“Worse than having my wings cut off?” I snarled, spinning backward to punch a guard in the kidney. When he staggered a bit, I jumped up and snap-kicked his head sideways. He dropped. They just weren’t making guards like they used to.
Another snap kick to a guard’s left ear, and he fell to his knees, his stun gun skittering across the ground. I punched someone else right below his ribs, then clapped both of my hands over his ears as hard as I could, rupturing at least one eardrum. He yelled and dropped his stun gun, then fell against a concrete wall. I’d lost count, but there were only a few left.
“What—who are you?” one guard shouted, trying not to look afraid.
“I’m Maximum Ride, you son of a bitch!”
And a roundhouse kick to the side of his neck, disrupting nerves and blood flow to his carotid. He looked confused, then melted to the ground.
I felt the brush of a stun gun against my arm, so I whirled and slammed it out of the guard’s hand. “I think you use the pointy end,” I said, then punched him hard in the gut. When he folded, I grabbed his head and smashed it down on my raised right knee.
Then it was me and the remaining two guards. I saw one swallow nervously, obviously wishing he was armed with a regular gun or even a taser. The ground was littered with broken, bloody, or unconscious guards—the ones who had tried to get close enough to me to use their stuns.
“My legs are longer than your arms,” I pointed out, and he lunged toward me, gun out. I ducked and snap-kicked his knee, making it bend forcefully in the wrong direction. Moaning, he fell hard but still tried to swipe at me with his gun. I stomped on his wrist, breaking it, then kicked the gun away.
When I looked up, the last guard was disappearing through the hidden door.
That was when I felt the hard stick of a needle in my neck. I slammed it away, spinning to see the washed-out doctor, who had snuck up behind me.
The hypo flew against the wall, but the doctor didn’t look worried. His eyes gleamed with excitement. What had happened to the man who did his best to patch me up when I got hurt? The guy who had moaned over his lack of decent supplies? I looked hard into his eyes and found my answer. He was tripped out, for sure, fresh dope running through him like water. No wonder he was happy. No wonder he’d do anything they asked him to. I lunged for him, hands out to grab his skinny neck… but my arms were limp noodles, not obeying my command.
“Oh, fu—” I mumbled, and fell to the ground.
CHAPTER 38
For what felt like hours, my only objective was to open my eyes. But it was an impossible task, they were so heavy. And every time I got close, something told me it might be easier to just go back to sleep. That it might be easier to just give up. No, I argued with myself. No. Because of Fang. No. Because of Phoenix.
Trying with all my might, I resisted my own instinct to remain unaware. I was still locked in darkness. For who knows how long. Finally, I was able to swim upward toward consciousness, and I blearily opened my eyes just a slit.
I was in an… operating room. Super-bright lights shone down and I hazily saw people in doctors’ robes hurrying in and out of my line of vision. The walls had chipped paint peeling off their cinder blocks. So I was in a bad operating room. Probably the prison’s. Awesome. At least they’d taken me out of the courtyard. Apparently letting the prisoners watch me be operated on might make an example, but letting them see me take out ten guards all by myself might give them ideas.
Plus, I had the worst headache. Very carefully, I twitched one finger a tiny bit to see just how drugged I was. Bird-people have superfast metabolisms, so we process things like food, drugs, and water much quicker than regular humans.
In fact, I was hungry now. Maybe I should kill the doc for extra rations. I bit the side of my cheek, trying not to laugh at my own joke.
“She’ll be out cold for another couple hours,” I heard someone say.
“I don’t want her to feel any pain.” That sounded like the sad-sack doctor who had dosed me. Maybe there was a little bit of decency left in him, after all.
“Has anyone ever done this before?” the other person asked.
“Not as far as I know,” said the doctor. “I’m so excited to get my hands on her—usually I just do autopsies. This is a whole new world.”
What was a whole new world? I wondered. My body? Just working on the living? Or was there something more sinister implied in his words? Metal instruments clinked on a metal table, and I quickly revised my opinion—there was definitely not anything good left in this man.
