58 pages • 1 hour read
Susan EeAngelfall
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 9-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary
Outside, Penryn sees a flashlight and hears a man calling out to see if anyone is there; the crashing implies that there are at least three people in the encroaching gang. She begins to wish she hadn’t chained Raffe up. After a while, she hears her mother scream. Penryn lifts a chair and bangs it against the outside-facing window, but the glass doesn’t break; Raffe then grabs the metal cart and shatters the window. They flee out the window and circle the building, finding another broken window. They see a new corpse, stabbed with six butter knives and painted with a lipstick pentagram, and Penryn realizes her mother is safe.
Penryn sees her mother, then turns to see Raffe surrounded by the gang members, at least 10 of them; while he has taken care of three, he is clearly overwhelmed. Determined to save Paige, Penryn rushes to help him, taking the sword, wings, and key to his chains first. She tries to use the silhouette of the wings and the names of other angels to trick and intimidate the men away, but the wings slip; Raffe rolls his eyes at her. Raffe then attacks the men while they are distracted and Paige takes on the others, using her skills to take them all down.
She unchains Raffe and they gather their supplies to leave, but she refuses, to his annoyance, to return his sword. He tries to convince her not to take the wheelchair, but she insists it is for Paige, even though they both know she is likely dead.
Chapter 10 Summary
Penryn and Raffe find an abandoned guesthouse behind a mansion and hole up in it, narrowly escaping a thunderstorm. She observes that Raffe seems abnormally sturdy and strong except when he walks, which weakens him, and his feet are bleeding and overworked. She uses blister band-aids to patch up his feet, which he insists is intimate for angels, to her annoyance. He shares his name with her, stating that he is the Wrath of God, and she observes how handsome he is, although she reminds herself that he is otherworldly and dangerous. She stands and insists she isn’t afraid of him, angels, or God, though in fact just saying this frightens her. She is pleased to get some sort of reaction out of him, even though she isn’t sure what it is.
Penryn asks Raffe why the angels came in the first place, but to her bewilderment, he doesn’t know how to answer. Penryn shares her dinner with Raffe, confusing him; she places a noodle cup outside for her mother to find. She learns that angels can see in the dark, and Raffe promises to let her know if he hears or sees her mother approach.
Raffe tries to convince her to abandon her plan of saving Paige, but she is undeterred and insists that he owes her for saving his life. She then argues that their relationship can be mutually beneficial since he has no idea how to travel overland or support himself without her help. Their discussion stalls, and they both fall asleep.
Penryn has a dream in which Paige is drowning in icy Antarctic waters. Penryn tries to save her, but her mother obstructs the attempt by throwing random things into the water. As the nightmare takes her, she wakes to find Raffe soothing her and embracing her in her sleep. She feels embarrassed at her unkempt appearance, and Raffe reluctantly agrees to take her to the aerie.
Chapter 11 Summary
Penryn takes a sponge bath to clean herself off and emerges to find Raffe trying to preen his wings. She resists the temptation to apologize for damaging them and notices that the wounds on his back are healing well; she offers to sew them shut, but he insists that they will heal on their own and that he is not susceptible to infection. He explains that they were caused by an angel sword, the only thing that can kill an angel. Angel swords are matched to their owners and only allow those they choose to wield them. Raffe still allows her to bandage his back so he can pass as human more easily.
They find no food except a bag of dried cat kibble in the house, but they find a duffel bag and other survival supplies as well as clean clothes. The clothes will help Raffe pass as human, even though “it’s more than a little disturbing just how much he looks like a supreme example of a human being” (70). Supplied and ready, they set out for the aerie, but only travel a short while before they see strange corpses.
Chapter 12 Summary
They find a family lying in their own blood—two parents and a girl—with their bodies mutilated and chewed. Raffe notes that the teeth marks on the corpses are human-shaped, which confuses Penryn since the bodies are largely intact: Cannibals usually do not waste food. Penryn then spots a broken, rotten egg next to a sprig of rosemary and immediately realizes her mother is nearby; she grows afraid that her mother might have harmed the family, or at least the child. Raffe points out that the attackers are likely children, but Penryn insists they must be animals with flat teeth.
Chapter 13 Summary
Penryn struggles to push the wheelchair through the woods, and it eventually gets trapped in mud, forcing Penryn to abandon it, which upsets her deeply. Raffe later asks if she is moping to help herself feel better, and they banter for a while until she feels less upset about the wheelchair.
Eventually, they reaches Skyline, where they see cars stacked to form a makeshift wall, a clear sign that the community here is unwelcoming. Raffe notes that people are watching them. Penryn wonders if he can read thoughts. To test this possibility, she thinks insulting thoughts about him, watching for a reaction. To her humiliation, she accidentally daydreams about him holding her. Naturally, he doesn’t respond. They move forward carefully, but not long after, they begin to run, hearing dogs barking and baying behind them.
Chapter 14 Summary
As Penryn and Raffe run from the dogs, Penryn contemplates the luxury of keeping dogs in the first place and wonders who could be chasing them. They try to climb trees but do not succeed; Raffe helps Penryn climb to the lowest branch they can reach, then takes off running when she is safe. She watches as five men with rifles appear and fan out. Penryn contemplates letting him die, knowing she needs to save herself to save Paige, but realizes she needs to save him. Before she can act, however, the men walk back with Raffe tied behind them, the wings he was carrying nowhere in sight. Penryn descends, finds the wings hidden in the underbrush, and takes off after the men.
