“You should know better than anyone that survival comes first,” Star said smugly, but she cowered as Fang surged against Ratchet’s grasp, gnashing his teeth.
Angel knew that Ratchet couldn’t hold Fang back if he really wanted to kill Star and Kate. As angry as he was, he was choosing to spare them.
“Traitors!” Fang shrieked after the girls as they took off down the desert road. “Go on, run. Get out of my sight! If I ever see your faces again I’ll tear you apart with my bare hands.”
Then the vision ended, leaving Angel with the image of Fang’s furious eyes, an ocean of hurt behind them. She blinked rapidly as the desert scene melted away, leaving her with a dull ache in her chest.
Max was alive, at least, but everything else seemed to be falling apart. Angel hunched into the emptiness of her dog crate, the thick smell of chemicals surrounding her and pain throbbing in every part of her body. She missed the flock so much.
If only Fang or Max were here with her.
23
“THAT IS MESSED up,” Ratchet said angrily, standing over Fang. “You’re not kicking us to the curb now, when we still gotta get back at that fanged freak. No way, man.”
Fang nodded, staring into the smoldering embers of their campfire. He was aching all over, and his shirt was still covered in Maya’s blood. “Sorry.”
“Is this about Star and Kate?” Ratchet demanded. “You think we’re like them? That I’d snitch? You know I don’t roll like that.” Even with his aggressive front, Fang could hear the real hurt in Ratchet’s voice. “Look at these battle scars.” Ratchet pulled up his sleeve, and his dark skin gleamed in the firelight. His arm was covered in slashes and bruises. “For you.”
“It’s not that,” Fang said. “I just can’t… do this. Besides Star and Kate, Maya’s dead, and… Look, there’s nothing left. Fang’s gang was a stupid fantasy. I’m just better on my own.”
A fleeting thought of the flock made his chest tighten.
“No man is an island,” Holden said with an awkward laugh, but Fang didn’t react.
“Shut up, Starfish,” Ratchet said halfheartedly, kicking an empty can into the darkness in frustration.
Holden brushed his sandy hair out of his face and pulled absentmindedly at the chunk of new skin on his earlobe, which had already grown back after one of the Erasers had bitten it off. After a minute, he said in a small voice, “Where are we supposed to go now?”
Fang sighed. “Go home.”
“We don’t have homes to go back to!” Ratchet exploded. “My guys saw me go off with you. You think they’ll take me back? What’ve I got? Nothing.”
“I can’t go back, either,” Holden said softly. “My parents don’t want me around. They’re… they’re scared of me.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you.” Fang pinched the bridge of his nose. He was exhausted. Maybe more exhausted than he’d ever been. He was tired of making plans, of solving problems. He didn’t know how Max had stood it for so long. “You’ll figure it out.”
“So that’s it.” Ratchet’s voice was cold. “After all we’ve been through, you’re just saying, ‘So long, it’s been fun’?”
“Sorry,” said Fang. “But it actually hasn’t been that fun.” And then he stood up and limped away into the desert night.
24
COOL FINGERS PRESSED against Angel’s forehead. Someone was taking the bandages off her eyes.
She didn’t even struggle; she just lay there limply. There was no point fighting it anymore.
“Hey, sweetie,” the someone said, and Angel gasped—she knew that voice. She’d heard that voice so many times.
Jeb.
Jeb here, in the School, taking off the bandages from the operation.
“You.” Angel cringed away from his hands, fury coursing through her. “Don’t touch me!” she spat. “You deserted us. Again. I’m here because of you.”
“I know, sweetheart,” Jeb said. “I’m so sorry, Angel. I can’t explain to you how sorry I am. You have to let me explain—”
“No,” Angel growled, and felt his hands twitch; he was startled. “I don’t care. You don’t get to explain after this.” She touched her tender face.
“Sweetheart…”
“Don’t call me that ever again,” she cried. “I said I don’t care—I don’t care about any of it. About your excuses. About you. About the rest of the human race.” She was seething, and her voice was harsh and icy even to her own ears. “All people do is hurt one another,” she continued bitterly. “So let them all die. Let the doomsday, or whatever they’re calling it now, happen. I don’t care.”
Jeb brushed her dirty hair away from her face, her curls damp with sweat, but Angel clawed at his fingers. “Angel, please listen to me. I’ll make everything okay again, no one will hurt you—”
“I said shut up!” she shrieked. Her small body was shaking. “You just couldn’t stop at Iggy, could you, Jeb?”
“What do you mean?” Jeb asked. He sounded on the verge of horror.
“What do you think I mean?” asked Angel, her voice rising with hysteria. She felt clumsily for the sides of her cage. “I’m blind.”
25
FANG LEANED AGAINST the cold, rough tombstone.
It was twilight, and the sky above the graveyard was a pale indigo. The trees rustled with a slight breeze, but no birds sang, no crickets chirped. Fang was completely alone.
Blood trickled slowly from the wound on his wing, where the bone had cracked and punctured the skin as he’d flown up to catch Maya. At the time, he hadn’t even noticed the pain. It was pulsing dully now, and he was letting it bleed.
Pain from somewhere other than his heart was a welcome change.
He deserved the pain, Fang told himself. Everything was his fault.
If he had paid more attention in that battle with the henchgoons, if he had kept tabs on Maya the entire time, she wouldn’t have fought Ari in the air. She wouldn’t have died in Fang’s arms. She would still be alive today, warm and happy and Maxish and not Maxish, having his back when things got too real.
Fang stared up at the moon, only barely visible in the murky dusk. Things had gotten too real.
First Angel. Then Maya. Both innocent, both dead.
All his fault.
He was a murderer.
He let his head drop into his hands, and shut his eyes tight. At least Ratchet and Holden were okay now—without Fang and the danger that came with him, they’d be all right. Fang could not be trusted as a leader; that much was horribly obvious. How could he save the world if he couldn’t even protect the few people he loved?
Swallowing, Fang looked up, around the graveyard. Tombstone after tombstone, death after death, epitaph after epitaph, summing up a life, or a worldview, in a few words. What would his gravestone say, he wondered, assuming he wasn’t left to rot in the open air?
FANG: GREW UP IN A DOG CRATE. FELL IN LOVE. SCREWED IT UP. FAILED AT LIFE.
Wait a second. Something caught his eye.
Fang scrambled to his feet and crossed to the tombstone that read JULIE EVANS, 1955–2010 in two strides. He knelt before it, reaching out and tracing the epitaph.
YOU HAVEN’T FAILED UNTIL YOU QUIT TRYING.
A sign from the universe? Fang’s brain being so pathetic that it was making up coincidences?
Either way, he couldn’t quit yet. Fang had a role in this—whatever it was—and now that he’d lost two people, he wouldn’t lose any more.