We watch BakeDiva6 cautiously pull out in the SUV carrying her radioactive cargo in the back. Technically our radioactive cargo. I wave and try not to feel like a miserable bastard for probably making this the worst day of her life. God help us all if she gets nabbed by the cops.

  As soon as the SUV turns out of the parking lot, I turn my hat around, brim facing backwards the way I like it. In spite of pretty much everything about him, I am really goddamned impressed with Rain.

  “You got quite a network there,” I tell him. My family has been dancing this bloody dance since before God saw fit to put me on this earth, and somehow Rain’s managed to kick it up to a whole new gear in less than two years.

  “Most of them have lost someone,” Rain says, with an aw-shucks shrug. “They’re dedicated.” His voice goes hoarse on those last two words, and a realization kicks me in the balls. As shitty as I feel about loading up a PTA mom with three bodies, Rain’s got to deal with way worse on a daily basis. He sends squads of Hunters out into the field, and not all of ‘em have come back. Every single person in his network is taking risks, counting on him and Bear. There’s more than one way to get blood on your hands.

  Sucks to be a leader.

  I can’t help but glance over to Tarren. He’s been on stoic overload since he took that mysterious call. The only hint of his feelings are the few faint grimaces I’ve caught on his face the last hour, like he’s sucking on an Everlasting Gobstopper and hates the taste. I don’t know if he’s nervous about the mission, worried about Maya, or just kind of hates everything that’s going on. Sign me up for all three.

  Rain looks down as his phone buzzes with a text. “He’s coming in.”

  The three of us watch as a small white dot grows closer and closer. The plane roars over us, wingtips bent up at the very ends like it wants to high-five the world. Rain says it’s a Cessna Citation. I say it’s just motherfucking cool. Impossibly tiny wheels extend down, and it hits the landing strip hard, racing past. All I can think is, Is that really for us?

  I assume that we’ll have to fill out loads of paperwork in the tiny airport or at least hand over our fake IDs, but Rain waves us right over to the plane. He says the pilot’s already filed a flight plan. Just like that. Almost too easy, if you ask me.

  A small door swings open at our approach, and the pilot jumps out. A big belly pushes against his crisp white polo, but I can tell from his movements that he was strong and powerful once. Probably football or baseball in high school. Maybe college too. He’s wearing aviators, of course. Probably required.

  He sticks out a meaty hand to Rain and then to me. “Bumble Bee,” he says. “You the bastard who’s gonna get me killed tonight?”

  I like this guy. “Someone’s gotta die for the cause, and I’m too damn handsome to bite the dust,” I shoot right back at him. He lets out a crazy loud guffaw and squeezes my hand hard before letting go. He seems to know not to try the same line with Tarren, and their handshake is quick and silent.

  Bumble Bee’s plane is a beauty. My heart is starting to gallop in excitement. Rain stays on the ground to talk to Bumble Bee, so I am the first one to climb up the tiny stairs into the cabin. My whole life I’ve looked up at those tiny white trails running across the sky and wondered what it would be like to be up there; a tiny face in a tiny window up in the sky. If it weren’t for the horrible reason behind needing to jet into Lock Haven, this flight would be one hell of a birthday present.

  Of course, the real gift will be bringing Maya home.

  I duck through the door of the plane and try my goddamned hardest to look chill about the whole thing. Holy hippo eating guacamole. This plane is posh. Two plush seats on each side of the plane face each other, with one small seat in the back and another small one against the side of the wall just behind the pilot’s seat.

  Three sets of eyes hit me, belonging to three familiar faces.

  “Bear, my man!” I say, though I hardly recognize him. In the year or more since I’ve last seen him, he must have accidentally stumbled into one of them TLC makeover shows. The glasses are gone and so is most of the color in his thinning hair. He’s also missing about 50 pounds of weight and the trademark math teacher sweaters that made him definitely the most adorable vigilante in the bunch.

  Now he wears one of them all purpose GOR-TEX shirts that REI sells for $500 and your dignity. Tarren would approve.

  Bear nods at me, and says, “Greetings.” Well, at least there’s still a little nerd in him.

