As Harry crouched on the other side of the fire, his head jerked back and forth between Dylan and me.
“I told you, the doctor was sending reinforcements, the other Horsemen!” Dylan threw up his hands in exasperation. “I had to get to everyone first and convince him you were all dead. Or you really would be!”
“But you—” I started again, but realized I was running out of objections.
It was possible Dylan had actually done a really good, selfless thing.
Maybe you should stop berating him, Angel’s voice said inside my head as she cocked an eyebrow. I glared at her, knowing she was right.
When I looked back at Dylan, into those aqua eyes that I’d missed so much, the fight drained right out of me.
“You did it all on your own?” I asked more calmly. “You risked your life to save the rest of the flock?”
“You guys are my family.” Dylan shrugged, humble as ever. “It’s what any of you would’ve done.”
My heart melted right then, and I nodded.
Yeah, it is. Time to eat crow. So to speak.
“C’mere, Boy Wonder.” I yanked Dylan toward me for the tightest hug, squeezing those pumped-up biceps until he understood how thankful I was—for what he’d done, and that he was still alive.
That he really was part of our family.
“So everyone’s safe, then?” I said, once the hugfest was over. “Where’s the flock? Are they close? I can’t wait to have us all back together again.”
Dylan winced and looked at Angel.
“What is it?” I asked.
Something was very wrong.
70
“ALMOST EVERYONE’S SAFE.” Angel spoke carefully.
I frowned. “Is someone hurt? What happened? Is it Nudge? Total?”
“It’s Fang,” Dylan said softly, not looking at me.
“Yeah? What about him?”
“He’s… dead, Max.”
You’d think those words would’ve laid me out, but they didn’t.
Because they simply didn’t make sense. I had once thought Angel was dead. It had been bad. I had feared that Dylan was dead, since we’d left the island. I had worried about each person in my flock, worried until it ate away at my insides and destroyed my sleep. But I’d never, ever imagined that Fang would actually ever be dead.
Ever.
Not until I was dead, too.
“I don’t understand,” I said stiffly. “There must be some mistake.”
Tell me it was a mistake. Tell me the reports of Fang’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
Tell me.
“I knew it was gonna happen.” Angel’s voice sounded like it was underwater. “I’ve known it forever, and now it’s real.”
Real. Dead. Fang, my Fang, was no longer in this world. The world was still turning somehow, but without Fang.
My body seemed to understand the words before my head did. Just like this morning, I couldn’t get enough oxygen, and my heart and lungs were working double-triple-overtime. This time, my heart was physically breaking.
“Why do you think that?” My voice was remote.
Dylan hesitated. “It was the Horsemen—upgraded Erasers.”
“No. Take it back,” I choked out.
Make this feeling stop.
“Take what—” Dylan started to ask, but I grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and slammed him against a tree, pressing my forearm tight against his throat.
“Max!” Angel gasped.
“Take it back!” I repeated in a shrill, maniacal voice I didn’t recognize.
Dylan looked back at me helplessly, his beautiful eyes full of anguish.
“Say he’s not dead!” I roared, and shook Dylan harder.
Stop it, Max! Angel said. She had weaseled her way inside my head, and I felt my fists unclenching despite what I was telling them to do. Let. Him. Go.
My arms fell to my sides, Dylan fell to the ground, and then I dropped to my knees, crying so hard I couldn’t breathe.
71
I SAT ALONE in the dark, leaning against the trunk of a tree, pressing my face into my knees. My eyes were bleary from exhaustion and tears, but I wouldn’t lie down. I couldn’t go to sleep.
Thirty feet away, Angel, Dylan, and Harry still sat around the glowing coals, talking quietly. Well, not Harry. They’d left me alone after I had broken down. I’d cried so hard I’d thrown up, retching into the pine needles, and then I’d cried some more.
