Horseman eyed Angel’s white wings, almost disappearing in the all-white surroundings. Her skin was so pale it seemed translucent, and from the purplish circles under her eyes, he could tell she hadn’t been sleeping. She looked so frail.
Horseman knew better, though. He would not underestimate her.
Angel was studying him, too, and the tension seemed to mount with the falling snow. Could she see the blood on his dark coat? Did she wonder whose it was?
He caught her eyeing his scabbed knuckles, and then the scratches on his wrist, snaking toward the touch screen embedded there. She finally spoke.
“Is it done?” This time, the smallness, the meekness, was gone from Angel’s voice.
Horseman paused and nodded. “Fang is dead,” he said, and knelt at her feet.
Book Three
WITNESS
67
“NOOO!” I WOKE up gasping, and the word came out strangled as I inhaled.
I couldn’t get enough air and I was having heart palpitations like I’d just run a marathon.
I thought I might throw up.
I couldn’t remember the details of the nightmare, but I knew I’d been falling. It wasn’t one of those falling-off-the-couch dreams, either—I had been falling for miles.
I’d been having that kind of dream a lot lately, but this time, I couldn’t shake the sense that something was very, very wrong. Blinking, I reoriented myself—me, check. Harry, check. Woods probably somewhere around the Washington-Canada border, check. Sanity? Maybe a bit iffy.
Maximum Ride is next.
I held my breath, certain I heard the rustle of branches or shoes shuffling through the fallen pine needles not too far away.
“Did you hear something?” I whispered, and elbowed Harry next to me, but his only response was making twittering noises in his sleep.
So much for his evolved reflexes.
I listened again, trying not to breathe, but the only thing I heard was the hoot of an owl somewhere in the distance. Okay, maybe I was being paranoid. The adrenaline had kicked my senses into overdrive. I just needed to calm down and try to get back to sleep.
But it had gotten so cold. It felt rooted deep in my body, and I was shivering too much to relax. Since Harry was asleep anyway, I scooched closer to him, trying to get warm. His wings folded forward to encircle me, and for a moment I almost convinced myself that they were Fang’s wings, guarding me from whatever might come.
My breath started to slow…
Suddenly my face hit the dirt as Harry yanked his wing out from under my chee
k. When I scrambled to my knees, he was already hovering in the air, alert. The kid had my back after all, and I would have smiled in appreciation if I hadn’t been so concerned with what had set him off: a figure materializing out of the trees.
A guy.
With wings.
Seeing the outline of feathers, Harry relaxed a little, but the sight made my pulse race faster.
I thought of the way my gut had been telling me to come this way all along.
The way I’d been so sick with worry I’d barely been able to eat.
I knew I would find him.
But…