Harry looked alarmed at the sounds I was making, so I tried to get my hiccupping snorts under control, and held up my hand for a high five.

“Good job, Harry!” I said. At the sound of his name, that dazzling smile was back, along with his dimples.

I choked out another laugh. “Well, that was a pretty epic escape, huh?” I said.

In response, Harry crowed and soared even higher. I knew exactly how he felt—man, it felt good to be free again.

Even this far from the city, you could see the explosion’s effects. Many trees were stripped of bark, others look singed, and many of them had simply been broken off right above the ground.

There was still some life, though, scampering through the underbrush, and Harry was already scanning the ground for prey. My stomach rumbled at the idea. We hadn’t eaten in almost two days—since the rattlesnake feast Harry had delivered.

Harry screeched like an owl as he swooped low to the ground, and when I followed suit, my voice came out like a war cry. It felt good to be loud and primal, to hunt our own dinner in the woods, to stretch my wings and know my speed and feel my power.

By the time the sun had completely set, we’d strung more than a dozen rodents up over the fire. For dinner, we had a mix of radiation rat, charred chipmunk, and nuclear squirrel. It was absolutely disgusting.

And absolutely delicious.

“This is just like the old days,” I reminisced, tearing into the gamey flesh. “When we were running from the whitecoats, me and the flock—”

I stopped, worried about letting those dark emotions in, but Harry was looking at me with wide, curious eyes, and I wanted to talk about my family. I needed to feel like they were still right here.

Or needed to believe they were still somewhere.

“Here, look.”

I licked squirrel juice off my fingers and grabbed a nearby twig. “Here’s me, Maximum,” I said, tracing a simple shape in the dirt—a stick figure with two triangles for wings. I added another next to it. And then five more. I even drew Total, but he came out more like a fuzzy sausage with a weird growth on his back.

I told Harry about Nudge’s love of fashion, about how Total had adored Akila, and how Iggy was the only one of us who could cook. I described the tree house Dylan had built me and how Fang had pulled me out of the swirling tsunami.

I missed them all desperately, and even if Harry didn’t understand, it just felt good to say their names.

“We’re a flock of two now,” I finished, looking at him. “You and me.”

“Flaaaack,” Harry echoed wisely.

“Show me your flock, how you grew up.” I handed him the stick.