“I told you, the doctor was sending reinforcements, the other Horsemen!” Dylan threw up his hands in exasperation. “I had to get to everyone first and convince him you were all dead. Or you really would be!”

“But you—” I started again, but realized I was running out of objections.

It was possible Dylan had actually done a really good, selfless thing.

Maybe you should stop berating him, Angel’s voice said inside my head as she cocked an eyebrow. I glared at her, knowing she was right.

When I looked back at Dylan, into those aqua eyes that I’d missed so much, the fight drained right out of me.

“You did it all on your own?” I asked more calmly. “You risked your life to save the rest of the flock?”

“You guys are my family.” Dylan shrugged, humble as ever. “It’s what any of you would’ve done.”

My heart melted right then, and I nodded.

Yeah, it is. Time to eat crow. So to speak.

“C’mere, Boy Wonder.” I yanked Dylan toward me for the tightest hug, squeezing those pumped-up biceps until he understood how thankful I was—for what he’d done, and that he was still alive.

That he really was part of our family.

“So everyone’s safe, then?” I said, once the hugfest was over. “Where’s the flock? Are they close? I can’t wait to have us all back together again.”

Dylan winced and looked at Angel.

“What is it?” I asked.

Something was very wrong.

70

“ALMOST EVERYONE’S SAFE.” Angel spoke carefully.

I frowned. “Is someone hurt? What happened? Is it Nudge? Total?”

“It’s Fang,” Dylan said softly, not looking at me.

“Yeah? What about him?”

“He’s… dead, Max.”

You’d think those words would’ve laid me out, but they didn’t.

Because they simply didn’t make sense. I had once thought Angel was dead. It had been bad. I had feared that Dylan was dead, since we’d left the island. I had worried about each person in my flock, worried until it ate away at my insides and destroyed my sleep. But I’d never, ever imagined that Fang would actually ever be dead.

Ever.

Not until I was dead, too.

“I don’t understand,” I said stiffly. “There must be some mistake.”

Tell me it was a mistake. Tell me the reports of Fang’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

Tell me.

“I knew it was gonna happen.” Angel’s voice sounded like it was underwater. “I’ve known it forever, and now it’s real.”

Real. Dead. Fang, my Fang, was no longer in this world. The world was still turning somehow, but without Fang.

My body seemed to understand the words before my head did. Just like this morning, I couldn’t get enough oxygen, and my heart and lungs were working double-triple-overtime. This time, my heart was physically breaking.