’M NOT a great sleeper. When you’ve spent your whole life facing imminent pain and death, you tend not to sink too deeply into the arms of Morpheus. So it was nothing new that I lay awake for hours that night, turning this way and that.

I know what you’re thinking: how do the wings fit into the whole sleeping thing? Well, even though our wings fold up pretty neatly and tightly along our spines, we’re generally not back sleepers. We’re mostly side or stomach sleepers. Little bit of insider bird-kid info for ya there.

Right now I was flopped on my stomach, my head hanging off the side of the bed I was sharing with Angel. Nudge won the Flock Member Most Likely to Cause Injuries by Kicking During Sleep award last year, so she got a bed to herself.

My wings were unfolded a bit, and I reached around to pull a twig out of my secondaries. Here’s what I was thinking about:

1) Who this new threat was

2) The air show in Mexico City

3) My mom and my half-sister, Ella

4) How to get Total to quit milking his tail injury, because enough was enough

5) Fang

6) Fang

7) Fang

I’ve grown up with Fang, from the very beginning, when our dog crates were stacked next to each other in the lab of experimental horror that we called the School. I know, just another typical romantic story about the boy next door.

Then we’d been rescued by our bad guy, turned good guy, turned bad again, turned I don’t know what lately—and Fang and I had been like brother and sister with the rest of the flock, hidden away in the Colorado mountains.

Then Jeb (see description above) disappeared, and I became flock leader. Maybe because I was the oldest. Or the most ruthless. Or the most organized. I don’t know. But I was the flock leader, and Fang was my right-wing man.

This past year, things had started to change. Fang had been interested in a girl (see Red-Haired Wonder, book two), and I’d hated it. I’d had my first date with a guy (possibly evil, not sure), and Fang had hated it. Then, last month, he’d gotten all cozy with Dr. Brigid Dwyer, the twenty-year-old scientist who’d been part of the research team down in the land of ice and snow and killer leopard seals. And—get this—she’d sort of flirted back with him. And he’s—practically—just a kid!

In the midst of all this, Fang had kissed me. Several times. So now I was freaked and tempted and terrified and worried and longing—and also angry at him for even starting this whole thing to begin with. But it was started and couldn’t be unstarted. (Again, his fault.)

And now I was trying to brush my hair, you know, when I thought about it, and looking at myself in mirrors, wondering if I was pretty. Pretty! A year ago, when my hair got in my eyes, I hacked it off with a knife. The only thing important about my clothes was whether they were too stiff withwhatever to move fast in battle. And Fang had been my best friend and an excellent fighter.

Now everything was upside down.

“Youare really pretty, Max,” said a small voice next to me.

I pressed my face into my pillow and squelched some extracolorful words. Way to go, ace—have embarrassing personal thoughts while you’retwo feet from amind reader .

Yes. Along with the wings and the raptor eyesight and the weird bones, the insane scientists who’d created us had given us the potential to suddenly develop other skills. Iggy can feel colors. Nudge can draw metal stuff toward her and hack any computer. Fang can pretty much disappear into whatever background he’s near. Gazzy can imitate any voice, any sound, with 100 percent accuracy. His other skill is unmentionable. I can fly faster than the others, and I have a Voice in my head. I don’t want to talk about that right now.

But it was Angel who’d hit the genetic jackpot. She can breathe under water, communicate with fish, and read people’s minds. We’re talking about a six-year-old. And, you know, six-year-olds arefamous for having excellentjudgment anddecision-making skills .

“You have nice hair and really pretty eyes,” Angel went on earnestly.

I rolled over a bit. “Yeah. Brown and brown.” Have I mentioned how much Fang lovesred hair? I believe I have.

“No, your hair has little sun streaks in it,” Angel informed me. “And your eyes are like—you know those chocolates we had in France? With the gooey stuff in the middle, with the alcohol in ‘em except we didn’t know, and Gazzy ate a million and then barfed all night? Those chocolates?”

As much as I had tried to suppress all memory of that incident, it rushed back to me in vivid Technicolor. “The color of my eyes is like barfed-up chocolate?” Despair settled over me. There was no hope.

“No, the chocolates before they were barfed,” Angel clarified.

So there you have it, the extent of my charms: brown hair and eyes like unbarfed chocolate. I’m a lucky girl.

“Max,” said Angel. “You know Fang is the best guy ever. And he loves you. ‘Cause you’re the best girl ever.”

With anyone else, I could ask them how they know that and then discredit them. Not Angel. She knew because she’d seen it, in his mind.

“We all love each other, Ange,” I said impatiently, hating this whole conversation.

“No, not like this,” she went on relentlessly. “Fang loves you.”

Here’s a little secret you might not have picked up on about me: I can’t stand gushy emotion. Hate crying. Hate feeling sad. Am not even too crazy about feeling happy. So all this—the vulnerability, the longing, the terror—I desperately wanted it to all go away forever. I wanted to cut it out of me like they’d cut out that chip. (See book three; I can’t keep explaining everything. If I’m gonna take the trouble to write this stuff down, the least you can do is read it.)

But right now, I needed Angel to shut up.

“Okay, maybe I’ll give him a break,” I said, rolling over and closing my eyes.

“Maybe you should give him more than that,” Angel pressed.

My eyes flared open as I didn’t dare to think what she might mean.

“He could totally be your boyfriend,” she went on with annoying persistence. “You guys could get married. I could be like a junior bridesmaid. Total could be your flower dog.”

“I’m only a kid!” I shrieked. “I can’t get married!”

“You could in New Hampshire.”

My mouth dropped open. How does she know this stuff? “Forget it! No one’s getting married!” I hissed. “Not in New Hampshire or anywhere else! Not in a box, not with a fox! Now go to sleep,before I kill you! “

Oh yeah, like I got any sleep afterthat .