I felt their helplessness, their shared pain, but they had no idea. No one had ever possibly felt this bad before. Not like this. When Harry had tried to pat my shoulder, I had punched him. My squalling grief had shut Angel out of my head completely. Finally I’d crawled off into the darkness, stopping only when I ran into a tree. My exhausted brain didn’t know what else to do, so I had curled up in front of the tree.
They hadn’t come after me. They were probably afraid I was going to freak out again, get violent. Or that I’d make that horrible, wrenching sound of pain again, sobs that shook not just my body, but the earth, the trees, the sky. They were afraid that next time, I wouldn’t stop.
I was all cried out, though.
And as I slowly came back to my senses, I saw how stupid it was to cry over something that was so obviously not true.
This was Fang we were talking about. The Fang who had once fought five Erasers at once and had come out with only a bloody nose. Fang had healed from a bullet wound in two days. He could slip invisibly between shadows and fly with the speed of a fighter jet and was one step ahead in a fight, always. He had almost died once, when Dr. Gunther-Hagen had almost completely drained his blood and replaced it with chemicals, but with a shot of adrenaline, Fang was back up in no time. He had survived a fiery apocalypse and pulled me from the grip of a tsunami.
The kid had invincible DNA, for crying out loud. He couldn’t just die.
And if he wasn’t dead, which he wasn’t, that meant I needed to find him.
I looked over at the group gathered around the fire. It looked so warm over there, so cozy. For a second, I ached to be with the family I had missed for so long.
I couldn’t see their faces from here, and their words were only murmurs. If I got closer, I’d have to look into their sad eyes, and I’d want to scratch them out. If I heard the lies spilling from their mouths, I’d want to plug them with a fist.
They were right to leave me alone. They were right to be afraid.
I didn’t think I would ever forgive them for a lie like this.
Not true not true not true, I shouted inside my head like a mantra, trying to drown out their voices.
72
ANGEL WALKED TOWARD me, and I sat up a bit.
“I’m so sorry, Max.”
“I’m okay,” I said, without looking up.
“Harry’s pretty cool, huh?” she said after a minute. “His thoughts are so funny. All jumbled and excited. Like a little kid’s.”
“Mmm.”
You just can’t stay out of anyone’s head, can you?
If Angel heard my thought, she didn’t respond. She just stood silent, a silhouette backlit by the fire, watching me. Her gaze was gentle, but I knew those icy blue eyes could turn cold and ruthless. I remembered that she and her cherubic face had betrayed me again and again. I reminded myself that Angel would do anything to get what she wanted—even put a voice inside my head to challenge my decisions.
She was lying this time, too. She had to be.
“Do you have something to say?” I asked finally, looking up.
Just tell me what all this is about. Tell me the truth.
Angel sighed. “I don’t have all the answers, Max. I just know we have to get to Russia. I think everything has been building to this. We really need to leave soon, to go meet up with the other kids.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah?” Angel’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “That’s great! Me and Dylan had a pretty rough day flying through a blizzard, though. We should
get a few hours of sleep first.” She laid her hand on my back. “You could use some rest, too, Max. We can head out in the morning.”
I stood up and began to pack. “Take Harry along with you guys, okay? He needs to be with other bird kids, and there’s something I need to do alone.”
Angel glared at me, her mouth twisting into an angry knot. “I thought you’d learned your lesson, Max. I thought that was why you came after us. But you’re just going to walk away from your flock? Again?”
When I didn’t answer, she batted the bedding out of my hands.
“So when it’s finally time to do what you’re meant to do, you’re running from your destiny? I have news for you, Max: You don’t have a choice.”
Annnd, after approximately one hour of sweetness, Angel the Tyrant was back.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be such a drama queen. I’ll catch up with the flock. There’s just a place I need to stop by first.”
“The only place we need to go is Russia. All of us.”
I didn’t respond. She knew I was headed to Alaska.
“There’s no point.” Angel trailed me to my small pile of clothes. “I told you, he’s dead.”
“Stop it. Stop saying that.” I wrenched my hand away from her and closed my eyes, blocking out the words.
