I shook my head. Leave it to my father to correct my choice of word in a moment like this. Daddy smiled at me. It was strange, but it was almost like he was proud that his daughter was this half-angel creature. "You're taking all of this very well, sweetie," he said.

So that's what he was proud of. It was a bit funny, really, because I'd been thinking the same thing about him. His biggest concern, it seemed, was that he didn't like me using guns. "Not really," I replied. "It's just I'm not sure there's any other way to handle this. It's true, it's real, and that's all there is to it." Then, I added, "And about the warrior thing, don't worry. I'll stop now. There's no point in leading my little army without Gabe."

"What are you talking about?" asked my mother.

I turned back to her. "It just feels stupid now, after everything...besides I just can't. Not without him, I feel so..." exactly like when Chris left "...empty."

"It's stupid to try to rescue the rest of the people who were taken?" she asked and then shook her head. She seemed to have some energy again, more like the Mother I knew. "Riley, I'm surprised at you. I have to say, I really don't like how much boys affect your work ethic."

What? "That's not true..."

"No, Riley, it is." Mother sat forward in her chair. "Chris was taken, and I understood you were mourning him, but your school work really went downhill last year. Now Gabe leaves, and you want to give up on the people who are depending on you?"

It's not like that, you don't understand. "No, it's not that. It just feels so pointless." I lowered my eyes. "Everything feels pointless."

"I understand, honey," she said, her voice softening, the tears welled up t, felt "but you can't let those feelings take over how you behave. If I'd wallowed after Bryce left me, I'd have never finished college, never met your father. You can't give up on something just because a boy broke your heart."

I'd never heard her talk like this before. But even stranger was the inevitable conclusion she was driving toward which was...

"So...you want me to lead my army?" I asked, seriously surprised.

"If you had asked my permission first, then I absolutely would have refused. And now, hearing all of this, I wish I'd just taken us all far away and forgotten all about my parents and their stupid request."

I'd never heard Mother insult her parents before. It was shocking.

"But now, after hearing your plan, and how skilled you are, how there is a possibility of returning this town to the one I grew up in and loved..."

"I really don't like guns," interrupted Daddy.

"I know, Daddy. But there isn't any other way to do this," I said looking back at him.

"You have a week until the ceremony," continued Mother. "Invite your friends over here, and they can shoot on the property. I'd like to make sure everyone is using proper safety measures."

"Okay," I replied, still in shock. "And you really are cool with this kind of civil disobedience?" It seemed pretty unbelievable she would be.

My mother sighed. "Riley, all your life, have I ever made you conform to anything you didn't want to be?"

I thought about it for a moment. She did like to push my boundaries...but make me? "No."

"No. I still wish you dressed a bit better, but I've never made you wear anything you didn't want to, just gave really strong hints what might work, like the dress last night." I rolled my eyes, and she waved the issue away with a delicate hand. "That isn't important right now. My point is, honey, I go to luncheons, I go to parties, I go to the Church of the Angels so you don't have to. So you can live your life relatively free of the judgment I know is in this town."

I was shaken. I'd always just seen her as someone who cared a little too much what others thought of her. Suddenly I saw it all in a very different light. She wanted to ensure that nothing got in the way of me achieving my goals, even if it meant d;

45Z"sh. Could.

The week went by like a shot, an appropriate simile considering. At first it was really weird moving training to my parents' place, but it actually wound up being pretty great. We had a lot more room here to work, and Daddy had tweaked the skeet shooter to get it to shoot totally different arcs, really challenging us again. He'd also gone to the park where the fair grounds were in the midst of being put together and took a survey of the best spots for the team. We were lucky that the town would be in a pretty confined area. This meant we knew how much ground we'd have to cover.

"There's going to be a Ferris wheel this year, and b.u.mper cars," Daddy reported back. "And those are being set up a bit farther outside the normal area, but once it gets close to the Taking, everyone's meant to congregate around the stage to listen to Pastor Warren, so it should still work out."

