Maximum Ride Forever

by James Patterson

  So what was he waiting for?

  He ran past the stern-faced guards, but before they could even yell “Ostanovis!” Horseman snapped open his wings—giant, powerful things that he controlled as dexterously as his fingers—shot up into the fake skyscrapers, and burst through the ceiling vent.

  By the time he heard the rapid powpowpow of their AK-47s, Horseman was soaring over land that lacked the rubble of destroyed civilization but was still tainted by layers of the ever-present ash and covered by a dense, acrid blanket of toxic air. His embedded GPS sensors told him he was in a remote part of Russia.

  There was nothing on earth like flying. Horseman reveled in the bite of the cold air in his lungs—even if it happened to be sulfurous—and loved zipping fast enough to make his eyes water—even if the ash caused a stinging pain. You couldn’t do this in the tunnels, that was for sure.

  He wondered what other things had been programmed in the later generations. He had more wing power, sure, better vision. He had been made stronger, bigger, and his tracking skills rivaled those of any bird of prey.

  But was his smile his own? Was his joy? Did everyone feel this… utter elation when they were in the air? Did the flock? They did, he was sure.

  One more thing he was fairly sure about: He hadn’t been programmed to ask these kinds of questions, which was why he’d do well to keep his mouth shut.

  In fact, he’d better study up on what exactly was expected of the first Horseman if he was going to be successful on this mission. The information appeared behind his eyes as if on a screen—images of art and scholarly assessments feeding into his thoughts—and the Horseman couldn’t help grinning as he got to the interpretations.

  He thought of the brooding doctor, his creator. Had his master understood the multiple meanings when he’d named A10103 his first Horseman? Did he know that the white horse could stand for both righteousness and evil?

  It was going to be fun finding out.

  16

  YOU’D THINK DISCOVERING there were other people alive out there would leave us hopeful, revitalized, and closer than ever, right? Well, then you wouldn’t be taking into account what happens when a bunch of raging egos try to make decisions. Instead, it led to the worst knock-down, drag-out argument the flock had ever had.

  “So, I guess we go to Pennsylvania first,” Iggy said. We were rummaging through the claustrophobic little cabin, taking stock of the supplies. “From what that Tunnelratt kid said, it sounds like there are more survivors there.”

  “The survivors aren’t the issue,” Fang said. He was still holding the tablet, trying to get the thing turned back on. “The killers are. Why not try to find these H-men dudes first? Find out if they’re just random bots, or connected to something bigger.” He was all action, which was how I usually operated, too. “I think we should head to the coasts and—”

  “We’re going to Russia,” Angel said out of the blue. She pulled her head out of a lower cupboard she had cleared out, and now sat among some rusted, battered pots and pans that wouldn’t even be of use to whack someone with.

  “That’s stupid.” Gazzy dismissed his little sister as he stood on a chair to reach the upper shelf of a closet. “Ooh, tea tree oil. Gotta be flammable. Why would we go to Russia? You saw those comments. People said all of Europe might be wrecked.”

  “It isn’t,” Angel said authoritatively. “And if you want to know the truth about what happened, you’ll follow me.”

  “Let me guess. ‘I’m the big-shot psychic and I know everything.’ ” Gazzy mimicked Angel’s voice perfectly, and Nudge giggled, then winced in pain. “Okay, Ange, don’t hold out on us. Go on, tell us what mysterious future awaits us in Russia.” He wiggled his fingers and made his eyebrows jump.

  Gazzy had always been protective of Angel, but clearly some tension had been building between them. Angel was definitely not smiling. She crossed her arms over her chest but didn’t answer.

  “That’s what I thought.” Gazzy snickered as he jumped off the chair with his find.

  She stared at him evenly. “I know it’s hard when some of us are developing even more extraordinary powers and you’re still trying to control your hilarious toxic farts, but don’t you think you should grow up, Gasman?”

