ASS THE … GRUB,” said Iggy a few minutes later, holding out his hand.

“The brown grub or the yellow grub?” I asked. My face still felt flushed from my time with Fang. I hoped the others couldn’t tell.

“Either.” Iggy ran a hand through his reddish-blond hair, making it stand up stiffly with dirt and sweat. Later I was going to march everyone to the one water pump in this tent village, pump up a couple gallons of water, and try to decrust the flock as much as possible. We’ve got certain standards. They’re way low, but we have them.

“You guys did great today,” said Patrick. “You must be exhausted.”

“Um-hm,” I mumbled, picking up a white ball of millet paste. Dipped in the peanut–goat stew sauce, it was about a three on the Max Culinary Scale — above roasted desert rat or lizard-on-a-stick, but well below, say, a steak.

Roger, the nurse, handed Iggy a small dented bowl. “Dried fish, mixed with … stuff. Try it.”

We ate everything we could get our hands on. Living on the streets had beaten any pickiness out of us. Plus, we burn calories like a race car burns fuel, and we just couldn’t afford to not eat — whatever it was.

The fire leaped in front of us, looking pretty and feeling cozy and warm but smelling to high heaven, since its fuel was camel poop. Yes. I mean, a regular camel is no bed of roses, but its poop? On fire? The only one not wrinkling his nose was Gazzy. But as soon as the blazing sun had set, the desert temperature had dropped about thirty degrees, and the fire was welcome.

I ate, trying not to miss chocolate, and felt the warmth of Fang’s leg pressed against mine, here in the shadows. I was on my third pass of reliving our stolen minutes in the tent and already wondering when we could be alone again. These days I spent a ridiculous amount of time dreaming about someday just being able to spend all day with Fang. Alone.

Now my face was really burning. In my dream, the flock was safe somewhere, Total and Akila weren’t there, and no one was chasing us. I would have no worries, no need to be on alert. I could just relax. Which, okay, I suck at, but I was hoping that with practice …

“You guys met Jeanne today, didn’t you?” Patrick asked. “The little girl in the yellow dress?”

“She’s really special,” Angel said solemnly.

“Yes.” Patrick shook his head. “She used to have a father and four brothers. They’ve all died in the past two years, from either HIV or hunger or the outbreaks of civil war that keep happening. Now it’s just Jeanne and her mother, and her mom has been diagnosed with HIV.”

“Oh, no,” Nudge said, tears welling in her eyes. “So she’ll be an orphan?”

Patrick nodded sadly. “Most likely. In many other countries people can sometimes live long lives with HIV medications. But it’s different here. And there are so many other children like her.”

I choked down another millet ball (Note to self: Do not bother getting recipe) and looked around at my beloved flock, safe in a circle around the fire. Iggy was staring straight into the flames, able to because he was blind. Gazzy was examining each and every last bowl for any morsel that might have been missed. Nudge had her chin in her hands, looking at the ground, and I knew she was bumming about all the misery here. My life would have been incomplete without each and every one of them.

I glanced into Fang’s eyes to find him watching me with dark intensity, and my cheeks flushed again. Could we sneak off, like, into the dark shadows of the desert? Just for a minute?

“Nothing can last forever, Max.” It was Angel, eerily interrupting my thoughts. She was scratching at the dirt with a small animal bone. “And actually — I hate to tell you this, but Fang will be the first to die. And it will be soon.”