I turn to see the rest of the Crawlers are dead, but that doesn't matter, nothing matters, not while my friends circle around the body of fallen Vander, his empty eyes looking upward toward nothing.

And the anger shatters into a million pieces, the calm still holding me close, gently, as though to protect me from myself and the fact he's dead and it's my fault.

I crouch next to him, touching his pale skin with my hands, calling him to me, to heal him as I did the buck. ...