McCallum was quiet. The only sounds were the tiny pump not pumping drugs into my IV and the clatter of more metal surgical tools on a metal tray.
“How long will this take?” McCallum asked.
“I have an image of her back right here,” the doctor said. “I’m going to study it for a few minutes and come up with a plan.”
“I’ll check back in five minutes, then,” said McCallum. “And I have an idea—we can broadcast the whole operation. Everyone from the Council to the lowest Ope will see it!”
“Why?” That was the nurse, and everyone seemed surprised that she spoke. “I’m sorry,” she said immediately.
“Why?” McCallum’s voice was soft, like the subtle hiss of a snake. Then he roared. “Because she’s a Freak, and we can make an example of her! Because I’m McCallum! And I say so! Five minutes!”
The screen went blank, then was quickly replaced by a vid of three kittens singing a song about loyalty and honor. It was such a catchy tune I almost started tapping my foot along.
“Goddamnit.” The doctor’s voice was so low that his nurse probably hadn’t heard it. But I have birdlike ears, and I heard it. I managed not to gasp or twitch when his hands smoothed the skin between my wings at the top of my shoulders. I hadn’t been touched in prison—my reputation made sure of that—so it was hard to lie still and feel someone else’s hands on me. He pulled my wings open a little bit so they were out of the way and rubbed their upper joints, feeling where the bones separated. He was really gearing up to do this.
How awake was I? Was I strapped down? I didn’t feel it.
Get up, Max, I told myself sternly. You are Maximum Ride and you will get off this goddamn table and run, you hear me?
Do. You. Hear. Me?
CHAPTER 42
Hawk
I’d never done anything like this, but it was awesome. We just tucked our wings along our sides and dive-bombed down to the cold concrete of the first floor of the prison. The explosion had also ripped open a bunch of the cells on the third floor, and prisoners were running out, free. They gawked at our wings, but were too thrilled at their newfound freedom to ask questions.
On the first floor. I raced toward Fang’s cell, with Gazzy and Iggy right behind me. Nudge was shooting guards left and right with a dart gun. “We try to keep the body count low,” she had explained to me. “Part of our personal growth.”
“This is it!” I said breathlessly as we reached the intersection of cells. I grabbed the bars of the cell as if I could just yank them out. Then the three of us stood there silently while chaos erupted all around us.
The cell was empty.
I felt Gazzy looking at me, and Iggy turned his head in my direction.
“This is where he was,” I said lamely. “This is where I saw him.”
“Damnit!” said Gazzy, wiping sweat off his brow. “What now?”
“You lookin’ for that murderer?” The skinny, dirty prisoner in the next cell had pushed his face between his bars.
“Yes,” Gazzy answered quickly before I could say anything.
“They took ’im this mornin’,” the prisoner said. “Open these bars and I’ll tell you where.”
“You don’t know where!” I yelled, furious and embarrassed.
“Do, too,” the inmate insisted. “Open these bars!”
“Iggy?” Gazzy said, and Iggy went to the next cell, feeling his way along the bars till he came to the big lock on the cell door.
He pulled some metal picks out of a pocket and put them in the lock. His face was calm concentration, despite the roar all around us. Loose prisoners were everywhere, others shouted to be freed. They pelted us with “gifts” offering the best of what they had in their cells if we’d only let them out—extra toilet paper rolls, dirty pictures, and some (I’ll admit) pretty decent personal artwork. The floor was littered with stunned guards, their hands still on their guns.
“Okay,” Iggy said, and the lock clicked. The prisoner stared and pushed the door open. I grabbed him by his inmate jacket and shoved my face into his.
“Where’s the prisoner from this cell?” I snarled, using my meanest face and voice, the ones that usually made people cry.
“She’s so cute,” I thought I heard Nudge whisper.
“They took him to execution this morning,” the inmate said, cowering a bit.
I stared. “What?”
“They took him to execution,” the inmate said again, starting to look surly. “Over by the mess hall.”
I let go of his collar. “So you’re saying he’s dead? They executed him?”
