On the edge of Society, nothing is as expected, and crosses and double crosses make Cassia's path more twisted than ever. I was hoping that if they travelled through the Canyon, they would have something interesting happen to them. Carriers of the virus are generally known as the "Crossed" due to a large, cross-like rash that appears on their faces – other names include "cross-faces" and "plus-faces". Eventually, after ensuring the survival of the priest and his flock, they decide against their genocidal plan, instead blowing up the entrance of Porton Down to stop anyone from using its lethal cargo before setting off to make a final stand against the Crossed.

The children he fathered with the twins also seem to be no more intelligent than regular Crossed, leading Smokey to believe that their species is doomed to die out within a generation. His state-of-the-art bunker serves the group well until it comes afoul of Smokey, the "Super-Crossed" last seen in the Quisling arc.Aoileann is capable of having lucid conversations with other people, making complex future plans and traps, and even seems to have retained certain empathetic emotions, as she is actually horrified at the prospect of personally killing other people (though she lets her followers kill uninfected people) and attempts to hold back her followers from killing Shaky (other humans are fair game). Though sleeping arrangements in the cave are not specified, Cassia tells about how wonderful it is to watch Ky wake, and they share a kiss. Along with his similarly-infected assistant (and Washington's college girlfriend) Amy, he wrote the story not as an attempt to falsify history, but as a vision of the society he intends to create with his band of Crossed. Finding Hazuki, the girl he loves (and one of his blood brothers) turns to be a harder task than he thought, as her father is a yakuza boss who is also on the lookout for her.

Nitpicky: The summary on the inside flap states: “But even as Cassia sacrifices everything to reunite with Ky, ingenious surprises from Xander may change the game once again. If there is no one to transfer the line to, then a person places his hand on a rock so the line can connect to something. The story shows the very beginning of the Crossed outbreak, focusing on Britain's efforts to contain the madness and discover its source; however, they soon realize that the situation is far worse than they could have ever realized. The Crossed themselves show considerable variation, as they are still self-aware individuals – albeit turned into homicidal maniacs. There were times when I wasn't sure if I were reading Ky or Cassia's chapter, and I actually found myself flicking back to the beginning of the chapter to see if I was reading Crossed in Ky or Cassia's point of view.Their number one urge is to get their hands into normal people and commit every ghastly act they can think of – they can't fight it, and they don't want to.

A tense and utterly compelling story about a society behind a wall, and the way in which two young people seize the chance to break free. Smokey survives the attempted assassination by jumping into a river, emerging later and limping off to fight another day with a smile on his face. The transition between ‘Matched’ and ‘Crossed’ was not as smooth as I would have liked, but we were caught up with what had happened pretty quickly. The Crossed who survived that long tend to be the more rational and lucid ones who have the wherewithal to preserve themselves, use combat tactics like avoiding gunfire, use guns themselves, and setting complex ambushes. The whole book, from beginning to end, happens in one area, which was kind of annoying, and there wasn’t really a climax at the end like most books have.Others will be so driven to kill that they will carry out suicide attacks, crashing vehicles or causing nuclear meltdowns. It is also implied that certain mind-altering drugs can further influence a Crossed's personality; in Gore Angels, the Crossed known as "Al the Chemist" ate several hallucinogenic mushrooms prior to his infection, later exhibiting a fascination with "enlightenment" and apparently seeing uninfected humans as "purple people".