WE WORKED ALL DAY, until dusk. The flock is usually chock-full o’ stamina, but it kind of depends on getting three or four thousand calories a day. By six o’clock, we were running on empty.

“Max?” said Patrick, walking up to me with a lumpy sack in tow. “Here’s some bedding — it’s not much, I’m afraid. There’s a tent set aside for you guys. Do you want to get it organized before dinner? You have about ten minutes.”

“Sure. By the way, Patrick, who was the camel platoon?” I asked.

“Don’t know for sure,” he said. “But some of the locals have a thing against Americans. It’s complicated politics we can talk about later. Right now, if you want to set up …”

“Sure, thanks,” I said, taking the sack. I looked at my tired flock. “You guys wait here — I think chow’s coming. And drink some water.”

“I’ll help you with that,” said Fang, nodding at the tent.

“Sure,” I said casually, but my heart was already speeding up.

We ducked through the worn nylon flap of our tent, and I dropped the sack. In the next moment we had our arms around each other, ignoring the dust on each other’s lips and our hot and sticky skin.

“The flying was amazing, but … I’ve missed you,” Fang murmured, his hands getting stuck in the snarls in my hair.

“Yeah. And this is probably our only chance to be alone for a while.”

“I couldn’t stand seeing you get shot at today,” Fang said, kissing my neck.

I drew back in surprise. “You’ve seen me get shot at, like, a million times!”

He shrugged, scratching my back between my wings, making me shiver. “It’s worse now.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said, and held his face so I could kiss him again. It felt like we were in a time-free bubble, the only two people around, and in the ninety-eight-degree weather, I felt like I was burning up from my head to my toes.

“Max! Fang! Dinner!”

I jumped and pulled back. But no one came into the tent, so Fang’s lingering hands stroked up and down my arms as we tried to get normal expressions back on our faces. Part of me wanted to stay in there forever and forget the rest of the world, but I immediately felt guilty, thinking of the flock waiting for us outside. I was still responsible for them; we were still a family.

And always would be.

Chapter 8

8

“PASS THE … GRUB,” said Iggy a few minutes later, holding out his hand.

“The brown grub or the yellow grub?” I asked. My face still felt flushed from my time with Fang. I hoped the others couldn’t tell.