But Harry didn’t draw his friends or family. He drew a boy with huge wings and a square box with bars around him. Harry pointed to the boy’s frowning face, and then tapped his own chest.

The twinge of protectiveness I’d felt earlier in the Doomsday hall returned. Harry was strong and an exceptional flier, but he was still so vulnerable.

“That was scary today, huh? I’m sorry for not listening to your instincts before,” I said quietly. “Don’t worry, though. It’s all over now.”

Harry kept sketching with the stick. Outside the cage, he drew other figures—people with masks over their faces. Scientists, without a doubt.

I noticed that Harry had started shaking again, his down trembling.

“I understand,” I said, reaching for Harry’s hand. I squeezed it tight, trying to comfort him. “It happened to me, too.”

Then suddenly Harry leaned over and planted his lips on mine.

That kiss brought back every sweet memory of Fang—shy moments from the beginning when a kiss meant the whole world, and then that last night we spent together…

It made me think of Dylan, too, though, and my cheeks burned with confusion.

I pulled back abruptly. My eyes swam with tears—but my chest hurt like I’d been stabbed. The grief threatened to overflow. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and pressed my lips together.

Get it together.

“Max Mum?” Harry asked.

Harry lacked even the most basic communication skills. How could I explain that I still loved a boy who was dead, and another who had left me?

“Harry…” I started.

“Harry!” he crowed in response. He jerked his head forward again, but I was quicker to move this time.

“No, Harry,” I said. Looking at him, I drew an X through the Max stick figure on the ground. I slowly shook my head for emphasis.

“You must never. Do that. Again.”

61

ANGEL’S HEAD THROBBED. The visions were coming more and more frequently now, the flashes almost like electric shocks as they assaulted her consciousness.

She saw Nudge’s face underwater, her eyes wide open in terror. She heard Gazzy’s heart thundering, and then an explosion that drowned out everything else. She felt Iggy’s pain as his body was cracked like a whip.

Angel dug her fingernails into her palms. It didn’t have to be like this. She’d warned them. Why hadn’t they just come with her?

Because of Max. Max was used to running everything, but Angel understood something Max never had about being a leader: She couldn’t do everything all by herself.

So when the flock had bailed, she hadn’t gone to Russia. Not yet. Instead, she’d traveled all over the world, working her small, tired body to the bone, gathering survivors one by one for her cause, meeting people who would listen.