“I’ll call a contact at the CSM,” said my mom, reaching for her phone. “He’ll be able to help us find a place.”

But I had only one real desire right then: to go back to Colorado and drink the water. If my flock was going through this, I needed to go through it too.

PART FOUR

PART
FOUR

THE TOTALLY, COMPLETELY UNTHINKABLE

Chapter 67

67

TOTAL WAS GLAD TO SEE us all again. His own horrible skin lesions were somewhat disguised by his black fur, but he was definitely suffering the same effects.

“I feel like crap!” he said, once we were settled at the new safe house. “At first I thought I’d gotten some bad shrimp dip, but this is way beyond that.”

“How’s Akila?” I asked. “She seem okay?”

“Yes, thank God.” His small black eyes glittered. “Which reminds me. I’ve got some big news —”

“Max? Come look at this sunset,” said Dylan. I’d been avoiding him ever since we got here, even though I’d felt his eyes on me whenever we were in the same room. Nudge had told me he was a great singer and could totally be a star, on top of being a great fighter who got along swimmingly with the rest of the flock.

Without meaning to, I glanced across the room at Fang, who’d been talking to Gazzy and Iggy. His gaze was lasered in on me.

“Oh, I’m sure it’s great,” I said to Dylan lamely. The picture window showed the low mountains off in the distance, and we could see a bit of the ocean if we leaned way to the left on the balcony.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” said Dylan, a wistful smile on his slightly less troll-like face. “But I’d understand if you want to keep your distance from” — he pointed at himself — “this mess.”

“Can’t you, like, put some magic spit on it and make it all better?” I asked, only half joking.

“Tried it already.” He chuckled. “I guess even the doc’s magic doesn’t work on bad teenage complexions. I’m doomed.”

The irony of Dylan complaining about his usually perfect skin was not lost on me. I laughed, then smothered it, not willing to be sucked into his charm.

The rest of the flock was starting to seem better too, as Jeb had predicted. They had more energy, and their skin looked less awful. If Jeb was right, their systems were absorbing the reactant, binding it to their genes, and soon it would be normal, a part of them. Greeaaaat. I kept waiting for antlers to pop out of their heads or for them to start understanding Akila when she barked. I mean, what the heck was going to happen to them?

The next day the skin lesions were virtually gone. But we hardly even noticed because, lo and behold, something else was gone too.

Angel.