eyes flicked to my face, but he didn’t move. “When we landed, it seemed familiar, but I wasn’t sure. It all makes sense now, though. Dylan is right—the sky is falling.”
It’s time, the Voice inside my head said. Listen to her, Max.
82
THE WORLD WAS ending, and we were in paradise.
I knew I should join the others, kiss away the rest of humanity, and spend the next fifty years snuggled up to my winged prince charming, finally free.
Fang and Angel were both studying my face closely. I shook my head slowly. I knew this was the decision that would define my life.
I just didn’t have it in me to die like a coward.
“I’m flying back to the States,” I said. “Now.” I stepped past them, out onto the limb between the tree houses. Below, the jungle was quiet, the leaves rustling softly. Except for a few small figures I could see at the cliffs in the distance, everyone was already safe in the caves. If I was going to do this, if I was going to walk away from my flock, maybe forever, I had to go before I lost my nerve.
“What?” Angel looked horrified.
“Are you sure?” Fang asked, his face trusting and true.
I nodded, trying not to look into his eyes, trying not to think about what I was leaving behind. “If the toxin has been engineered like my mom said, there has to be an antidote. Or maybe Mark was lying. Maybe the contagion hasn’t been released. Maybe we can stop the psychopaths before they release the bug. But if it is released… Well, at least we can warn people.”
Angel shook her head. “Max, you don’t understand what you’re up against.”
“Look, it’s not like the odds haven’t been stacked against me before,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “I always come out all right in the end, don’t I?” I didn’t say what everyone else was thinking: that it might actually be the end this time.
“Please don’t do this now,” Angel pleaded, reaching for my arm. “We have to get to the caves. Fang, tell her! We’ll be safe, I promise. Just come with us.”
Listen to her, the Voice repeated. Go.
I’d been obeying my Voice for so long, trusting whatever it said, even when it seemed to be mocking my existence. But I couldn’t do it this time. Not when the consequences were so major.
“I can’t, sweetie,” I said to Angel. “I’m tired of running from the unknown. If this threat is real, I’m going to face it, whatever it is, with the rest of the world.” I looked at Fang, standing next to her. I’m sorry, I mouthed, my heart breaking.
But Fang walked out to the limb and took my hand. He brought it to his lips and, without taking his smoldering, coal-black eyes from my face, said, “I’m with Max.”
“Fang, no, you can’t,” I said. If this really was it, the end of the world, I couldn’t ask this of him.
“Yes, I can. We’ll fly back to face 99%,” he said, nodding at me.
r /> I stared at Fang for a long moment. It felt like we were one person.
“I’m with you,” he repeated solemnly.
“But it’s not them!” Angel shrieked from the ledge. “Aren’t you listening? All the preparation Dr. Martinez and Pierpont and Jeb and all the other whitecoats did, poking and prodding and testing us, shooting us up with God knows what to make us immune—it was all totally pointless! It’s not coming from 99%. It’s coming from the sky.”
Fang shrugged. “Then we’ll face the thing in the sky. Whatever it is, we’ll face it together.” He gave my hand a squeeze, and tears streamed down my face.
“You’ll die here!” Angel cried. “You’ll both die, falling, just like what I saw.”
I looked down at her, not sure how to explain myself. “Angel, I was supposed to save the world,” I said quietly. I paused for a moment, realizing the gravity of that statement, and then stood up straighter, suddenly more sure of myself than I’d ever been. “I was supposed to save the whole world—not just the ‘special’ ones, not just the ones who have the protection of some multibillionaire. So if the rest of the world has to die, I have to go down with them.”
I looked out across the row of abandoned tree houses with the pristine beaches in the background.
So long, paradise. It was nice knowing you.
Fang and I snapped out our wings and prepared for takeoff.
“Max!” Angel shouted. “Listen to me. You have to. I’m your Voice!”
83
I COULDN’T HELP but gasp. Then I quickly regrouped. I retracted my wings and shot her a supremely annoyed look. “You’re not serious,” I managed to say.
“You always listen to your Voice, right?” Angel said, hovering in front of us, her white wings outspread. “So please, please, listen this time.”
“Are you really going to do this right now?” I growled. “Come on. I think we’ve all grown out of playing games at this point, Angel. You especially.”
“I’m not playing games. It’s me. It always has been.”
“Let’s just go, Max,” Fang said, his fingers brushing mine. “You know what she’s doing.”
“I’ve always been your Voice,” Angel insisted. I’m sure my face positively dripped with skepticism—I’m not exactly good at hiding such things—but she started counting on her fingers. “Before you found your mom, way back when we were looking for the Institute, your Voice guided you into the sewers with a riddle, right? Something about rainbows?” She cocked an eyebrow.
There’s a pot of gold under every rainbow, Max.
Angel laughed, and it sounded creepy, almost disembodied. “I definitely had more fun with it, in the beginning, being inside your head.” Her eyes darkened, and I looked at Fang uneasily. “Then it got more serious. When you first killed Ari, the Voice told you that you had to do it, didn’t it?”
I winced, thinking of the day I’d murdered my half brother. The first time, when he had really felt like family. I was speechless. We didn’t talk about that day.
Why was she doing this?
“That was me, too. I could feel your anguish, Max. And I knew he’d come back anyway, again and again, worse every time.”
“Angel.” Fang’s voice was hard, protective. “That’s enough.”
But she went on.
“I was the one who told you that you had a greater mission in the first place. This is that mission: leading the new society after the apocalypse.”
