“No,” he said firmly, pulling his arm away. I could see the Rogue temper building in him—that part of him that was capable of saying things he’d later regret. “This is going to be a couple days’ drive. I’m going now. If I leave in a few minutes, I can be back by prom.” Back by prom? That would mean missing all his finals. “If you want to come with me, I guess that’s up to you. But I’m leaving.” He turned and walked toward the exit.
I stood there, stunned. Should I follow him? Should I stay?
You have to get at least a 98 on three of your exams if you want to keep your GPA where it needs to be. . . .
And I couldn’t just disappear now, in the days leading up to prom. Not when my friends were counting on me.
Maybe I could let Ian do this. . . .
I glanced down at my watch. Two minutes.
Without another thought, I turned and ran down the hall, swinging open the classroom door and sliding into an empty seat just in time for my first final to begin.
21 
The clock ticked out the seconds on the wall.
We know where James Harrison is.
Tick.
Ian is going to find him.
Tick.
We’re going do this.
Tick.
I could hear the tension crackling just beneath the surface of my skin. Every cell in my body felt wired to explode.
I looked down at my test booklet and tried to focus on the words in front of me, but the ones in my head were too distracting.
Ian’s dad. The third Rogue. James. The war.
“Skye,” Mr. DeNardo said. “Eyes on your own test, please.”
Right, I realized. I must have been spacing out, staring off into the distance. I looked back down at my own booklet.
Earth. Aunt Jo. Aaron. The fourth. Prom. So close.
“I’ll be back in time for prom,” Ian had said. Clearly I couldn’t just up and leave for a few days, all because I wanted to go with him. Could I? Or what if . . .
The edges of the test in front of me were curling into darkness. And the classroom dissolved with it.
No, I begged. Please, no. This is the worst time for a vision. EVER.
I was moving. Wait—a car was moving, and I was inside of it.
Am I Ian? I wondered, my pulse quickening. Is something about to happen to Ian? I glanced around his dashboard for any sign, any clue, as to what was about to happen. It was surprisingly clean, clear of all the debris that usually cluttered his car.
As my vision crystalized and came into focus, it dawned on me that this definitely didn’t look like Ian’s car. So who the hell did it belong to? I felt it turn sharply, switching lanes suddenly. Too suddenly.
There’s going to be an accident.
Out the windshield, I could see that I was almost perpendicular now to the rest of the cars on the highway. I was barreling forward—on purpose—toward one car in particular. A hunter green Subaru. Ian’s.
I happened to glance in the rearview mirror then. And found myself staring into a narrow face with an evil grin, framed by long blond hair. Lucas.
The Guardian who’d tried to pick a fight with us in the cafeteria when I was still a Rebel. The Guardian Devin warned me was now Astaroth’s right-hand man. Raven’s replacement.
“He’s going to hit Ian!” I screamed.
“Excuse me?”
I blinked. The entire class was staring at me, pencils poised in midair, mouths hanging open.
“Ms. Parker, do you have something you’d like to share with the whole class or should we let you get back to that exciting dream?” Mr. DeNardo did not look as amused as my classmates.
“I have to go,” I whispered. “I—I’m sorry.” I gathered my books and my bag, and sprinted through the door and down the hall. Screw the test. Who was I kidding, anyway? I had given up any semblance of a normal life a long time ago. Right about the time Asher and Devin showed up in my life.
The night of my seventeenth birthday.
“Here goes nothing,” I whispered to myself as I ran down the front steps. But instead of hitting the bottom, I spread my wings and took off.
Something broke painfully inside me as I left my dreams of a future behind.
I had to save Ian. I only hoped I wasn’t too late.
I flew on silver wings along the highway.
Come on, I thought. He can’t have gotten too far.
I narrowed in on the cars below. In the vision, Lucas had been about to cross three lanes of traffic to ram Ian’s car. So Ian must be driving in the right lane, bordering the trees. I looked for any spot of green I could find.
And then I saw it—all unfolding before my eyes. A tan, inconspicuous sedan, its engine revving as I watched, veered sharply, too sharply, into the lane next to it. Right toward a hunter green wagon.
I swooped down, hoping to make it in time. The sedan’s engine roared. I sped closer and saw Ian glance out the driver’s side window. His eyes widened as he took in the scene that was about to unfold. I pounded on the window for him to open it. No—we didn’t have time. I spun around.
The tan sedan was veering toward me, picking up speed. Heart pounding, I raised both hands out in front of me and summoned my powers. I had no idea if it was the power of the light or of the dark that I was calling—and I didn’t care. All I knew was that a huge gust of wind burst from my hands and pushed the sedan backward. Lucas’s eyes grew wide as the sedan narrowly missed a car speeding toward it, then rolled off the highway in the other direction.
Ian pulled his car onto the shoulder of the highway, and I came to a rest beside him. He opened the door and got out on shaky legs. Relief welled up in me as I flung my arms around him.
“Okay,” he panted, struggling to catch his breath. “You win. I’m taking you with me next time.”
“Next time?” I said, pulling away. “What about this time?” I extended my wings, and didn’t care who on the highway saw me. “Come on. Let’s go find your dad.”
Ian grinned. He took my hand, and we left his car where it was on the side of the highway. I grasped him tight, and together we flew.
Turns out, Wyoming was a lot easier to get to when you had wings. The several-day journey Ian had planned took no time at all when I was carrying us through the air.
The landscape in the southern part of the state was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Vast green brush swept across the land, and every now and then huge burnt sienna buttes jutted out at odd angles, like some giant had dropped his toys and forgotten to pick them up.
I remembered Asher telling me that angels—particularly Rebels and those with Rebel blood—gravitated toward wild beauty and natural landscapes. I could see why James would want to escape to somewhere like Sunset Peaks, Wyoming.
We followed the return address on the envelope and found ourselves in a community of small, rustic houses that bordered a lake so big, we couldn’t see the other side.
I glanced at Ian. “Do you want to knock?”
There was no answer. The lights weren’t on, and there was no car parked in the drive.
I nodded at the lake.
“Down there,” I said.
We rounded the path, and the wide, blue water stretched out before us. The clouds above were reflected in the glassy surface. “Skye,” said Ian. “Look.” The lake fed into a wide, flat river that ran down along the houses we’d passed. And dotting the river was a group of fly fishermen—maybe twenty or so, at first glance.