My mom continues to rock back and forth as she has for the last hour since we left the exploding aerie, chanting in her own version of speaking in tongues. Her voice rises and falls as if she’s having a fierce argument with God. Or maybe the devil.

A tear drops off her chin and lands on my forehead, and I know her heart is breaking. It’s breaking for me, her seventeen-year-old daughter, whose job was to look out for the family.

As far as she knows, I’m just a lifeless body brought to her by the devil. She’ll probably never be able to blot out the image of me lying limp in Raffe’s arms with his demon wings backlit by flames.

I wonder what she’d think if someone told her that Raffe was actually an angel who’s been tricked into having demon wings. Would that be any stranger than being told that I’m not actually dead but just stung into a weird paralysis by a scorpion-angel monster? She’d probably think that person was as crazy as she is.

My baby sister sits at my feet seemingly frozen. Her eyes stare blankly and her back is perfectly straight despite the weaving of the truck. It’s as if Paige has shut herself off.

The tough men in the truck keep stealing glances at her like little boys peeking over their blankets. She looks like a bruised, stitched-up doll from a nightmare. I hate to think about what might have happened to her to make her like this. A part of me wishes I knew more but a part of me is glad I don’t.

I take a big breath. I’ll have to get up sooner or later. I don’t have a choice but to face the world. I’m fully thawed now. I doubt if I could fight or anything, but as far as I can tell, I should be able to move.

I sit up.

I guess if I’d really thought things through, I would have been prepared for the screams.

Chief among the screamers is my mother. Her muscles stiffen in sheer terror, her eyes impossibly wide.

“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s all right.” My words are slurred, but I’m grateful I don’t sound like a zombie.

It would be funny except for a sobering thought that pops into my head: We now live in a world where someone like me could be killed for being a freak.

I put my hands out in a calming gesture. I say something to try to reassure them, but it gets lost in the screams. Panic in a small area like a truck bed is contagious, apparently.

The other refugees crush against each other as they press toward the rear of the truck. Some of them look prepared to jump out of the moving vehicle.