  “What about me, Darlin’?” Rattlesnake arches a drawn-on eyebrow at me and purses her scarlet lips. She’s still got all those nice curves and doesn’t mind showing them off.

  “Hello beautiful. Looking gorgeous as ever,” I tell her and then look to the final passenger. “You too, Chain. Wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

  He’s gotten better at glowering since that last time I’ve seen his crazy ass. I guess all the practicing in front the mirror has paid off.

  “Gabe,” he says with a grunt. “Tarren.” His dark eyes dart away from us.

  “Here.” Rattlesnake extricates herself from her chair. “I’ll sit in the back one so y’all can talk.” Her accent tickles me in all the right places, and the wink she gives me is an exclamation point. I file that away for another time when my world isn’t on the brink of utter collapse.

  I throw myself into her vacated seat. Tarren, bending practically at the waist to move through the aisle, sits across from me, leaving Rain to belt into the small extra seat in the front.

  The pilot folds up the steps and closes the door. I see him open his own door and swing up into the pilot seat like a natural. That makes me feel better. He slips on a pair of headphones and immediately speaks into his radio. I wonder where Rain found this guy. Is he a Funder, a Watcher, a Hunter? Got to be a Funder if he owns this plane or even has the dough to rent it on a regular basis.

  I lean forward, gripping both sides of the seat. I expect us to take off right away, but we get hit with some more waiting as other stupid bastards take off ahead of us.

  Just a little longer, I think to Maya and send my thoughts out, all the way to Lock Haven.

  “What do we know about the situation?” Bear says. It seems wrong that he doesn’t have a pair of glasses to push up the bridge of his nose.

  “She’s in a large house. The premises is isolated, and we believe it is heavily guarded,” Tarren says, dropping the news I’ve already been digesting for the last two hours.

  “Do we know how many?” Bear asks and rests his chin on his fingertips. Perfect weary leader pose.

  “At least a dozen guards outside, all angels, all armed. Warren has a personal guard with him at all times as well. We’re looking at approximately 15 guards and a handful of additional angels working in other capacities.”

  “That’s pretty damn specific,” Rattlesnake says.

  “What’s the source of your info?” Chain asks in his trademark fake Batman voice.

  “It’s solid,” Tarren responds. Bear glances at me as if asking my opinion. I decide now is a great time to look out the window, specially cause the plane starts moving. The sun kisses the horizon, and the sky is going electric pink.

  “Fifteen guards,” Bear murmurs.

  I look around and count our numbers again just in case I left someone out. Nope. Still just six, not including Bumble Bee, who’s flipping switches up front. And not an ounce of super strength, super hearing, or awesome powers between us. Chain nods and smiles like these odds are just his own kind of beautiful.

  “We need to work this out carefully,” Bear says.

  “Yeah, I’m not exactly ready to die today,” Rattlesnake says.

  “We’ve started considering tactics,” Tarren says.

  Our plane lines up on the runway. Then we move. Fast. Faster. I suck in a deep breath and don’t let it out. I can’t turn away from the window, from staring at the sudden tilt of the world. The oncoming rush of the pink sky. The moment the wheels lift off an odd lurch hits my stomach like it knows some crazy shit is going on.

  Then we’re flying. Actually flying. My stomach is flopping, my ear drums tightening. A veil of clouds rushes past the window. Holy God. This is awesome and terrifying and most definitely awesome.

  Voices murmur, muted with the roar. The others are talking as if hurtling through the sky in a tin can is no big fucking deal. Tarren’s trying to play it all cool, but I bet some tiny part of him is majorly freaking out like me. We’re still climbing. My ears pop, and it feels good.

  A new sense of hope breaks over me. Finally, after three days, we’re moving toward Maya. We’re coming to get her.

  The others are leaning together, arguing.

  “This is hard to say, but I can’t risk my best fighters just to get Maya out,” Bear says. His tired eyes are sympathetic but determined. “Our priority must be to kill War.”