  Gazzy looked at Angel in surprise. They were standing toe to toe now, blue-eyed mirrors of each other, and I was getting a little nervous—a threatened Angel is an unpredictable Angel. I looked at Iggy. He’d always been so good at neutralizing tension, but his jaw was set tight as he let it build and build.

  “I’m the one who needs to grow up?” Gazzy said. His cheeks were flushed with anger. “First you were just loooving being Max’s precious little baby, and now you pull this ‘I’m the Chosen One’ crap every time you don’t get your way.”

  “I know what I’m talking about!” Angel stamped her foot.

  “Oh, are we going to have a tantrum now?” Gazzy taunted.

  “Okayyy,” I said, and blew out a frustrated breath. “Let’s just all take a step back here. Ange, honey, I know you haven’t been sleeping. Maybe you just need some rest.”

  “We’re all going to Russia!” Angel shouted.

  “I’m going to the US!” her brother raged back.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Nudge said. “Whatever’s out there…” She glanced toward the door and touched a hand to her cheek, where the blood had soaked through the cloth again. “It’s not any better than where we were.”

  “We don’t know that, Nudge,” Fang said. “If we catch these guys, things might get a lot better.”

  “Maybe Nudge is right,” I said. “Maybe we should go back to the island for a while.”

  “What?” Fang jerked his head around.

  “What?!” Gazzy repeated.

  Fang took me aside, keeping his voice low. “Max, how can you say that, especially now that we have a clue about what happened? You don’t think we owe it to those people to help them?”

  I shifted uncomfortably. There is no purer form of humiliation than when someone you love and respect suggests you might be a self-involved jerk.

  “Of course I want to help people,” I said quietly. “But we know there are people sick in Asia, too, and that’s a lot closer. And we know Pierpont stocked the vaccine in the caves on our island. Maybe we should try to find a way in again.”

  Fang sighed and looked away.

  I touched his arm. “I just think we need to figure things out before we make any crazy decisions.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Total said.

  “Yeah, because the decisions she’s made have always been spot-on, right?” Iggy muttered.

  I narrowed my eyes. “What’s that supposed to—”

  “It means that maybe if you hadn’t insisted we stay on the island after the apocalypse, Dylan and Akila might still be here.”

  “Watch it, Ig,” Fang warned.

  But the words already hung between us like bullets aimed at my heart. I knew they were true.

  “I…” I was remembering the bloodied sheet in the grave and thinking of the green sneaker as it had slipped out of my fingers. I couldn’t breathe.

  “It was the best thing for us then,” Fang insisted. “We were protected. We didn’t know what else was out there.”

  There were other things, too, deeper reasons I hadn’t left the island—things I couldn’t say aloud. When you fail at saving the world, it’s difficult to imagine facing the ruins of what’s left. When you blame yourself so completely, it’s hard to look for who might be responsible. And when someone claims your mom and sister are dead, it’s almost impossible to believe it without proof.

  I know you were grieving, the voice said inside my head. I know you couldn’t accept the loss. But you stopped making decisions for the flock. You put us all at risk.

  I glared at Angel. “Get out of my mind.”

  “They’re dead, Max,” Angel said gently.

  “We don’t know that!” My hands clenched as I struggled to
hold on to that belief. “Dylan could still be there. My mom might be alive. Ella might—”

  “They’re gone!” Iggy shouted, and for the first time I saw the real anguish he felt at losing my half sister, the girl he’d totally fallen for. “Why can’t you just accept that, Max, so we can all move on?”

  Because. I can’t. I won’t.

  He nodded toward where Angel and Gazzy stood. “I’m going.”

  “Okay then.” Angel clasped her hands together as everyone glared at one another. “We’ll head out in the morning. Max and Nudge can stay behind and the rest of us will go.”

  “Except me.” Fang stepped closer to me and threaded his hand behind my back. “I’m staying with Max.”

  17

  ANGEL’S EYES WIDENED. “That’s not allowed.”

  “What?” I said, still reeling from Iggy’s attack. “You mean because the flock isn’t supposed to ever break up again?”

  “No, not because of that,” Angel said, and grabbed Fang’s arm. “I said he has to leave. Every second you stay here, you’re a bigger threat to the world’s survival.”

