“Oh. That’s good. So you made friends?”

“Yeah. I met a really cool girl named Lennon and the quarterback of the football team.”

“The quarterback? That wasn’t the boy you were talking to when I came to pick you up, was it?”

“No.” I hesitate. “He—the quarterback—was at practice.”

“I was going to say…it might be hard for him to run and keep up his smoking habit.”

My face drains of color. I should have known that wouldn’t go unnoticed. “It’s not like…we’re not friends, Mom.”

“Who is he?”

“His name is Thane. I think…I think he’s sad.” I don’t think that—I know that. But at my comment, my mom looks up.

“Don’t make someone your project, Anora. You can’t change people.”

Well, this is definitely awkward, and while I know the words that come out of my mouth might begin World War III, I say them anyway.

“Is that what happened with Dad?” I ask. “Did you think you could change him?”

We don’t talk about Dad. What I know of him isn’t much. He had a lot of problems and left Mom when I was two. She says I have his eyes. I sometimes wonder if he left because of mom’s issues.

Mom halts midbite, but she doesn’t look at me as she replies with a simple, “No.”

Chapter Six

Shy and the Hellhounds

I stand outside on the highest tier of the Compound, a five-story, obsidian tower and the headquarters for our branch of the Order. There are four in the United States: Oklahoma, New York, California, South Dakota, and one in every country across the world. Compound sites were chosen based on where the Adamantine Gates once stood. Our capitol is in New York. That’s where Maximum DuPont is dying and where Roth will come into power.

At this height, I can see for miles—over the tops of trees to the horizon, painted blue with sky and gray by the lake. The wind is harsh, and I have to hide my wings just to stand in place. Knifelike pinnacles surround me, descending in a spiral like a dizzying set of mechanical teeth. A wall of the same glossy, black stone cuts through the woods around our fortress, covering ten acres and measuring twenty-six feet high. It’s a smooth, impenetrable shield—a reminder of the Valryn’s violent past.