  We’ve been sharing our intel on War with the Totem, and their squads have stumbled upon more than a few of his congregations getting all orgasmic over the end times. They know exactly what kind of crazy War represents, so I can’t fault Bear’s logic, though that doesn’t help the fact that I kind of want to deck him for it anyway. Bear has to be responsible and make big leadership decisions. I get to be selfish and risk my stupid life any which way I please. Which means Maya will always be my first priority.

  “If we’re going after War, that means we could have to take out every angel in the place,” Rain says, pitching his voice loud enough to carry over the engines of the plane.

  Tarren is already shaking his head. “Even if we could cut off all avenues of escapes, which is doubtful with our numbers, they have the advantage of defense. They can hole up in the house. We’d have to go room by room. It’d be bloody.”

  Cue my perfect dramatic moment. Happy fucking birthday to myself.

  “Then we just have to take down the house right on top of them,” I say, patting the black bag in my lap.

  Chapter 30 – Maya

  They take Gem’s body away, but not his blood. It settles into the wooden floorboards, brown like an oil spill. Flaky on the side of my leg. I lay on the ground, not thinking. Not feeling. Not anything except the hunger. It cries out of me, the song turning into an endless howl.

  Think. Remember.

  Rain’s sweet chuckle.

  Tarren’s pale, serious eyes.

  Gabe’s elfish grin.

  Fireflies.

  But they all shatter against the noise of the hunger. The window is dark. I keep raising my head to look, hoping that the light will come again.

  Sometime later, the door to my room slams open. The room is dark. Still night. A figure stomps toward me. When I recognize War, I order my body to rise. It doesn’t.

  He threatened me last time. Rape, I think. And I can’t lift a finger to stop him. Worse, I don’t even care. He can do whatever he wants.

  I keep losing time. War is past the white line, staring over me. His eyes are puffy.

  “What’d he say to you?” War growls. His hand holds his head like he needs help keeping it upright on his neck. I gaze at his body, longing to see the bright shine of an aura. My palms split open painfully.

  “What’d he say?” When I don’t respond, War turns his head and bellows behind him. “I need Max!”

  “Still weeping in the corner. I think Gem broke him.” Heeled shoes enter the room. Long, supple fingers wrap around each of War’s arms, and a woman props her head on his shoulder from behind. “Oh, she looks terrible.”

  Heather! Hope bubbles in my chest. Heather is nice. She visits me every day and tells me stories from the Bible of pharaohs and plagues and Jesus who loved everyone, even the crowds who demanded his execution. But no, not Heather. I focus my blurry gaze on the woman. Long, dark hair. Not pretty blonde.

  “She’s gone retarded or something,” War groans. He leans closer to me, so that I can smell his minty breath. “Did. He. Say. Anything. To. You?” He stamps out each word.

  The words echo in my hollow brain.

  “Why does it even matter?” The woman sounds bored.

  “That bastard tried to kill me!” War replies. “If Max hadn’t been shielding my mind, he could have turned me into…into her.”

  “To be fair, you tried to kill him first from the accounts I heard.”

  War grins. “Didn’t try.”

  Silence.

  “What? You pissed I killed your little friend? He wasn’t with us. Who knows what he plucked out of my brain? He could’ve tipped off the government or rounded up his little vegans to oppose us. We couldn’t afford the risk. Not now.”

  Another short silence, then the woman says, “I hardly knew him.” Her voice is light, unconcerned. “I came here to see you, anyway. Wanted to know if your holiness had taken a vow of celibacy.”

  “I’m a prophet, not a saint.” War smiles, and then his face changes as he looks at me. I’d hoped he’d forgotten about me. I want them and their chattering, useless words to go. Gem is waiting for me. Somewhere. I can’t remember, but he’s waiting.

  “Dammit.” War takes another step forward and nudges me with his foot. I feel the contact in my ribs. The throb of pain travels through me. If only he had an aura. My hands twitch. “We’re close. So close.” He blows out a big breath and pulls a hand through his hair. “If the Feds get wind of this, it’ll all be over before it even started.”