“What are you going to do with the wings?” the voice asked.
Oh, my god. My freaking wings. That’s right! They were going to cut them off!
“He’s going to examine them,” said the all-too-familiar voice of McCallum. As usual, he spoke too loudly, and I struggled to keep from wincing. “And try to graft them onto someone else! I would love to have a platoon—no, a flock—of winged soldiers!”
I felt my eyes grow hot with possible tears and tried to blink them away without looking like it. Various megalomaniacs had been trying to make winged armies my whole life. Could I just tell them that it never, ever turns out well? God, I wished a flock of winged soldiers would come get me, right now! I hadn’t seen my family in ten goddamn years! But it would take a miracle for them to burst in now and rescue me from this maniac!
“You have extra paralytic medicine, if necessary?” the doctor asked.
The other someone, who I’d realized was a woman, answered softly, “Yes. But she’s out deeply—her heart rate is dangerously slow. And we’ll be using the restraints, of course.”
My heart rate is almost always very slow. It speeds way up if I’m fighting.
“This is a first step toward real equality,” McCallum said. “Keep up the good work, doctor. And turn her to face away from me—I want to see the whole operation.”
“She’ll be facedown,” the doctor told him. “To give me more access.”
“Of course,” said McCallum. “Carry on!”
“We’re going to need more people to turn her, if you want her facedown,” said the woman.
The doctor was silent, but maybe others were watching, too, because a few seconds later I heard the clomping of heavy boots, a door opening, more clomping.
“Help us turn her,” said the doctor.
“Is she asleep, like super asleep?” one of the soldiers asked warily.
“Yes,” the doctor said.
Do I try to jump up now, fight everyone? Wait till I feel the first scalpel? My hand hurt and when I looked downward through my slitted eyes, I saw an IV going in. The time to get up was now!
I mentally pictured myself leaping off the table, kicking the doctor in the throat, then chopping his neck until he lost consciousness. Maybe I would put him on this table, see how he liked it.
The problem was, when I told my body to spring off the table, it telegraphed back, Nobody home. Then I realized I couldn’t see. Couldn’t open my eyes again. Was heading to painless, floaty dreamland. Shit.
CHAPTER 39
Hawk
I’d never, ever flown with anyone else, ever. Now I was flying with three people who were like me. Actually like me. They weren’t gaping and gawking like the Chungs had when I had to use my wings to escape. They weren’t calling me a freak. They thought I was normal.
They were all older than me and their wings were a bit bigger. I bet they were stronger. I couldn’t believe they were up in the sky with me. The sky had always been… all mine. Mine and Ridley’s. I kept looking around, surprised again to see them there. I had to work hard to stay in front, but I did. After all, I was the one who knew where the complex was. I was the one who had told them where that prisoner was. They needed me.
But not as much as I needed them.
Okay, all right. First we would rescue—Fang. (What kind of a name was that?)
Anyway, first we would rescue Fang, and then I would hold them to their promise to free my gang. The
n Clete and I would detox my people—however long that would take. Rainbow might have a pretty name, but a person could turn ugly once you took it from them. I hoped Clete had been hanging tough all this time, trusted me to come back.
Iggy, the blind guy, stayed in formation, to my left, behind the blond guy. Gazzy.
As if he could feel me looking at him, Gazzy spoke. “You ready for some action?”
I didn’t know what that meant. “Well, I guess we’ll sneak in, the way I usually do? Like go through the laundry and down the long hall—”
“Hm,” said Gazzy. “I was thinking a little plastic explosive on the roof, go in through there?”
“Explo—you mean like a bomb?” I said. “Where are we gonna get that?”
Gazzy grinned at me.
“He likes blowing things up,” Iggy said.
“But—the prison is built pretty solid,” I said.
“Listen,” said Nudge (I liked her best so far, even though she was kind of soppy). “If you ever hear one of us say Duck! or Drop! or anything like that, do it. Immediately and without question. Okay?”
