There were also text messages about meetings and a ton of background banners repeating the phrases “The Earth or Us” and “Kill the Humans.” There was even a motivational video of some chick with a hypnotic voice and really beautiful eyes.

“Let’s see what other pearls of propaganda the cult sent to Ella,” I said.

Nudge expertly turned the innards of Ella’s phone inside out, which revealed a bunch of scientific gibberish about unraveling DNA strands and inserting alternate DNA and RNA into the them. It sounded eerily familiar. Like we-were-injected-with-bird-DNA-and-raised-in-cages familiar. Angel raised an eyebrow at me, reading my thoughts, and I remembered her panicked message at Ella’s school about humanicide.

I sat back and let out a long breath. “Well, I guess we’ve got a date with doom,” I said melodramatically.

“What do you mean?” Dylan asked.

“Looks like Ella’s definitely at the facility. If she’s all cute and cuddly with the Doomsday Group, we have to go save her, even if she tries to eat our brains,” I said. “We leave in five minutes.”

43

“WHOA! WHAT’S DOWN there?” Dylan pointed to a small flame on the ground, about a mile away. The six of us, plus Total, had set off from my mom’s house and headed southeast when it was already getting dark, and now we were about five or six miles from the Gen 77 facility.

I peered closer, then remembered Dylan’s vision was way better than mine. “You’re asking me?” I said.

“Looks like a campfire.” He squinted. “Bunch of people sitting around it.”

“My guess is a hellions’ hootenanny,” I said, and Dylan chuckled. “A what?”

He shook his head. Even in the dark, I could sense his rather, um, adorable smirk. “Let’s check it out,” he said, and we started down, the others following.

Anyone looking up and paying attention would have seen us, seven dark silhouettes against the moon. But these people weren’t paying attention to us. They were gathered around their campfire, singing songs and roasting marshmallows. We circled silently overhead, descending lower and lower, and I think we all spotted her at almost the same time.

“Ella!” Total shouted but shut up pretty quick when I elbowed him in his furry ribs. The culties seemed too lobotomized to notice.

My half sister was sitting there, holding a skewered marshmallow over the fire, singing along with the others. I didn’t recognize the song. They’d put new words to something traditional, and it took several minutes for me to make out the refrain:

“We’ll all go out together when we go

Yes, we’ll all go out together when we go

Oh, how the world will die

In great fire from the sky

Yes, we’ll all go out together when we go.”

“Call me old-fashioned,” Total huffed, “but I’ll take ‘She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain’ over that anytime.”