Chapter 15 Summary
Penryn runs until she reaches a group of buildings cleverly disguised with branches to look like part of the forest. She notices multiple machine guns with their barrels aimed at the sky. She notices men and women in the camp, but many of the women look out of place. The men usher the dogs into a kennel, and Penryn hides the sword, wings, and anything else that could give Raffe’s identity away. She watches as they talk to Raffe and then haul him into a small building in the center of the compound.
Penryn waits, camouflaged in the bushes, avoiding the gaze of guards. She watches as the people gather for dinner, and the smell of food makes her feel weak. An hour after dark, she sneaks into the compound, using the shadows to reach Raffe’s building. The door is unlocked, so she enters and hears Raffe telling her to run; he tells her she’s just getting herself caught. As Penryn goes to retort, a flashlight shines in her face.
Chapter 16 Summary
The guards quickly disarm her; the leader of the men, standing casually nearby, notes that she managed to sneak in despite everyone being on the lookout for her. The men leave to bring them food, and Raffe berates Penryn for not listening to him, which she largely ignores.
The soldiers return and feed Raffe and Penryn spoonfuls at a time. The leader introduces himself as Obadiah West, Obi for short. Penryn, Raffe, and Obi interrogate each other on what they’ve been eating, each suspicious of the other for recent acts of cannibalism in the area; Obi confirms that their group is well-fed enough to not need to resort to cannibalism. Obi says that if they could find cannibals, they’d release them to fight the angels to distract them while they formed an army strong enough to defeat them once and for all. Obi reveals that they have something big planned and intend to strike back against the angels as soon as they can.
Chapter 17 Summary
Obi explains that the attack is meant to rally the humans against the angels more than defeat the angels. Penryn struggles with her loyalties, knowing she wants to protect Raffe and worried that if he senses betrayal, he will betray her in turn. She worries Obi already suspects them, but he leaves without further word, tying Penryn up and promising she will be treated well.
Raffe demands more explanation for why Penryn didn’t run when he asked, but she doesn’t answer. She drifts to sleep until he wakes her up, having broken his bonds, and tells her everyone is asleep. She asks if he can still be harmed by bullets—knowing they have footage of Gabriel being shot down—but he doesn’t answer. Penryn picks the lock to the door, and they escape, not bothering to try and steal any supplies. They run into the woods, but circle back to get the wings and sword. Just as they reach these items, they hear a gun click and a man tell them to freeze.
Chapters 9-17 Analysis
This section establishes Penryn and Raffe’s growing relationship and trust in one another. While they have not achieved the intimacy and trust they will achieve later, Penryn’s willingness to let Raffe operate on his own terms and Raffe’s willingness to comfort her and keep her safe when she needs it demonstrates a change in the tone of their relationship. While both characters are still fundamentally self-serving at this point, willing to sabotage the other if it becomes beneficial to their goals, both are also starting to see better sides of the other, deepening their relationship and opening the possibility for romance. Penryn and Raffe seem like foils in that they are on opposite sides in the war between humans and angels and have opposing goals, but they are more similar than different: Both are fierce protectors of those they care about, stubborn and snarky, and unwilling to take anything lying down. These similarities—despite their different perspectives and backstories—create tension between them, which begins to turn sensual, if not romantic, in this portion of the story.
The setting of this portion also sets up the novel’s later turn toward the genre of horror. The wilderness is a disturbing place: Penryn and Raffe are hunted by dogs, and they find evidence that children are eating human bodies. While Penryn’s mother’s willingness to mutilate corpses in previous chapters established that human bodies are not sacrosanct at the end of the world, the emergence of cannibalism opens the plot up for far more disturbing developments in the future. As with previous sections, however, answers to these questions come far later in the book; the cannibalized bodies are a gruesome form of foreshadowing, creating a dark atmosphere and establishing that nothing is impossible in the new world of the angels.
Penryn’s glimpse into the protected lives of Obi’s camp illustrates The Importance of Community in Times of Crisis. Penryn’s personal life is shaped by her determination to survive and protect her family, but she lacks a community to help her achieve those goals. Much of the novel prior to this point has implied that society itself has dissolved, with violent street gangs offering the only extant form of social organization. The survivor camp, while serving as an antagonist in this section of the book, proves that human society can continue to adapt and thrive. Humans are fundamentally social creatures; Penryn’s journey toward recovering hope starts with realizing that she is not alone. While she does not see this yet, the introduction of the camp sets the stage for Penryn’s recovery of her unity with other people.
Penryn’s mother’s rotten eggs are a recurrent symbol throughout the work, almost always literally symbolizing her presence. They additionally provide some insight into how Penryn views her mother. Penryn’s mother keeps rotten eggs habitually around for no apparent reason—much as Penryn herself protects her mother, who has harmed her and will again, with no clear motivation outside of duty. It is unclear whether and in what way Penryn loves her mother, due to years of abuse and anxiety from her mother’s condition. Penryn’s mother, of course, is not a rotten egg; she deserves care and attention like any human being, and the ember of this knowledge motivates Penryn to keep her alive, if not present in her life. As the novel’s narrator, Penryn wavers on how to present her mother; sometimes she condemns her, other times she treats her with respect. In one scene, Penryn’s mother leaves a sprig of rosemary—popularly believed to cleanse evil—near the eggs, which further symbolizes her mother’s way of seeing the world—whether or not she achieves her goal, she wants to keep herself and her family safe.