It’s a lie it’s a lie it’s a—
“It’s true. I don’t know how to make you believe it.”
I clamped my teeth together and started tossing dried food in a bag.
That’s why I’m going to Alaska. To see for myself.
“There’s nothing to see, Max. Fang faced his fate.” She paused and then said more loudly, “He wasn’t a coward.”
I glared daggers at her smug little face.
“Did you see him die?” I challenged. “You weren’t there, were you?”
“I told you, I’ve seen Fang die a thousand times!” Angel’s shout was half sob. “It doesn’t matter if I was there, because I can’t get the nightmare out of my head.”
“If you weren’t there, then you don’t know.” I turned away from her, scooping up the sleep sack from where it had fallen. “Not for sure.”
“I was there.”
Dylan was still crouched by the cooling embers. His face was in profile as he leaned forward, hands clasped over his knees, and his voice was so soft I wasn’t sure I’d heard right at first.
“What?” I managed to squeak, and he turned his head.
“I said I was there. I saw it.”
73
I HAD TO go, had to leave now.
“Max…” Dylan said, walking over.
It took everything in me not to run. I grabbed a handful of clothes and busied myself with layering for the cold flight ahead.
“Max, look at me. Please.”
I pulled my sweatshirt over my head slowly, losing myself in the fabric. When Dylan tugged it down, I started to turn away, but he held my shoulders firm, forcing me to face him.
“I was there.” He sighed heavily. “To warn him. To fake his death like I did with the others. But I guess the Remedy didn’t think I could handle Fang, and he sent reinforcements.”
“And you didn’t help him?” My voice sounded small, weak. I blinked hard, but my sore eyes burned with salt. “You didn’t save him?”
“I tried!” Dylan pressed his palm against the trunk of a tree and shook his head. “There were too many of them, and I lost consciousness…”
“You blacked out?” I focused on that last scrap of hope—the final possibility that could mean it was all a big mistake. “So you didn’t see him die, either.”
It’s a lie a lie a lie.
“I saw the Horsemen tear into him.”
That’s when it all started to feel real again, and the tears began to leak everywhere.
“Max Mum!” Harry’s feathers were all puffed up again, and he was glaring at Dylan.
“I’m fine, Harry.” I was blubbering, but I held my hand up to tell him to stay where he was.
Dylan lowered his voice and knelt down next to me. “I know this is hard for you,” he said gently. “I know you still don’t trust Angel, and as for me…” My heart clenched and I looked up just as he glanced away. “Well, I have no idea what you think of me anymore.
“But you know I wouldn’t lie to you.” His gaze was steady, and he took both of my hands in his. “Fang’s not coming back, Max. Not ever. I even sent the video to the Remedy as proof. It was the first time I reported a death that wasn’t a lie.”
My whole body stiffened.
“What do you mean, the video?” I asked, and Dylan winced. “Tell me.”
“They put a tech chip in my arm to communicate,” he explained reluctantly, and pulled up his sleeve to reveal a small screen. “I was recording to sell the doctor on what I thought would be a faked death, like all the others, but then…”
“Play it for me.”
Dylan’s eyebrows shot up. “What? Max, no. Trust me, you don’t want to see that.” When I didn’t look away, Dylan started to pace. “Look, maybe I don’t want to see it again, either, okay? When I woke up and saw him lying there, all…”
Dylan took a deep breath and raked his fingers through his hair as if trying to pull the image out. He looked back at me with an expression of utter horror, but I tugged at his arm desperately.
“I’ll never believe it,” I pleaded. “I’ll never let it go. I just need to know, Dylan. To move on.”
Dylan pressed his lips together in disapproval, shaking his head. He pushed a button on his wrist.
The picture was grainy and chaotic, and dark forms swooped in and out of the frame, massive Erasers who kept landing hard hits. I heard Dylan’s voice pleading, and then Fang’s voice, and then Dylan’s moan, just as a set of ugly wolf jaws seemed to come right at the screen, blurring the video for a second.
“This is where I blacked out,” Dylan said.
