Angel

43

“WHOA! WHAT’S DOWN there?” Dylan pointed to a small flame on the ground, about a mile away. The six of us, plus Total, had set off from my mom’s house and headed southeast when it was already getting dark, and now we were about five or six miles from the Gen 77 facility.

I peered closer, then remembered Dylan’s vision was way better than mine. “You’re asking me?” I said.

“Looks like a campfire.” He squinted. “Bunch of people sitting around it.”

“My guess is a hellions’ hootenanny,” I said, and Dylan chuckled. “A what?”

He shook his head. Even in the dark, I could sense his rather, um, adorable smirk. “Let’s check it out,” he said, and we started down, the others following.

Anyone looking up and paying attention would have seen us, seven dark silhouettes against the moon. But these people weren’t paying attention to us. They were gathered around their campfire, singing songs and roasting marshmallows. We circled silently overhead, descending lower and lower, and I think we all spotted her at almost the same time.

“Ella!” Total shouted but shut up pretty quick when I elbowed him in his furry ribs. The culties seemed too lobotomized to notice.

My half sister was sitting there, holding a skewered marshmallow over the fire, singing along with the others. I didn’t recognize the song. They’d put new words to something traditional, and it took several minutes for me to make out the refrain:

“We’ll all go out together when we go

Yes, we’ll all go out together when we go

Oh, how the world will die

In great fire from the sky

Yes, we’ll all go out together when we go.”

“Call me old-fashioned,” Total huffed, “but I’ll take ‘She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain’ over that anytime.”

“Yeah,” said Nudge. “I mean, grim much?”

We climbed about a thousand feet so we could talk normally. “Ig, have I told you lately how happy I am to have you back from loony land?” I said. He smiled, but it was clear he was really shaken up about Ella. “Okay, flock. Suggestions?”

“A raid!” Gazzy said. “A blitz! I’ll make a diversion, a little ways away, you guys swoop down, grab her—”

“They’re pretty far away from the facility, but we don’t want to do anything that might show up on surveillance,” I interrupted him.

“Basic hand-to-hand combat?” Dylan suggested.

“That would work, but then we’d have a bunch of beaten-up kids with stories to tell,” I pointed out.

“I have an idea,” said Iggy.