The Voice had said all of those things, true. And, true, no one knew about them but me. But Angel could read minds. Of course she could know everything the Voice had ever said to me. She was manipulating me.
Again.
“No, Angel. The only thing you told me was that Fang was going to die.” I looked at her accusingly.
“I told you that Fang would be the first to die because I saw it, in a vision. I saw him falling.”
“And you were wrong about that, weren’t you?” I asked. “He’s still here.”
“It’s still true, though.” Angel frowned. “It’s not over yet. Soon, but not yet.”
No. NO. I shook my head against her idiotic claims, her attempts at mind control. We had been through all of this too many times before.
“I know it hurts,” Angel said sadly. “Didn’t I tell you to harden your heart?”
“You’re wrong,” I said through tears, clutching Fang’s hand. “You’re lying.”
“I told you knowledge was a terrible burden, Max,” Angel whispered, and I could hear the Voice saying those exact words in my head, years before. “That’s why I couldn’t tell you. Do you know how hard it is, seeing everything that’s going to happen all the time?” There were tears shimmering in her eyes, a bitterness in her voice. She sounded jaded, old. So much older than a seven-year-old should ever sound.
“Imagine feeling what people feel, thinking what they think. It’s so hard to stop listening, even when it hurts. Your Voice said she considered you a friend and loved you more than anyone. I meant it, Max. I always will. Don’t you trust me?”
I thought about that question long and hard.
How I’d missed her, how I’d felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest when we thought she was dead. But it was Angel who tried to hijack my leadership, who put the flock in danger over and over again. Angel who could kill us all.
She was my baby, and I loved her so, so much. But did I trust her?
Angel’s face crumpled; she looked hurt and betrayed. She turned from us then and soared off toward the cliffs.
Don’t deny the truth, the Voice said inside my head, and this time it was Angel’s voice, sweet and coaxing. Now is your time! Save yourself and the others! Do it now!
I spun around, flabbergasted. I was choking on tears.
“What are we supposed to do?” I asked Fang. I’d been doing this for so long, taking on the responsibility, making all the decisions, that I’d forgotten what it felt like to have absolutely no clue where to turn. “After all that, what the heck are we supposed to do now?”
Fang shook his head and stroked the sides of my face with his slender fingers.
“I’ve spent my life trying to deny what I felt, when all I ever really wanted was to be with you, Max,” he said. “I don’t care what Angel says. I’m with you. Always. Whatever you decide.”
But as I looked into Fang’s angular face, his pupils suddenly dilated to pinheads as the world lit up around us.
I wasn’t going to get to decide, after all.
84
THE SKY WAS on fire.
I mean really, actually, burning through the clouds on fire. A moment before it had been blue and calm, but suddenly the entire sky was exploding, as far as I could see, reaching from the jungle all the way across the ocean.
The light was nearly blinding as the yellow and orange flames licked overhead, burning through the atmosphere. I heard Fang inhale sharply next to me, and we both stared in awe and wonder. Seconds felt like hours as we watched the whole horizon transform into a raging inferno.
I could not move.
It was… dazzling. More than that. It was awesomely, terrifyingly beautiful. Like, it hurt to look at. The most spectacular sunset the world would ever see—this was the world’s final good night.
Moments later, a gash ripped across the sky, splitting it into two flaming halves, with an aching hole of nothingness between them. Then the split opened wider, like a horrible, garish sneer, and I felt all the dread I’d been bottling up sigh right out of it. I held my breath as I waited for the hand of God, or aliens, or even vindictive Ari, back from the dead one last time, to reach out and pluck me from where I stood.
Instead, from that gaping mouth came a wave of excruciating heat that swept through the jungle and right over us.
I snapped out of my trance and collapsed to the floor in agony, tearing at my feathers, my clothes; I was sure my skin was boiling off. I couldn’t even scream—my lungs were like shriveled little steaks baking inside my ch
est.
I was hyperventilating, trying desperately to breathe. Everything was getting fuzzy, except the pain. I was passing out.
But after what felt like a century of torture, the gap zipped closed as quickly as it had opened.
I gagged, sucking in the cooling air. I was alive. With intact skin and feathers. How was that even possible? I squinted upward, disbelieving. Except for some dying red streaks, the fire was no longer scorching the sky.
My adrenaline finally caught up to the insanity and the world rushed back into place. I scrambled to my feet, looking around wildly. I didn’t know what I was looking for—just an answer, a direction I could follow.
“Everybody’s at the caves!” Fang wheezed over the now furious wind. Smoke and ash billowed around us.
I shook my head stubbornly. “Not Angel,” I croaked, my throat raw. Fang looked me in the eye and saw what else I couldn’t say: Or Dylan.
They’d be at the cliffs, rounding up the rest of the community.
Like I should’ve been from the start.
Together, in silent agreement, Fang and I shot into the sky. A few hundred meters away, all the trees were scorched—a few more seconds of that heat and we would’ve been human fireworks. As we raced over the smoking jungle toward the coastline, we saw trees crashed down on one another like dominoes. Their trunks were stripped of bark and branches from where the fire had come.
Suddenly then there was a bang like nothing I’d ever heard—like a bomb connected to an amp had been detonated right inside my skull. It sounded like what the fiery explosion should’ve sounded like, but it came more than a full minute later.
It was like I’d been shot.
I felt it in my teeth, and vibrating through my brain.
I felt it in my wings as I flapped and spun uncontrollably.
It sang through my eardrums and made my eyes blur.
And then we were falling.
Down.
Down.
Like Angel knew we would.
I watched, helpless, as the ash whirled around and the jutting precipice of rock raced up to meet me.