But the camera kept rolling. Now that Dylan wasn’t jerking all around, it was actually a lot clearer than before.
At first you only saw fat, white snowflakes, with the mountainous skyline stretching far into the background. I watched those snowflakes for several long seconds, feeling anything but calm as the quiet rang in my ears.
Then, a voice offscreen. A man’s voice was calling up to Fang, taunting him. A voice I recognized.
“What the hell was Jeb doing there?” I jumped to my feet, shouting at Dylan.
But before he answered, we saw action on the video screen. Fang crashed into the image with three giant Erasers snarling on his back. Fang was more beat-up than I’d ever seen him. His lips and eyes were so swollen and bloodied that his face was almost unrecognizable, and the huge wolves were still going to town, biting into his flesh and pummeling his skull one after the other.
“Why isn’t he fighting back?” I demanded, watching as Fang raked his nails along the ground, trying to crawl free.
“He was,” Dylan answered. “But they’re not just Erasers. They’re Horsemen.”
My hands covered my mouth and half my face so that just my eyes were peeking out. I watched as a steel-toed boot connected with Fang’s torso, and I felt my own body shudder as I heard his ribs crack. I didn’t know how much more I could take of this, when, mercifully, they tumbled out of view.
Jeb was on the edge of the screen, though. We heard the grunts of the fighters, and he was crouched next to them like a patient referee waiting to call the match. Then, even though I couldn’t see what happened, I heard Fang scream in agony.
The sound made my eyes fill with tears and my blood run cold. I was shaking all over.
But Fang and the Horsemen rolled into view again, and I exhaled with relief. This time, Fang had his arms locked around the three hulking bodies, grabbing fistfuls of fur and straining necks—whatever he could grasp. He seemed so confident, I thought he’d gotten some advantage, channeled a new power.
But then he started to roll.
“What is he doing?” I whimpered. “Oh, Go
d, what is he doing?”
Despite his obviously weakened state, Fang’s will was unstoppable. He dragged the frantic Horsemen toward the edge… and then they were offscreen again.
Afterward, I held my breath as I waited for Fang to stumble back in front of the camera, listening desperately for the sound of his ragged breathing.
There were only snowflakes, though—and silence.
The silence seemed to go on forever.
Dylan started to turn off the video, but then I spotted Jeb, awkwardly dragging something toward the edge.
“Wait!” I squeezed Dylan’s arm. “What is that?”
It was black and oddly shaped, textured and smooth at once.
“Stop it,” I said abruptly. I felt bile rising in my throat as I remembered the screams. “That’s enough.”
It was way more than enough.
It was Fang’s bloody, mangled wing.
“He took the rest of them out with him,” Dylan said reverently. “The best assassins the Remedy had. He was brave, Max. To the very end. I thought you might want this,” he added. “To remember.”
Dylan held out a feather, about a foot long, beautifully black and shiny.
If you’ve ever loved someone like I did, if they made you crazy and happy and exasperated and elated and if you wanted to hold them and shake them and sometimes kick them and if, after all that, they were like part of your family and part of your soul…
Imagine seeing that feather. Imagine what that felt like.
It made it real.
It wasn’t just a punch to the gut; it was a rip, too—like someone had torn all the hope and love, plus all the muscle and bone, right out of my body. I had nothing left to stand on.
I’d fallen to my knees before I’d even felt them buckle, and the nausea finally overcame everything else.
“I’m sorry, Max!” Dylan cried miserably as I retched again and again into the dirt. “I’m so sorry.”
74
I AWOKE FEELING cold again. But this time, the cold felt heavy in my gut, and it didn’t go away.
Angel led us. Harry and Dylan formed the V, and I hung back, riding the slipstream and letting them carry me for thousands of miles. We flew up along the west coast of Canada and over Alaska, and I didn’t look down once. Didn’t want to see the flattened cities and charred forests. Didn’t want to see the landscape as bleak as my mind.
Maximum Ride Forever Page 17