  Fang shook his head. “I love you, Ange, and I get that you’re still sore about this Save the World crusade. But news flash: We lost.” He kicked a warped can across the room, and the clang echoed in the small space. “The world already ended, and I sure didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  I felt a pang. Fang could separate himself from it—no one had told him he could stop it—but my conscience still said my fault, my fault, my fault.

  “You’re a threat to Max, too,” Angel continued in her patient parent voice. “We each have a role. I’m supposed to lead…”

  “And I’m supposed to die, right?” I felt how tense Fang was next to me, how the air itself seemed to pulse. “Are we back to this again?”

  Angel shrugged her slight shoulders, but her gaze never wavered. “You can’t continue being selfish, Fang,” she said, and his eyes hardened.

  “Angel, come on,” I cut in. “I think we’ve all had enough right now.”

  But Fang held up his hand. “No, it’s fine. Doesn’t faze me anymore. She’s been saying this for, what, two years? At first it was kind of spooky, but at this point, she’s just the girl who cried wolf. And as for her leading…” He stared down at her, meeting her eyes with a look of pity. “That only seems to happen when you weasel your way into people’s heads and make their decisions for them, doesn’t it, sweetie? No one wants to follow you, Angel.”

  He let that hang in the air for a second. Angel glanced at Gazzy, and her brother wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  Angel’s nostrils flared, but she held her composure. “I know you can’t understand. I’ve had to make sacrifices. To spare you all the burden—”

  “Sacrifices.” Fang nodded, pursing his lips. “Seeing the future and doing nothing. Not a word until the freaking sky actually caught on fire. Sacrificing all those innocent lives. You’re a real martyr, aren’t you?”

  “You think I want this?” she shrieked, her eyes brimming with tears. “I tried to warn you. I tried to prepare you. But I guess I’ll have to show you!”

  Her eyes turned a milky white, and I sucked in a breath. We all looked alarmed as Fang’s expression started to change. He stared straight ahead at Angel, but it was like he was watching a movie. I saw the sweat pricking above his lip, the color draining from his face.

  Suddenly the pressure changed in the room, pressing agonizingly in on my skull, making my eardrums pop. Fang’s nose started to bleed. Nudge, Iggy, and Gazzy each sank to their knees, holding their heads and moaning.

  “Angel, stop it now! That’s enough!” I shouted.

  Fang jerked his head sharply from side to side, winced painfully, and then collapsed.

  I sank to my knees next to him, pinching his nose to stop the blood. He didn’t seem to see me. His eyes were haunted, and he was muttering. When I took his hand in mine, I felt it trembling.

  “What did you do?” I demanded. “What did you do to him?”

  When I looked up at Angel, her white wings seemed to fill the room, and despite her young face, her expression seemed as old as time. She wasn’t a little kid at all. Maybe she never had been.

  “I showed him the truth,” she said softly. “I’m sorry, Fang, but you can’t change it. It’s your fate.”

  18

  “FANG!” I SHOUTED, trudging along the path he’d cut through the high brown grass sloping up behind the cottage. “Fang, answer me!”

  I found him farther up the hill in a clearing hidden by brambles and dead-looking eucalyptus. He held a thick branch with both hands like a baseball bat and was hitting one of the trees again and again.

  I leaned against another tree, studying him. His expression was as unreadable as ever, but his flushed skin suggested the fury boiling just beneath the surface. “Are you really going to let Angel do this to you?” I said after a few seconds.

  In response, Fang continued swinging. Strips of bleached bark fluttered to the ground each time he connected with the tree, the CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! echoing against the hollow trunk. When his makeshift club broke in half, Fang’s face went as still and closed as marble.

  “Hey!” I protested as he started smashing what was left of the stick against the ground. I grabbed his arms from behind, pulling against the momentum of straining muscles. “Come on, stop it.”

  He finally chucked the stick and whirled around. “Angel’s right,” he choked. His eyes were haunted, his pupils still dilated. “I’m a danger to you and everyone. It’s the reason I left before, and I never should have come back.”