I wasn’t used to taking orders; usually I was the one giving them. But Nudge wasn’t smiling, and I sure as hell didn’t think she was joking. “Uh… okay?” I said.
“She is dead serious,” said Iggy.
“Okay?” I said. Like, who were these people? Just gonna go break their friend out of prison? With a bomb? “Do you guys do this often?” I asked, not trying to be a smart-ass. Just then a bug flew into my mouth. Gross. It happens pretty frequently—bugs of all kinds smashing into my face like it’s a windshield.
“We’ve broken a lot of people out of a lot of jails,” Gazzy admitted. “It’s an occupational hazard.”
“What occupation?” I asked.
Gazzy grinned at me. “Being the Flock.”
Nudge moved so she was right over Gazzy, their wings moving in sync on each downstroke and upswing. It was amazing. They’d flown together so many times that this was easy for them. My mouth dropped open when the blind one moved beneath Gazzy. Now all three of them were flying in synchronization. How did they know one another? Were there any more of us? I had a million questions.
“Okay,” said Nudge. “Fang is on what floor of the prison?”
“The first,” I said.
“So the roof is out,” Nudge said.
“The side, then,” said Gazzy. “Not as good—it’s harder for people to follow us through the roof.”
“If you went through the roof right in the middle,” I said, “we could drop down to the first floor, get Fang, and then—”
“All fly out through the roof,” said Gazzy. “Excellent. Good thinking, Phoe—Hawk.”
I didn’t say anything. I was used to being the roughest, toughest person around, the one other people came to for help. Now these three strangers were, like, so much more experienced. They weren’t blinking at the idea of blowing up a roof to break a prisoner out of jail. They had done it before. A lot. Maybe they were criminals. I snuck a side glance at them, flying in sync. I didn’t care if they were criminals. They were flying like me, leading a life of crime like me. And I needed their help.
CHAPTER 40
One good thing about the coal smoke and general smog—it made landing on rooftops super easy, even when armed guards were supposed to be watching said rooftops. Like all the buildings in the complex, Incarceration had a flat concrete roof, dirty and covered with tar-paper patches.
After I’d landed, all hot from flying, I noticed the Flock staring at my wings.
“What,” I said.
“They’re Fang’s wings,” Nudge said very softly.
“And Max’s. Underneath.” Gazzy’s voice was sober.
A thousand painful emotions hit my heart at the same time. They were saying that Fang really was my dad. So I had a dad, a real dad! Which would be great if he weren’t a jailed murderer. Also, he had abandoned me when I was really little, so eff him! Him and my mom both! I never wanted to talk to them again!
I knew my emotions were flying across my face as quickly as we’d flown across the sky. Nudge was watching me and I’m sure she could see me move from elated to angry in point two seconds. I folded up my wings and stuck my chin in the air. “They’re my wings. Now where’s this explosive?”
We had to duck periodically as the Incarceration floodlights swept over the roof, but it was no problem. I watched as Gazzy took a lump of modeling clay out of his backpack and handed it to me.
“We want long, thin flat sheets,” he said, showing me how to smack it and stretch it.
“Where’s the explosive?” I asked again. Why was he having me play with clay? Had they been lying to me? Was this all a joke?
Gazzy looked at me in surprise and held up his own modeling clay. “This is it.”
“C-10 then, Gaz?” Iggy asked.
“Easier to get than Semtex6,” Gazzy told him. He’d already molded two flat sheets and had laid them in a row across the roof. I handed him mine, still confused. He saw my face and explained, “C-10 is a moldable explosive. But it doesn’t explode by itself, so it’s great to carry around, have handy. Not even a bullet could make it explode.” He leaned toward me eagerly, warming up to this topic.
“Here we go,” Nudge murmured as we all automatically ducked from the floodlights.
“What does C-10 stand for?” I asked.
“Composition number ten,” Gazzy said happily, laying down two more sheets. “It’s made up of a bunch of different things. They keep making it better, refining it. This number ten stuff is amazing—easy to control its explosion, much lighter in weight, and you use much less than C-5 or even C-8.”
