"But... they could still aim. They still knew we were there, somehow," he said.

"They must have some sort of alternate sensing system. I wonder if they have no eyes on purpose, or if it was a mistake? I mean, Iggy is blind because they operated on him, trying to give him better night vision."

Dylan looked appalled. "You're kidding."

"Don't you get it?" I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice. "People like that-mad-scientist types-we aren't human to them. We're experiments. And those kids down there, kids who have been trained to kill, kids who have no eyes-they're experiments too."

"That's all we'll ever be, isn't it?" Dylan shook his head sadly. "Lab rats. Just someone's theory, someone's pipe dream. And they've already replaced us with the next best thing."

He looked so pitiful, so lost, that before I even knew what I was doing, I took his hand in mine. On purpose. It was warm and soft. Not battle hardened yet.

Then I said something that I've said very rarely in my life-even more rarely than "I love you."

"I'm sorry," I told him.

25.

DYLAN GAVE MY hand a squeeze and smiled weakly. Out of nowhere, I had a vision of kissing those soft, perfect lips. Then Fang's face flashed before my eyes. I fell into a sudden coughing fit and dropped Dylan's hand like a dead fish.

"You okay?" Dylan asked, rubbing my back. When I glared at him, he, thankfully, had the decency to change the subject.

"It's later than I thought," he said. "I say we camp out in the desert tonight, spy on the school from a distance, and maybe find a way to sneak in tomorrow morning."

"Huh," I said. It was a plan that I might have come up with, probably would have come up with. But all I heard, all I focused on were the words, "camp out in the desert tonight." The two of us. Alone. And my heart sped up.

About a mile from the Gen 77 school, there were canyons, striped with layers of red, peach, and cream-colored rock. We flew toward one of the higher b.u.t.tes and found a natural cave with an excellent view of the school. Then it was Dylan and me, alone together.

If he tried anything, I'd knock his teeth out.

You're meant to be together, the Voice said suddenly. I groaned so loud that Dylan looked startled. the Voice said suddenly. I groaned so loud that Dylan looked startled.

"It's nothing," I muttered.

"Okayyy," he said quizzically, and I was back to wanting to punch him. "Hungry?" Dylan reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of protein bars. I took the chocolate chip one. It tasted like sawdust mixed with chocolate chips. I was glad to have it. I contributed a bottle of warm water. We shared it in silence.

"I hope the others aren't too worried," I said, trying to make conversation, my voice sounding weirdly loud in the still night.

"They have to know by now that you can take care of yourself," said Dylan. I nodded in agreement.

For long moments, we lay on the ledge on our stomachs, watching the school. With Fang, silences were comfortable. With Dylan, they were awkward. After a while, Dylan leaned over my shoulder and pointed up.

"Ursa Major. And Pegasus, the winged horse. Kinda looks like us." I followed as his finger traced the shapes. The stars were bright and so numerous that it looked like someone had taken a handful of diamonds and thrown them onto black velvet.

"Or, no, there's you, Max. Ca.s.siopeia, the queen."

"Oh, come on!" I cuffed him on the shoulder, and he tucked his head down, laughing. Still, I felt my face getting warm.

"Where'd you learn all that stuff, anyway?" I asked seriously. He shrugged.

"Back at the house in Colorado. When you were-away." He cleared his throat, and I gulped. He meant when I was away with Fang with Fang. "The rest of us watched the stars. They said Jeb had taught you guys about them back in the day. Don't you remember?"

Now it was my turn to shrug. I'd blocked out most of my good memories of Jeb.

"I was interested, and I had a lot of time to myself over there. So I read up on it. I'm curious about stuff, I guess. I just sort of absorb information."

I thought of our Max's Home School sessions, about how the rest of the flock had resented me for wanting us to learn something. I kept my eyes focused on the school building below.

"Do you think you could, like, teach me some of that stuff sometime?" I asked, in a small voice that didn't even sound like me. It sounded cheesy.

Dylan didn't laugh. "Of course," he said. I felt his deep turquoise eyes looking right into me. "Anytime you want, Max."