  “Who cares what he told her?” the soothing voice says. “He’s dead. She’ll be dead soon. Just let her shrivel away in peace. Plus, you need to rest. Doctor said you’ve got a mad concussion.”

  Finally, I recognize her, but it must be a dream. Long, black hair. Thick lips. Heavy breasts. She is the woman who rescued Gabe, and now she looks down at me with hard, dark eyes.

  War looks at me too. “God, I wish I could get wasted. Remember what it was like throwing back shots? Getting obliterated?”

  “Oh yeah. Waking up in bed with a huge mistake.” The woman laughs, and then her voice grows serious. “I’ve never seen you this stressed about anything, not even when that crazy ex-girlfriend keyed your Ferrari.”

  “That was you,” War grumbles. “I should’ve ripped your head off your body for that.”

  “So, what? Making me hand over my phone battery was the start of your long awaited vengeance?”

  “That was just a precaution,” he says and then sighs again. “They’re all depending on me.”

  “Deluded bastards.”

  War ignores this. “I need to call a meeting, right away. Figure out if this changes anything.”

  The woman pushes War toward the door. “Meet tomorrow. The doctor said rest for tonight.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” War murmurs. He moves to the door, but the woman doesn’t follow.

  I’ve already forgotten about her, about War. I reach out and touch the stain on the floor. Gem. I need to remember where he is waiting so that I can find him, but the hunger breaks away my concentration.

  “You look so damn much like him,” the woman hisses. She’s leaning over me now, her hair almost touching my shoulder. Black eyes. “Try not to die tonight.”

  I don’t even try to understand. Words and games and threats. None of it matters.

  After a while, the door is closed. The blackness complete. War is gone. The woman is gone. I feel a small, warm trickle between my legs. I only glance at the bucket in the corner.

  ***

  Maybe I sleep. My eyes drag open. Still night. Endless night. But the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling is on. I see a rusty stain on the floor in front of me, but I can’t remember what it is. Where it came from. Only that it makes me sad. Far away, I feel the pain of the hunger, but the noise of it is muted. Going away.

  Heather is here. Maybe she was always here, or maybe hours are passing with each blink. She stands near me, across the white line. Golden hair. Beautiful face. Sad, sad eyes. I breathe in her perfume.

  “Are ya in pain?” she asks.

  It takes me a while to understand.

  “No,” I say, and my voice is only air. I am so small.

  “Good. Good. Do you want water?”

  I don’t remember what water is. “No.”

  “Are ya sure?”

  Maybe I drift again.

  “Maya.” She is sitting next to me now. Golden earrings dangle in her lobes. I watch them sway. “I have to go soon. War needs to talk to some people about what happened today with Gem.”

  Gem. The word is familiar. I try to remember, but Heather is still speaking. I have to concentrate to try and understand her words.

  “…and I’m not sure when we’ll get back.”

  Gone? Heather can’t go.

  “This may be…our last chance together. And…and…I prayed this morning. I prayed that I could forgive you, that Jesus would open my heart.”

  She reaches over and traps my hand between both of hers. I feel the faint warmth of her skin, and it suddenly makes me want to cry. This touch. Her kind smile. I wish we were sisters, that she would never let go.

  “I forgive you, Maya. My heart is full of love for you.”

  I am in awe of her. The smell of her perfume. Her beauty. Her forgiveness. I did something bad. I don’t remember what it was, but I know that I don’t deserve her kindness. I am weak and dirty and sinful. She is strong and clean. She is an angel.

  I sniffle. “Thank you.”

  “You are almost cleansed. When you go to meet Jesus, he will forgive you too.”

  I don’t care about Jesus. Only Heather.

  “Will you pray with me?” she asks, tears shining in her eyes.

  “Yes,” I manage.

  Heather grasps my hand tighter and bows her head. I feel so blessed.

  Chapter 31 – Tarren

  The sun is still new in the sky when I hold up my hand, calling a halt to our progress. The GPS on my phone indicates we are a mile away from the target. The growl of the four wheelers behind me cuts off, and the team dismounts. Any closer and the angels, with their sensitive hearing, could pick up on the long echoes of the engines through the forest.