Nudge met my eyes and gave me a pointed look, like, Do not ask him about explosives again.
The Gasman gazed off in the distance, I guess thinking about how awesome C-8 had been or something. We all ducked under the sweep of the floodlights, and Iggy said, “Ready, Gazzy?”
“Oh, one more thing,” Gazzy said, getting back to work. He fiddled with some gadgets, pressed a wire down all the thin sheets of the C-10, then stood up and nodded. “Let’s go over here.” We all flattened ourselves toward the edge of the building, and Gazzy punched some numbers into his phone.
“Duck!” Nudge said, and I dropped my head to the roof and covered it with my hands. Instantly, no questions—just like she’d told me to.
There was an amazingly huge explosion. The roof shook below me as the whole building swayed. Glass sprayed from the windows in the Labs, and there was immediate chaos. Lights swung wildly, alarms shrieked, and from below I heard hundreds of people yelling.
We crawled forward through the debris of concrete chunks, heavy metal wire, and bits of light fixtures. There was a big, rough hole in the middle of the ceiling, about two and a half meters wide and a bit more than three meters long.
Nudge, Iggy, and Gazzy looked at one another and smiled, then turned to me.
“Let’s go get Fang,” Iggy said.
CHAPTER 41
Max
The metal table was cool beneath my cheek. I had drooled, and I felt sticky from it. Hey, this is the unvarnished account of my life, okay? You don’t want gross stuff, don’t read it!
I felt a cold draft on the skin of my back. It all came back to me in one horrific thought: they had cut off my wings. Oh, my god. A bird-person without wings is just a… person. A tall, weirdly skinny person. I mean—Fang had a metal wing. It worked. But two metal wings? Two wings that weren’t part of me, my body, my brain? I couldn’t see how they could work. They might as well go ahead and kill me.
“What are we waiting for, goddamnit!” McCallum wasn’t worried about waking me up. It sounded like he was right there, but he was on a vidscreen.
“I had to rethink my strategy!” the doctor said testily. “The micro scan showed some nerves and arteries looped across an unexpected bone between the wings!”
“An unexpected bone? Surely you can do better than that, do
ctor. Pretend she’s a holiday turkey. And I. Want. A. Wing.”
I hated McCallum so much. But… thoughts started lining up in my numb, drugged brain. They… they hadn’t operated yet! And yes! I sent a signal to my primary feathers, and they responded, Right here! I still had my wings, I still had my wings!
That meant—I had to ditch this place. I was on my own. I couldn’t hope for anybody to break me out, couldn’t hope for the doctor to have a change of heart and be a decent man. This was on me. I was cold, and on an operating table surrounded by insane people, but surely I had a few things going for me?
Okay—one thing: I wasn’t nearly as sedated as they thought. Two: I recognized this place—after all that circus entertainment outside, I was just here in the goddamn Infirmary! Knowing where I was helped because I knew where I had to get to, and how to get there, but the location was still a bummer.
I couldn’t fly out—I’d have to run.
Below my hand with the IV drip, I felt the thin, soft tubing that was delivering the sedative. With two fingers, I very slowly pinched the tube shut.
“Why can’t you just cut the nerves and whatever?” McCallum asked.
“Because.” The doctor now sounded irritated. “We don’t know what will happen if I cut the nerves and the arteries. It could kill her. Plus, you want the wings grafted onto someone else? We’ll need those nerve endings!”
Well, that was a relief. If I died I wouldn’t have to live without my wings. Maybe I was imagining it, but did I already feel a little more conscious?
“So what?” McCallum said. Without his usual continuous shouting of threats and verbal abuse, he sounded so different. Like a real person. That was a disturbing thought, that a real person could think and behave like McCallum.
“So then you would have wings that we’d try to keep viable with ice and saline, and a dead person. Voilà. How impressive is that? But if I can get these wings off without killing her, then you have wings, plus a penitent person. That would be much more compelling, much more of a lesson.”
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