  “What?” I said, gaping at him in disbelief. “What on earth did Angel tell you?”

  Angrily he shook his head.

  “Fang, this is me! We can tell each other everything!” Can’t we?

  I waited and after a full minute realized he wasn’t going to tell me. He actually was not going to let me know what Angel had showed him. I gave him another minute to apologize and realize what a douchebag he was being.

  “She’s right,” he repeated instead. “I can’t be a coward. I can’t put everyone I care about at risk.”

  Underneath the distress on his face, I saw the rational, calculating Fang I’d always known, and that’s when I started to get scared.

  He was serious.

  “So, what?” I said scathingly, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “You’re just going to run? You think that’s less cowardly?”

  “Not run.” Fang’s jaw was set with conviction. “I’m going to do whatever I can with the time I have left to figure out what happened, to find out who’s responsible, to stop this thing. I’ll go to California, find some of those cleanup crews…”

  “You mean you’ll go to California to meet up with BikiniBimbo456, or whatever her name was,” I spat.

  It was petty, I admit, but give me a pass, okay? I was feeling pretty bitter at that moment.

  “You know that’s not it.” He walked over to me and tried to take my hands. When I crossed my arms, he settled for lifting my chin so I was forced to look at him. “You know you’re it for me. The only one. The forever one.”

  I wasn’t willing to budge yet, though those were the most amazing words I’d ever heard from him. “Am I?”

  Fang sighed. “Maximum Ride, you’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever met, and sometimes it seems like your sole purpose in life is to make mine harder, but I swear, I love you more than I thought I could love anyone or anything.”

  “Then stay,” I whispered, clenching my eyes shut just as they started to well up.

  I felt Fang’s hands on the sides of my face, his thumbs wiping away my tears. I felt the heat coming off his body, heard the catch of his breath. And when our lips finally came together, our kisses were urgent, our bodies hungry. As he moved his hands through my tangled hair, I looked up at him. Inhaled. And said, “Yes.”

  We sank to the ground, the dried leaves crinkling under us, and time fell awa
y for a while.

  I couldn’t tell if our voices rose in pleasure or pain, couldn’t tell if my heart was breaking or bursting open with joy. I only knew I didn’t want to pull away from him for a single second, and it was only when we both gasped for a breath that I realized Fang’s eyes were squeezed shut and his lashes were wet.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered hoarsely. It was the most vulnerable I’d ever seen him.

  “It’s okay.” I pulled him closer, cradling his head tenderly. When he kissed me again, I tasted the salt on his lips, but I still found it sweet. “It’s going to be all right.”

  19

  FANG AWOKE WITH a start, shivering violently. His shirt was soaked with sweat, clammy against his skin, but the air had grown chillier overnight, and the ground beneath him felt like a block of ice.

  He stared out between the brambles at the ash covering the hills like a strange dark snowfall—quiet and eerily beautiful. He concentrated on slowing his breath, trying to shake the vision that had echoed in his dreams, waking him up every hour.

  Angel had put it there, playing on a loop, and the fall was like a punch to the gut each time. It was cruel, but he understood why she had done it: He never would have left Max otherwise.

  Not ever.

  Fang felt her next to him on the bed of dried leaves, and was so relieved in that moment that his breath left his chest in a long, aching sigh. His body curled around Max in a spoon, the way they slept every night. In sleep, her mouth was open like she was about to say something—to ask him again not to go—and he wanted so badly to tighten his arms around her, to kiss her chapped lips one more time.

  That longing was the sharpest, most acute pain he’d ever felt, and he had to bite his tongue until it bled to keep himself in check—he could not wake her.

  Instead, Fang wound a strand of Max’s tangled hair around his fingers, breathing it in, saying good-bye. But it didn’t smell like Max anymore. It, like everything else in his world, smelled like ash.

  Carefully he rolled away from her, picked his way through the brambles, and crept past the sleeping house, as silent as only he knew how to be.