Nudge drew back and faced us, looking utterly shocked.
“It’s Fang.”
46
THE WIND HAD been knocked out of me as surely as if Nudge had socked me in the gut.
“Fang?” I asked weakly, peering out the window again. “What do you mean, Fang? It can’t be. He’s walking.” The strangled sound of my voice vibrated in my ears.
“I saw his face when he passed through a beam of moonlight,” answered Nudge. “It’s either Fang or a perfect clone.”
A clone. Yeah, that was it. A clone like Ari, sent as a decoy by some whitecoat trying to sabotage us. It can’t be the real Fang, I told myself—Fang was gone. I let my breath out, relieved at the idea of fighting some potential threat rather than dealing with the possibilities of what Fang’s return would mean.
“Why is he limping?” Gazzy asked, squinting through the blinds.
“He’s limping?” I remained still for a split second longer, then rose and practically threw myself down the hallway with the flock on my heels.
Gazzy flung open the front door and flicked on the porch light. I sucked in my breath, and my heart nearly exploded.
The figure that blinked up at us from ten yards away was absolutely, unmistakably Fang.
I gasped at the state he was in. He looked as if he could barely stand. His face was grayish and drawn, his shoulders hunched. His clothes were filthy. One arm hung uselessly by his side, and one wing was caked with dried blood. He looked like the living dead.
“Fang!” Nudge shrieked, and, ignoring all the rules I’d taught her about the million possibilities of danger, bounded off the porch in a blur of pink nightgown. She reached him in one leap, ignoring his obvious injuries and jumping into his arms.
I stepped out onto the porch, scanning the area for threats, but there was obviously no point. It was the real Fang, all right. Nothing else could explain why I felt so tingly and weird all over.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and I realized Dylan was standing right behind me. His fingers reached out to hold me at my waist, and I tried to subtly move away. But subtlety has never been my strong suit, and Dylan sighed loudly.
“Fang!” Iggy whooped. He and the Gasman followed Nudge off the porch, and the three guys exchanged those weird half-hug frat-boy things where they pat one another on the back. Even Total ran forward, putti
ng his front paws against Fang’s leg, wagging his tail.
“Go on,” Dylan told me. “You know you want to.” His voice was bitter, so different from the gentle tone he’d used in the tree house. I could hear the implication in that tone and resented it, even as I felt myself moving from the doorway.
Fang detached himself from Nudge and looked up. Our eyes met, and just like that, my legs hurtled me forward and suddenly I was hugging him tightly. Fang’s uninjured arm went around my shoulders.
“You came back,” I whispered, hating the longing in my voice.
“Did you think I wouldn’t?” he asked with a half smile that was infuriating and devastating and revealed nothing and everything at the same time.
A smile I had known all my life.
Fang felt… familiar. Warm—as warm as Dylan had felt, just a few short hours earlier in the tree house.
As I buried my face in Fang’s dirty, bloodied hair, I felt Dylan’s eyes boring into my back, and tried to swallow my guilt.
47
FOOD HAS ALWAYS been our number one solution for any awkward situation, so Iggy had the bright idea of whipping up a Welcome Back cake for Fang. This was undoubtedly to save us from the semi-uncomfortable silence that followed once I finally managed to peel myself from Fang’s grimy, sweaty body.
It may shock you to learn that Dylan decided to skip Fang’s Welcome Back party. Said he had homework. But I could feel his glowering energy radiating through the house while the rest of us were making fake conversation in the kitchen, pretending that the newest member of the flock didn’t exist.
I avoided trying to figure out the who, what, where, when, how, and why of Fang’s return by forcing Iggy to let me bake the cake—maybe a first—and then serving it up. Almost without thinking, I scraped the icing off Fang’s slice of cake before I put it in front of him (he’d never been a fan of icing) and plopped a quart of chocolate milk down for him to chug out of the carton, like he always used to do. Like he was still a little kid.
He looked up at me with a dull smirk. “Been taking home ec?”
My face turned red. Was he disgusted, like I didn’t know him anymore? Or did he think it was sweet, like I’d always known him, and always would?