"Thanks, Daddy," I said, and gave him a smile.

"I've actually drawn a map..." he continued, and opened up the briefcase he used when working at Tulane. I laughed. "What?" he asked as he pulled out a large piece of paper.

"Nothing, it's just really nice how much you want to help out," I replied.

"Well, of course I want to help out," he said, and he spread out the map in front of us on the dining room table. "The best positions would have to be the following..." And he showed us the different options. It was obvious he'd put in a lot of thought and made several calculations involving the possible angle of the targets, which I'd just a.s.sumed was up, but to Daddy there were a few more possibilities.

"This is great, Mr. Carver," said Curtis, and everyone else nodded in agreement.

"d.a.m.n great!" added Wild Frank.

"Frank," said Daddy, turning to him. "I told the sheriff that you'd be having dinner with us on the night of the Taking, that we'd be in charge of making sure you didn't go gun-crazy, so make sure to come by here first before heading down to the grounds."

"That's awesome, Daddy!" I said. I'd totally forgotten about Wild Frank's guards for the night.

"Dave, you're a d.a.m.n fine b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you know that?" said Wild Frank, sounding a little emotional.

"I didn't know that, but thank you," replied Daddy. "And, honey," said Daddy, turning to me, "your Mother and I have come to a decision. We're going to stay home."

"What?" They had to come, I needed their support.

"We won't be any use to you, and your Mother is really nervous about all of this. To be honest, Honey, we're concerned that if anything went wrong, we'd try to help you, and we'd get in the way."

"You wouldn't."

"Those creatures might lash out at you, and you've all trained for this, but we haven't. We'd want to help, but we wouldn't be able to...we decided we'd rather feel helpless at home than be a danger to you all. Can you understand that?"

I couldn't really. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

I nodded. I had resigned myself to doing this without Gabe, but I'd kind of replaced him with my parents. Now that they weren't go shoved in his moutheskidd ing to be there either...my G.o.d. I'd really be on my own.

No. I looked at my team watching the conversation, not alone.

"Okay. I get it," I said. Daddy leaned over and gave me a side hug.

Mother entered with a tray of sandwiches then, and we pushed the map aside for lunch. Really, it had been pretty wonderful having my parents helping us out. I kind of regretted not having asked them sooner, except of course that if I had they probably would have not only said no, but locked me up in my room just in case. Everything had happened just as it was supposed to.

Everything?

Even Gabe leaving had its own importance in the series of events that had followed. If he hadn't left I'd have never run into the forest, and I probably would never have had that talk with the guardian. I'd have been too distracted by Gabe.

But maybe there still could have been a way. Maybe we would still have been at this point with him around. I didn't think it was right to just excuse Gabe's bad behavior. Over the week, my sadness over missing him had slowly turned to rage at how he'd left. It was useful, really, making me keener than ever to kick some angel-or rather Thrall-b.u.t.t.

When the day finally arrived, though, I found myself far from pumped up. Mostly I just felt terrified, and I think it showed when the team arrived late in the afternoon for a final meeting and last training session.

"You okay?" asked Father Peter coming over to me in the living room, as the others gathered around the map one last time on the dining room table.

"I'm a little nervous," I said.

"Well, you look more than a little nervous."

"Okay, terrified."

"We're ready for this, Riley, and it will work." He stood facing me and placed his hand on my shoulder.

"You think so?"

"I have faith."

"Well, yes, you would..."

"But Riley, even if you don't," he continued, bringing up his other hand to my other shoulder, "you need to pretend. I know you like to be one hundred percent honest, but you've got to lead this team, and they need to know that you know this will work."

"But what if it doesn't?"

"Riley."

"Okay," I said. "Okay. I'll fake it."

We joined the gang at the table. When they noticed me, they all stopped talking and stood upright. It was uncomfortable, them all just looking at me like that.

"You guys excited?" I asked, forcing a smile.

"Not really," replied Lacy. "My stomach's in knots. I couldn't eat anything today."