“I only said that they took him to execution,” the inmate said pointedly. “Don’t know if he’s dead, do I?”
“
Phoe—Hawk,” Gazzy said. “Where’s the mess hall?”
It took me a second to organize my brain cells and my internal map of Incarceration. Then I pointed to the hole in the ceiling, and we flew up, toward the gray-green night, leaving the riotous wreck of the prison behind us.
CHAPTER 43
The Flock and I landed silently on the mess hall roof, ignoring the blazing searchlights, all of which were below us, the dogs barking hysterically, the shouting, the gunfire. The loose prisoners were making their way to the fences, attacking guards in the yard, and trying to force open more cells to free their friends. Everything below was in chaos; nobody was paying attention to what was going on up on the roof.
“Let me do a quick three-sixty,” Gazzy said, and Nudge nodded.
As silently as we had landed, the Gasman took off, not making a sound with his wings. Nudge, Iggy, and I lay on our stomachs on the roof as I tried not to let stupid thoughts and emotions run though my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about Calypso, and her kaleidoscope eyes, the blank stares of Moke and Rain. They were lost in a dreamworld, waiting on me to save them. And I was stuck on the roof of the wrong building still trying to help free this Fang guy. Their friend, I reminded myself. Not mine. Time was running out for my gang, and we still hadn’t achieved anything. Another couple hours and there wouldn’t be enough left of their brains to rescue. I exhaled sharply, my breath spinning up a cloud of dirt in front of my face. Keep focused, Hawk.
When Gazzy landed, his sneaker dislodged two small pebbles. That was it. I could land without stumbling, but there were usually drag marks. I was going to have to practice takeoffs and landings. If I lived through tonight.
“Found him,” Gazzy said tersely.
“Alive?” Nudge asked.
“I can’t tell,” Gazzy said. “He’s tied to a post in the execution square.”
Ohhhh. It came back to me—the time I’d been flying overhead in the daytime, which was unusual. I’d glanced down at Incarceration in time to see a prisoner get shot, slump down. That was where Fang was.
“He’s not… standing up,” Gazzy said in a low voice.
“Let’s go,” Iggy said.
Nudge let out a breath but said nothing, just got into a crouching position, below the searchlights. One by one they jumped off the roof, swooping low toward the ground and then rising sharply. I tried it, almost face-planted into the ground, then rose shakily after them. There was so much I didn’t know about flying. Because until now, there hadn’t been anyone to teach me.
CHAPTER 44
The execution square was on the edge of the compound, away from everything else. Everything else except McCallum, of course, and his occasional Voxvoce, which went everywhere in this damn city.
For a few moments, the Flock hovered above the execution square. I don’t know how to hover, so I would downstroke and rise up about ten feet, then let myself fall. I felt stupid, like I should have figured all this out on my own.
“Okay, swoop down, cut him free, swoop back up with him,” Nudge said, and the other two nodded, hovering in the air like… like mosquitos or something. “Who’s going to carry him?”
“Me,” Iggy and Gazzy said at the same time. There was a pause, then they both said �
�Me” again.
“Me,” Gazzy said again. “Iggy drops down and sets him loose.”
“But—” Nudge began.
“You’re not as good at lock picking as he is,” Gazzy said. I saw from Nudge’s face that she couldn’t deny it.
I hadn’t wanted to actually look at Fang, in case he was dead. He might be my dad. He might be dead. Finally I forced myself. In the dark courtyard, there was one prisoner handcuffed to a post. He was slumped forward, not moving. The wall all around him was stained with blood, some of it super recent, alarmingly bright.
I swallowed hard, scanning him for signs of life. I couldn’t see any. There was a vidscreen in front of Fang’s limp body, of course. I remembered what McCallum had said when they brought Fang to the prison—we do prison right! Yep, prison and murder, and making sure everyone knew who was in charge. Right now families all over the city in their homes were beaming at a glowing McCallum on their TVs. But they were able to look away, if they wanted to. Part of the punishment for a prisoner would be having to stare, all day, into that confident jerk’s mug, huge and oily and just out of reach.