"Thanks," I whispered, then trained my eyes back on the facility. Lights were on in the building, but no vehicles came or went, and no one seemed to step foot outside. I tried not to notice the warmth coming from Dylan's body, or how every once in a while one of his sneakers nudged mine.

"I'm luckier than you are," Dylan said unexpectedly.

"How do you figure that?" I asked, looking at him in the dark.

"I know you're torn up about Fang," he said. I cringed. "I don't blame you. And now I'm here, and everyone's pushing me at you, including me."

My cheeks burned. This was exactly the kind of horrible, embarra.s.sing, emotional stuff that I try really hard to avoid. Maybe if I talked about how to skin a desert rat, it would kill the romantic mood...

"But for me, there's only been you," he continued, looking off into the distance. "I don't have to make any decisions. I don't have to figure things out. You're the only choice I have, the only one I want. For me, it's really simple."

I swallowed, feeling like there was a large brick in my suddenly dry throat.

"You don't know me," Dylan said. "You and Fang-you kind of talk the same, figure things out the same, know a lot of the same stuff, have a lot of shared history. You and I are more... combustible," he said softly.

I couldn't look at him. I felt as if looking at him would somehow break down every barrier I'd put up between us. I knew without a doubt that I loved Fang. But Dylan had hit the nail on the head-he and I were combustible. If I were mad at Fang, it was more like stubborn opposition, irritation. If I were mad at Dylan, it was fury, white hot.

I'm a girl who has been tamping down her emotions and keeping them tightly guarded her whole life. And that works really well for me. But that approach didn't seem possible with Dylan. He provoked me; he got under my skin. And now I felt like my sh.e.l.l had a dangerous crack in it. Without much more effort on his part, it would split wide open, and my enormous river of emotions would gush out-the bad and the good.

It was pretty much the scariest thing I'd ever thought of.

I rested my head on my arms and closed my eyes, unable to say a word. It had been a long, hard day. I tensed when I felt Dylan's fingers smooth my hair, then slowly trace a line down my back. When I didn't say anything, he lay next to me quietly and put his arm around my shoulders.

He didn't speak again, and gradually my muscles relaxed in his warmth. And I noticed how well my body curved into his... a perfect fit.

As if we were engineered that way.

I fell into a deep sleep tucked in that little coc.o.o.n, a deeper sleep than I might have had in years.

Right up until someone kicked me and said, "Gotcha!"

26.

I JUMPED TO my feet and landed in a semicrouched position, fists at the ready.

Angel put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips. "Very fierce," she said. "It would have been much fiercer if I hadn't been able to sneak up on you while you were sleeping."

She raised an eyebrow. I resisted looking at Dylan, who was now standing beside me, but I felt my ears get warm as I remembered the way we'd fallen asleep last night, his arm around me.

"Hi," I said inadequately, and pushed my dusty hair out of my eyes.

"Yeah," she said dryly. "Once everyone was back home and patched up, I wanted to come find you, to make sure you were okay."

"I'm always okay," I said. "How's everyone else?"

"Pretty good. Your mom has a cast on her arm. Jeb has a cast on his leg. Iggy and Nudge are actually kind of a mess-Nudge needed eighty-seven st.i.tches, and Iggy got a hundred and three. Gazzy has two cracked ribs."

My eyes widened. I'd left them...

"But they're okay, really," Angel went on. "They'll heal fast. So, what's the deal down there, anyway?" I quickly caught her up on the eyeless kids guarding the school.

She sighed deeply and shook her head. "When will they learn? Poor kids."

"Don't feel too sorry for them. Even without eyes, their aim was still pretty accurate. Hey, can you pick up anything coming from there, thoughtwise?" I asked.

Angel sat very still and closed her eyes. Dylan and I sat down too, but I refused to look at him. After a couple minutes, Angel frowned and opened her eyes.

"I didn't get anything," she said. "You're sure they're humanoid, not bots of some kind?"

Dylan laughed. "Yeah, like robots, covered with skin and stuff? Science fiction."

"You have much to learn, Gra.s.shopper," I said, then turned to Angel. "What say we fly overhead and lure them out. When you see them, you can try to play puppet master and get them to put down their weapons. Sound good?"