"Yeah, I know. This is pretty big. I'm nervous too." I glanced over at Father Peter who gave me a look. "But that's to be expected. We've got a solid plan, guys. Our training has paid off, our skills are amazing now." I really wanted to tell them what my guardian had told me, that because I'd chosen them and worked with them, they were better at this than they had any idea they were. But I couldn't. Because I was still keeping that half-angel thing to myself. "We can do this. It might have seemed like a crazy idea at first, but I'm telling you guys, if my parents are helping us, that means there's affected by our powerex, felt something very logical about it."

That got a small laugh, and they seemed to relax. "Not only can we do this, we will do this. We'll know exactly where the creatures are because everyone in the town will be in one place. They like to show off, the creatures, so they'll make sure we get a good chance to see them. And when we do..."

"We blow those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds out of the sky!" finished Wild Frank.

"d.a.m.n right we will!" I said and laughed.

"Okay," said John clapping his hands together, "great pep talk, Riley, but we've got one more training session to get in, and then we've gotta get some rest before we meet up."

"Right," I replied, "then let's get going."

Our final training session was only two hours. We didn't want to overtire ourselves. But besides that, more time just wasn't necessary. They were fantastic, all of them. And I wasn't that bad either. We finished off the session back inside the cool house with a light dinner that my mother left for us to enjoy. She and Daddy had gone into town to make a final inspection of the fair grounds. We were all pretty relaxed and happy and chatting up a storm, which is why we didn't hear the door at first.

But I heard the knock the second time and excused myself from the table.

"Amber?" I said when I opened the door. I stepped outside quickly, even though it was pretty obvious from the number of cars in the drive that I wasn't alone. "What are you doing here?"

Amber looked even paler than usual, her freckles so clear you could play connect the dots with them.

"I..." She looked like she was about to faint.

"Here, Amber, sit down," I said, guiding her to the edge of the porch. She did, and I sat next to her. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she muttered. Then she looked up at me with a look of total desperation in her eyes. "Riley, I just found out something, and I had to tell you."

"What is it?"

She took a stuttered breath. "So I went to the church..."

"Church of the Angels?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "I went early because Pastor Warren said he wanted to make sure I chose the right dress for tonight. I'll be up on stage with the family because of me and Brett, and we have to look right."

"Okay..." Still sounded creepy to me.

"So I went early and went inside to find him, and he wasn't anywhere in the main hall so I thought he was probably downstairs . . ."

"There's a downstairs?"

"It's not much, a little kitchen, a small room for his office. And sure enough, I heard his voice, but I thought it sounded like he was talking to someone, so I didn't go in. I f I should."

"Okay."

"So I waited outside and sort of listened, and then I heard a voice, and it sounded like Gabe's voice, and I thought that didn't make sense..."

"What?" I asked her quickly. "What did you just say?"

"Well, that's the thing. I was thinking like, what's he doing here? He doesn't like this stuff. So I really carefully opened the door a little bit, just a little bit, and peeked inside. And I saw that i affected by our powerex, felt t was Gabe, and he was..." She was visibly upset now. "Riley, he was all tied up. And...and...he was all bruised, and just as I was wondering what had happened, I saw Pastor Warren hit him, like really hard, across the face."

"Amber..."

"And I made a noise, and Pastor Warren heard, and so I ran upstairs, and I didn't know what to do. I guess I should have gone home, but I know y'all are such good friends, and I didn't think you knew about it, and I thought I should tell you."

I was already on my feet heading toward the door. She turned and called the last bit out after me. Without even looking back at her, I opened the door and stepped inside, slamming it behind me.

"Gabe's been taken by Pastor Warren. He's at the church, being held there and beaten, and I'm going to rescue him," I announced to the team.

"What are you talking about?" asked Father Peter.

"I don't know how it happened, but for some reason Pastor Warren has him, and I've got to save him."

"Well, yeah, of course, and we'll help," said Daniel. Everyone else stood up in a rush.