Maybe some of them did walk away “rehabilitated,” truly believing that McCallum wanted the best for them, was here to protect them, and the city. But I bet most of them just died wishing they could crush his face.
“Okay, let’s go,” said Iggy, and he and Gazzy dropped down to the ground.
I couldn’t swallow.
Iggy immediately set to work on a handcuff, while Gazzy took out his canteen and splashed some on Fang’s head. Did he twitch? Then Gazzy pulled Fang’s head back by his long, black hair and tipped water into his mouth just as Iggy got one hand free.
Fang slumped down, held up by one hand. Just like Calypso. Gazzy propped him up so Iggy could work on the other metal cuff. Nudge was hovering, and I was trying to hover and not succeeding.
The vidscreen in front of Fang changed to McCallum’s broad, tan face and small blue eyes. “This is for you third-shift workers who are making the City of the Dead productive, even while others sleep!” he boomed. “I know it’s the middle of the night! But I have a show for you that you won’t believe! We have found a freak to end all freaks—someone who drank the water before it hit the water-cleaning facility!” He paused to let everyone laugh, then said, “We have a true subversive, loyal citizens. Someone who would destroy what you own, what you believe, what you want. But we’re going to show her that in our city, we don’t want subversives! Traitors! People who don’t trust their McCallum!” He gave a big smile. “Citizens, we’ve captured a bird-person, and we just can’t rehabilitate her!”
Nudge’s head whipped downward and she stared at the screen. My breath caught in my throat. Iggy and Gazzy both froze and looked at the screen.
“We’ve tried and tried, but she’s bad to the bone,” McCallum said ruefully. “So in a little while here, we’re going to cut off her wings! See how subversive she feels then!”
On the vidscreen, a fast montage of images scrolled by—images of a young woman with brown hair and brown eyes. Usually she was spitting at the screen or shown beating up other prisoners or guards. Once she flew upward and clung from thick metal bars, screaming into the wind, her wings outstretched behind her.
They were my wings. The underside… was identical to mine.
Below us, Fang blinked blearily, his face a mass of swollen bruises.
“Max?” he said hoarsely.
CHAPTER 45
In moments Iggy had freed Fang’s other hand. That cuff was apparently attached to an alarm system, because as soon as it popped open, klaxons sounded, floodlights lit the gruesome, garish courtyard, and we heard tramping booted feet.
“Let’s go!” Gazzy said, taking Fang on his back. He jumped into the air, pushed downward hard with his broad wings, and rose into the air. Iggy rose more quickly beside him, and Nudge and I surrounded them as we all shot through the grim clouds that almost always covered the City of the Dead.
Below us, people shouted and fired into the air but couldn’t hit what they couldn’t see. In seconds we were well out of any bullet range.
“Max,” Fang said again, one arm looped around Gazzy’s neck, with Gazzy holding it tightly.
“Yes, Max!” Nudge said. “Max is alive!”
“Or will be for another half hour,” Iggy said darkly.
“Max,” Fang mumbled, then seemed to fall asleep.
Ten minutes of fast flying high above the city brought us back to the Flock’s base at the top of the tall, skeletal building. We circled it a couple times to make sure it wasn’t surrounded, there weren’t snipers anywhere, nothing unexpected.
We landed on the same floor I’d found them on, what felt like several months ago. Gazzy set Fang down gently onto one of the pallets they’d been sleeping on, and Nudge quickly went to him. “Iggy?” she said.
Iggy began to feel Fang’s face, tracing over the lumps of swollen purple flesh, his hairline, his ears and chin.
“Fang! I just can’t believe it!” Nudge said, starting to cry. “And now Max!” She turned to me with a tear-stained smile. “And Phoen—Hawk. Oh, my god, we’re going to be all together again!”
She hunched over Fang as sobs shook her slender body.
“No bones broken, amazingly,” Iggy said, after feeling Fang’s feet. “Just really banged up, dehydrated, starving, et cetera. The usual.”
“It’s not usual to find Fang,” Gazzy said hoarsely. “And Max! Guys, we have to get our shit together and go get Max!”
