An hour or so later, I thought that I had recovered-but from what? We were making camp for the night.

“Yo, watch it!” I said. “Clear more of that brush away- we don’t want the whole forest to burn down.”

“Guess you’re feeling like your old self,” Fang murmured, kicking some dead branches away from where Iggy _Was lighting a fire.

I shot him a look, then helped Nudge and Angel surround the pile of kindling with big stones. Why was the blind guy playing with matches, you ask? Because he’s good at it. Anything to do with fire, igniting things, exploding things, things with fuses, wicks, accelerants… Iggy’s your man. It’s one of those good/bad things.

Twenty minutes later, we were exploring the limits of what could be cooked on sticks over an open fire.

“This isn’t half bad,” the Gasman said, eating a curled piece of roasted bologna off his stick.

“Don’t do bananas,” Nudge warned glumly, shaking some warm mush off into the bushes.

“S’mores,” I cooed, mashing a graham cracker on top of the chocolate-and-marshmallow sandwich I had balanced on my knee. I took a bite, and pure pleasure overwhelmed my mouth.

“This is nice,” the Gasman said happily. “It’s like summer camp.”

“Yeah, Camp Bummer,” said Fang. “For wayward mutants.”

I nudged his leg with my sneaker. “It’s better than that. This is cool.”

Fang gave me an “if you say so” look, and turned his bacon over the fire.

I stretched out with my head against my balled-up sweatshirt. Time to relax. I had no idea what that pain had been, but I was fine now, so I wasn’t going to worry about it.

What a lie. My knees were practically knocking together. The thing is, the “scientists” back at the School had been playing with risky stuff, combining human and nonhuman DNA. Basically, the spliced genes started to unravel after a while, and the organisms tended to, well, self-destruct. The flock and I had seen it happen a million times: The rabbit-dog combo had been such bad news. Same with the sheep-macaque monkey splice. The mouse-cat experiment had produced a huge, hostile mouse with great balance and an inability to digest either grain or meat. So it starved to death.

Even the Erasers, as successful as they were, had a huge downside: life span. They went from embryo to infant in five weeks, and from infant to young adult in about four years. They fell apart and died at around six years, give or take. But they were being improved all the time.

How about us? How long would we last? Well, as far as I knew, we were the oldest recombinant beings the School had ever produced.

And we could devolve and expire at any time.

And maybe it had started happening to me today.

‘Max, wake up,“ said Angel, tapping my knee.

“I’m awake.” I pulled myself up, and Angel crawled over and climbed into my lap. I put my arms around her and stroked her tangled blond curls away from her face. “What’s up, Angel?”

Her large blue eyes looked solemnly into mine. “I’ve got a secret. From when I was at the School. It’s about us. Where we came from?”

“What do you mean, sweetie?” I asked softly. What fresh hell is this?

Angel twisted the hem of her shirt in her fingers, not looking at me. I clamped down on any thoughts I had, so Angel couldn’t pick up on my alarm.

“I heard stuff,” she said, almost whispering.

I gathered her closer. When the Erasers had taken her, it felt like someone had chopped my arm off. Getting her back had made me whole again.

“Stuff people said or stuff people thought?” I asked.

“Stuff people thought,” she said. I noticed how tired she looked. Maybe this should wait till tomorrow.

“No, I want to tell you now,” she said, obviously reading my thoughts. “I mean, it’s just stuff I sort of heard. I didn’t understand all of it-chunks were missing. And it was from a couple different people.”

“From Jeb?” I asked, my throat tight.

Angel’s eyes met mine. “No. I didn’t get anything from him at all. Nothing. It was like he was dead.”

Angel went on. “They kept doing tests, you know, and they were all thinking about me, about the flock, like, wondering where you were and if you would try to come get me.”

“Which we did,” I said proudly.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Anyway, I found out that another place has information about us-like where we came from.”

My brain snapped awake. “Whaat?” I said. “Like our life span? Or where they got our DNA?” Did I even want to know our life span? I wasn’t sure.

Angel nodded.

“Well, spill it!” Iggy, who must have been awake and listening to us, demanded in that sensitive way of his. I shot him a look-which was useless, of course. And now everyone was awake.

“They have files on us,” Angel said. “Like, the main files. They’re in New York. At a place called the Institute.”

“The Institute?” I asked. “In New York City or upstate New York?”

“I don’t know,” Angel said. “I think it was called the Institute. The Living Institute or something.”

Fang was looking at me, still and intent. I knew he had already decided to go check it out, and I nodded briefly.

“There’s more,” Angel said. Her small voice wavered, and she pressed her face into my shoulder.

“You know how we always talk about our parents but didn’t really know if we were made in test tubes?” Angel said. I nodded.

“I saw my name in Jeb’s old files,” Nudge insisted. “I really did.”

“I know, Nudge,” I said. “Listen to Angel for a minute.”

“Nudgeisright,” Angelblurted.“Wedidhave parents-real parents. We weren’t made in test tubes. We were born, like real babies. We were born from human mothers.”

I think if a twig had snapped right then, we all would have leaped ten feet into the air.

“You’ve sat on this since yesterday?” Iggy sounded outraged. “What’s the matter with you? Just because you’re the youngest doesn’t mean you have to be the dumbest.”

“Look,” I said, taking a breath, “let’s all calm down and let Angel talk.” I brushed her curls out of her face. “Can you tell us everything you heard?”

“I only got bits and pieces,” she said uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, everybody. I’ve just felt yucky… and it all makes me really, really sad too. I don’t wanna cry again. Awhh, I’m crying again.”

“It’s okay, Angel,” Fang said in his low, quiet voice. “We understand. You’re safe now, here with us.”

Nudge looked as if she was about to explode, and I sent her a glance that said, Okay, just hang on. The Gasman edged closer to me and took hold of my belt loop for comfort. I put one arm around him and held on to Angel with the other.

“It sounded like,” Angel began slowly, “we came from different places, different hospitals. But they got us after we were born. We weren’t test-tube babies.”

“How did they get us?” Fang asked. “And how did they get the bird genes into us?”

“I didn’t really understand,” said Angel. “It sounded like-like they got the genes into us before we were born somehow.” She rubbed her forehead. “With a test? An amino… ammo…”

“Amniocentesis?” I asked, cold outrage creeping down my spine.

“Yeah,” said Angel. “That’s it. And somehow they got the bird genes into us with it.”

“It’s okay, just keep going,” I said. I could explain it to them later.

“So we got born, and the doctors gave us to the School,” Angel went on. “I heard-I heard that they told Nudge’s mom and dad that she had died. But she hadn’t.”

Nudge made a gulping sound, her large brown eyes full of tears. “I did have a mom and dad,” she whispered. “I did!”

“And Iggy’s mom-”

I saw Iggy tense, his acute hearing focused on Angel’s small voice.