I point to the shadows hopping closer to us from the woods. Raffe disappears from the window.

A second later, he bursts out the front door and thumps down the porch, carrying a backpack with a blanket bundle strapped to it.

As he runs by the picket fence, we both look at Beliel’s broken chain hanging off the post. Beliel is nowhere in sight.

I assume the hellions freed him. They may not like each other, but they’re still on the same team. Isn’t that why Beliel invited me to look into his past, so he could lure the hellions to help him?

Raffe tosses the backpack to me. I assume the bundle attached to it is his wings.

I slip on the backpack while a couple of Paige’s locusts land beside her. They hiss at the shadows gathering around them.

I take a step back. I still can’t bring myself to get too close to those scorpion stingers. ‘We gotta go, Paige. Can you get them to fly us?’

My heart races at the thought of being held by one of these monsters, but I’m more comfortable with that idea right now than being in Raffe’s arms. He’s made it pretty clear how he feels about me – about us – and the fact that there is no us.

Raffe throws me a dirty look. He bends over and swipes his arm behind my knees, lifting me up in his embrace.

‘I can go with one of the locusts.’ I stiffen in his arms and try to lean as far away from him as I can.

‘The hell you will.’ He runs a couple of steps before spreading his wings.

With two sweeps of his wide wings, we’re up in the air.

My arms wrap around his neck. I have no choice but to lean close and hold tight. This isn’t the time to argue.

The locusts are just behind us with my sister.

Shadows leap toward us through the trees. Angel Island must be some kind of hellion convention center. Either that or these new hellions are far too good at organizing.

Raffe leads the way toward San Francisco. Behind us, a cloud of hellions bursts out of the trees after us.

Chapter 11

11

As usual, there’s a swarm of locusts funneling over Alcatraz. My hair whips my face from the wind generated by their wings. As we near, a stream of locusts heads our way.

They join our little group until we swell into a swarm of our own. The creatures aren’t nuzzling us, but they’re not attacking either. They seem to be joining us on our flight by sheer instinct.

The hellion cloud behind us pauses. It’s nowhere near the size of the locust swarm. It hovers in place for a few seconds as if assessing the situation, then the cloud turns around and shrinks into the distance.