“Not so fast,” I said, and clicked a bullet into the chamber of my gun. Three heads turned in shock.
“Hawk, what’s going on?” Nudge asked.
“Your next step will be going with me to save my friends, down in the labs at the McCallum complex,” I said slowly and deliberately. “You promised. And I will hold you to that promise, or this night will get very ugly, very fast.”
I was smart. I didn’t point the gun at any of them. I pointed it at the person they all cared about the most, the person we’d just risked everything to rescue. I pointed it at Fang.
“Where did you get the gun?” Gazzy asked.
“From a prison guard, earlier,” I said, and he nodded.
Nudge was looking at me, smiling through her tears. “God, you’re just so adorable!”
Gazzy and Iggy smiled, too.
“You’re a lot like your mom was, when she was your age,” Iggy said.
“People keep telling me that,” I said snidely. “But you’re not going to get to know me better if you don’t come through on your promise.” I spread my feet apart for better balance and kept the pistol trained on Fang.
Gazzy shook his head in admiration. “I really like this girl.”
Were they trying to fake me out? Lull me into a false sense of security and then turn on me?
“Food?” Fang croaked, propping himself on one elbow.
Nudge rummaged in her leather backpack, pulling out small, high-calorie stuff you could eat on the run. She held out an energy bar to me, and I shook my head, eyes flicking from it, back to Fang, still on the business end of my gun.
“We’ve been looking for Max for almost ten years,” Fang said, meeting my eyes.
“You’re going to help save my friends,” I said.
“Drink some water,” Nudge said briskly, rolling a bottle to me. I ignored it, let it bounce off my foot.
“You know she won’t give up,” Fang said, speaking to the others.
“Yeah,” Nudge agreed.
“Yup, got that,” Gazzy said.
“So… we go save her friends, yada-yada-yada, then find Max,” Iggy said conversationally, then took a swig of juice.
“Okay,” Nudge said. “You’re right. We promised. We’ll save your friends first. Then go find Max, and hope we get there in time. Put this in your pockets so you can eat on the way.”
She threw a granola bar at me. I caught it in midair with one hand and stuffed it in my pocket, keepi
ng the gun leveled on them.
Fang sighed heavily, then got creakily to his feet. “Max,” he said wistfully to the others.
“Yes, Max,” Nudge said, getting ready to jump off the side of a hundred-story building. “We’ll get there in time. We will, Fang.”
Fang said nothing more, just jumped out into the night, his wings so dark they were almost invisible.
I waited till they were all out, then I jumped, too, keeping my gun trained on Fang.
Moke, Rain, Calypso—I’m coming for you.
CHAPTER 46
“Fill me in!” Nudge shouted at me as we flew.
I’d told them to fly back toward Incarceration. Fang’s bruised face had flinched at my words, but he hadn’t changed course.
“They’re being held at the Labs,” I said, then gritted my teeth. The Flock knew that. Blinking against the greasy clouds, I wondered which facts were important.
“How many of them?” Gazzy asked.
“Three,” I said.
“Good fliers?” Iggy asked.
“Uh… not fliers at all?” I said, and four pairs of eyes focused on me. “They’re just… well, freaks,” I said. “But they don’t have wings. I’m the only person I’ve ever seen who has wings. I mean, till now.”
I focused on flying while everyone looked at me. I was used to being stared at, but not by bird-people. They’ll get over it, I thought grimly, trying to move my wings more smoothly yet forcefully, the way the others seemed to.
“Okay,” Nudge said, raising her voice to be heard. “You’d called them freaks, and I just assumed—”
“Moke is taller than me,” I said. “He’s… his skin is blue. Rain is really pretty, younger than me, but her skin looks like it’s melting? Like from acid rain? Calypso is almost eight. Sometimes she knows things before they happen. She’s started growing antennas out of her back.”
I tried to breathe in on my upswings and out on my hard, downward pushes. I’d never tried to improve my flying before—it’d been enough to fly at all. But looking at the Flock, it was like I’d been on level two, maybe, of the Flying Skill Scale and they were all like on level ten.
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