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Since my clothes are dirty, I simply trade them in for clean ones from the closets We also liberate some extra clothes and jackets I find a sweatshirt that coe from his tell-tale black pants and laced boots to jeans and ordinary hiking boots

Luckily, there are three bedroo There must have been a fan of thee The fit of Raffe's hiking boots are what concern me the most His blisters are already healed fro, we can't have hi up his feet every day

I telland refuse to think further than that

"You look almost human dressed like that," I say

Actually, he looks exactly like a gorgeous Oly just howI ion to eradicate hu as you don't bleed in the shape of wing joints, you should pass for human Oh, and don't let anyone pick you up They'll know you're not right as soon as they feel how light you are"

"I'll be sure not to let anyone but you carry me in her arure out what toI don’t think angels should have The fact that his sense of hu

~

It's noon by the ti house We're in a little cul-de-sac off Page Mill Road The road is dark and slick with last night’s downpour The sky is heavy with broken gray clouds, but if we're lucky, we should be in the hills under a warain

Our packs sit on Paige’s chair, and if I closeI catch less tune I stop when I realize it’s

I put one foot in front of the other, trying to ignore the too-light weight of the wheelchair and the wingless angel beside me

There are a lot of cars strewn on the road until we hit the freeway entrance Here, there are only a couple of cars pointed up the hill Everyone tried to get on the freeway to get away in the early days I’uess they weren’t either since the freeway is clogged in both directions

It’s not long before we see the first body

CHAPTER 12

A fa in a pool of blood

A irl about ten years old The child is at the edge of the woods while the adults are in the middle of the road Either the kid ran for it when the parents were attacked, or she hid during the attack and was caught when she ca I know because the blood on their tattered clothes is still bright red I have to s and fight to keep the cat food in my stoirl's hair has been blown over her face Their bodies, though, are in bad shape For one thing, parts of their torso have been chewed down to the bones with bits of flesh still stuck to it For another, a few aruts to take a closer look but Raffe does

"Teeth marks," he says as he kneels on the asphalt in front of theabout?"

He sits crouched near the bodies, considering s and flat teeth"

My sto? That they’re human?"

"Maybe Unusually sharp, but human-shaped"

"Can’t be" But I know it can Humans will do what is needed to survive Still, it doesn’t add up "This is too wasteful If you’re desperate enough to cannibalize, you wouldn’t just take a few bites and leave" But these bodies have more than a few bites taken out of them Now that I make myself really look, I can see they are half eaten Still, why leave half behind?

Raffe peers at the place where the kid's leg should be "The liht out of their sockets"

"Enough," I say as I take two steps back I scan our surroundings We’re in an open field, and I feel as nervous as a fieldat a sky full of hawks

"Well," he says as he gets up, scanning the trees "Let's hope whoever did this is still in control of this area"

"Why?"

"Because they won't be hungry"

That doesn’t make me feel better "You're pretty sick, you know that?"

"Me? It isn't my people who did this"

"How do you know? You have the same teeth we do"

"But els had nothing to do with us being desperate "Nor are they insane"

That's when I see the broken egg

It lies on the side of the road near the kid, the yolk brown and the egg white congealed The stench of sulfur hits my nose It's the familiar reek that infused hout Mo kick Beside it, there is a se Either ht they were pretty, or her insanity has taken on a very dark sense of hu other than she was here That's all She couldn't take on an entire family