Angel

29

“I CARE IF you save the world or not, Max,” Dylan said softly as we flew back to my mom’s house. The tip of his wing brushed mine, and I felt a bolt of electricity.

“Okay, that makes about ten of us,” I said, avoiding his eyes. My gaze fell on a little dot moving erratically far below us. An injured animal?

“What’s that kid doing down there?” Dylan asked. His exceptional raptor vision was starting to come in pretty handy.

“Looking for the nearest water park?” I said dryly.

“No, I don’t think so,” Dylan said. He still had a hard time appreciating my sarcasm. I rolled my eyes at Angel. “He’s sunburned and staggering. Must be lost.”

I glanced around us. The kid was a good five miles from anything; the chances of his making it to help were pretty slim.

“We should probably just leave him for dead, seeing as how no one actually wants to be saved around here,” I grumbled. Okay, it had been a rainy parade back at the Deathwire School for Spider-eyed Kids, and I was feeling bitter. But when I looked up, Dylan grinned at me, and before I knew what was happening, I grinned back.

“Heck, let’s go save ’im, whether he wants it or not,” Dylan said in his best Scooby-Doo voice, and I laughed. Angel glanced at me, her head cocked.

“What?” I said defensively. “I laugh sometimes.”

Long story short, we swooped down on the kid.

Okay, now, if I were staggering and lost in the desert, sunburned and parched and without a hope in the world, and suddenly, three kids with wings fluttered to a graceful landing before me, I’d be pretty sure I was hallucinating or near death or both.

This kid looked up when we landed, blinked, and said, “You again?”

My eyes widened as I plucked recognition from the attic of my brain. “You!” I said.

“You know him?” Dylan asked. “We’re in the middle of a desert!”

“I recognize him,” I clarified. “We met like forever ago” (six books ago, for those of you in the know) “in the subway tunnels in New York.”

“Where’s your computer?” I asked. Last time I saw him, he’d accused us of hacking his precious Mac, which he seemed to consider his only friend on earth.

“I don’t need it anymore,” the kid said, smiling dreamily.

“Oh yeah?” I said. “Last I knew, you were practically joined at the hip.” I mean, not literally, which, sadly, is all too possible in our world. But this was more of a codependent situation.

“I’m free now. The end is near, and soon we’ll all be free!” he shouted, raising a fist.

“Again with the world ending,” I muttered. The kid had always been a bit off, but it seemed like the heat was really getting to him.

Angel offered him her water bottle, but he shook his head. “Everything’s happening, just like my computer predicted.” His eyes glazed over. “But I don’t need it now. I don’t need anything. It’s all beautiful, man. Everything will be beautiful once we kill all the humans. You’ll see. Can’t you feel it?” He looked at me earnestly.

Okay, things were getting more than a little crazy town. “Say what, now?”

“The humans have ruined everything,” he said. “But once they’re all gone, we can start fresh again. We just need to kill the humans.”

“But… you’re human!” said Angel.

His eyes wavered, then focused on her. “Nah, not really.”

“Look, you need to get out of the sun, get some fluids into you,” I said. “Then you’ll quit talking crazy.”

“No!” He frowned and shook his head. “You don’t understand. You don’t want to understand. I have everything I need! I’m being take care of!” He looked off at nothing in the distance. “Everything’s being taken care of,” he whispered.

“Please, let us help you,” I pleaded, taking his arm.

“No!” He pulled away from me and ran off shakily across the hard-packed soil. “I don’t need your help! I’m being taken care of!” he shouted over his shoulder.

“Okay, I’m starting to get a complex,” I said. “What, I’m not good at saving people anymore?”

The three of us watched the kid stagger away from us. I seriously felt like crying.

“Let’s just go home,” I said wearily.