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We veer around the locust ind and head to the larger island

I e to come with us Her locust and the ones closest to her follow us, but thethe size of the dark funnel above the prison So direction and heading back to Alcatraz as if compelled to be part of the hive

Only a handful of locusts stay with us as we circle Angel Island for a good spot to land

The rising sun highlights the ele, Alcatraz sits in front of the wide panorama of the San Francisco skyline Itview once Now it looks like a jagged line of broken teeth

We land by the water on the west shore The tsunamis left a rubble of bricks on the beach and athe other side o I feel like I’ve been curled up against him for a year My arms are practically frozen in place around his shoulders, and s are stiff The locusts stu the same issues

Raffe stretches his neck and shakes out his ars fold and disappear behind hi his mask from the party-turned-h with silver, and it covers his entire face except for histo take that off?’ I shake the nus’

‘Good That’s how every angel should look’ He rolls his shoulders I suppose it’s not easy having so to relax his muscles, he’s on full alert as his eyes scan our eerily quiet surroundings

I adjust the strap around uised as a teddy bear, sits against my hip for easy access Then I step over to help e, her locusts hiss at ers in

Raffe is beside me in an instant ‘Let her coe climbs off her ride and pets a locust with her small hand ‘Shh It’s okay That’s Penryn’

It still a to er until the beasts lower their stingers under Paige’s gentle crooning I let out e bends to gather up Raffe’s severed wings She had been lying on thein fluffing al the with the rest of the demon, but I wish he hadn’t had to do it Noe’ll have to find a doctor to reattach them to Raffe before they wither

We start up the beach and see a couple of rowboats tied to a tree The island must be occupied after all

Raffe motions for us to hide while he heads up the slope

It looks like there used to be a row of houses on one side of the hill On the lower ground, only the concrete foundations remain, littered with sround, several boarded-up buildings are intact

We skitter behind the nearest building It’s large enough to have been barracks of some kind Like the others, it’s sealed up hite painted boards They look like they’d been shut up long before the Great Attack

The whole thing feels like a ghost settle the bay It’s a perfectly intact Victorian, co that looks like a family home and the only one with color or any sense of life