Angel nodded, stood up, and brushed off her jeans. "Let's do it."

We had to go through the horrible razor wires to get close to the school. It was nerve-racking, and now I was burdened with the image of Nudge and Iggy being all sliced up and st.i.tched back together again. But, pros that we are, we zipped through the obstacle course and emerged over the school. It took a few minutes before the rooftop door opened, and, surprise, three black-hooded guards raced out, weapons raised.

Angel stared at them, willing them to lower their weapons. Once or twice, we saw a couple of them falter and start to lower their rifles, but then it was like an override feature kicked in, and they straightened up and prepared to fire.

"They've been brainwashed," Angel said slowly. "I can barely get through at all, and then only for a second before their programming takes over."

"Are they human?" I asked.

"Yeah, mostly," she said. "Combined with something, but I don't know what. When I got in one's head for a moment, I saw how it sees. We looked like glowing things in the sky, very bright."

"Hence, their uncanny aim," I said. Then I had a thought. "If we're glowy things in the sky, what happens if they see a falling star?" And with that, I simply closed my wings and dropped down to the roof, extending my wings at the last second to break my fall. The ninja kids paused, hesitating, then quickly raised their weapons, aiming at me point-blank.

I held up my hands in the universal "I'm unarmed and if you shoot me you're a total unfair jerk" gesture, but only heard safeties clicking off in response.

"Plan B!" I yelled, dropping and rolling to the side. In this case, plan B was "fight like crazed wolverines because plan A went nowhere." I swung a leg out, fast and hard, and knocked one attacker's feet right out from under him or her.

Everything got kind of messy after that.

27.

ANGEL SHOT UP in the air just as one ninja kid fired at her, but when she landed behind him, the kid's leg flung out and nailed her in the gut. Coughing, she lunged for the rifle, but again the kid antic.i.p.ated her position and smashed her knuckles.

Angel's pretty quick when she needs to be, but the ninja kid was always one step ahead of her. What was the deal with these creepsters?

I was scrambling to my feet to help Angel when one kid sprung at me, weirdly fast, in a series of backflips. I swerved sideways at the last second, but, with lightning-fast reflexes, the kid snap kicked me right under the chin. I was shocked. My arms windmilled and I fell backward, off the building.

Just as my fingers snagged the edge of the roof, I got a glimpse of Dylan's furious face as he charged the kid who'd kicked me. But I didn't need Prince Charming. I had already bounced back and flown up on the roof-only to be shot at as soon as I was visible.

My head was ringing, my teeth had slammed together, and I tasted blood.

"Okay, enough!" I snapped, really angry now. I still had a roundhouse kick or two in me, and I was ready to start whaling on these bullies. I surged forward while one took aim, but then I spotted Dylan waving his arms at me to stop.

Which, come on, didn't Golden Boy here know me at all?

He was pointing at the sky and mumbling something about how they couldn't see. I glared at him. Yeah, Dylan, we've established that. Yeah, Dylan, we've established that.

"Over their heads," he shouted. "I don't think they can sense anything directly over them!"

I looked at Angel, who was hovering over a confused-looking ninja kid. He was spinning around but couldn't seem to get a read on her.

Oh. Got it!

Dylan and I joined Angel in zipping from kid to kid, moving as quickly as possible, so that the ones we weren't directly over couldn't get a good shot. It wasn't long before the kids were spinning in place, trying to focus.

If it hadn't been so screwed up, and we weren't actually, you know, dancing over the heads of kids trying to kill us, it might've been kind of fun. But somehow I didn't think that this strategy was going to end our little skirmish.

Just as I was about to call for a plan C, the ninja kid below me dropped to the ground. And so did the one spinning underneath Dylan. Say wha...? Say wha...? They seemed to be short-circuiting or something. After the third one fell, we snapped cord ties around their wrists. They seemed to be short-circuiting or something. After the third one fell, we snapped cord ties around their wrists.

When it was over, I sat back, panting, watching the bodies warily to make sure they stayed down as Dylan double-checked that all guns were accounted for.

Angel leaned over and yanked off one ninja kid's black hood.

It was awful.