I held up a hand. “Okay, hang on. I’m hoping we can go to Disney World, but we have to get down there first, check everything out. We just crossed the Georgia-Florida border, so—”
“The ocean!” said Gazzy, pointing. Way to the east, we could see the dark gray-blue of seemingly endless water. “Can we go to the beach? Please? Just for a minute?”
I thought about it. We’d had some really good times and some really bad times at beaches. “It’s almost winter,” I hedged.
“But the water’s not cold,” Iggy said.
I looked at Fang. He shrugged helpfully: my call.
Max, you need to stay focused.
My Voice. I’m . . . somewhat focused, I thought defensively. I could practically hear the Voice sigh.
If you’re going to Florida, go to Florida, said the Voice. Pick a goal and follow it through. When you’re saving the world, you can’t exactly take commercial breaks.
That did it.
“Hey, guys, wanna go to the beach?” I called.
“Yeah!” said Gazzy, punching one fist in the air.
“Yes, yes,” Angel said happily.
“I’m up for it,” said Total, in Fang’s arms.
Nudge and Iggy cheered.
“Beach it is,” I said, swerving in a graceful arc, heading east.
Max, you’re acting like a child, the Voice said. You’re above rebelling against your fate just to rebel. You’ve got a date with destiny. Don’t be late.
I brushed some hair out of my eyes. Is that a movie quote? Or is it an actual date? I don’t remember destiny asking me. I never even gave destiny my phone number.
The Voice never displayed emotion, so I might have imagined the tense patience I heard. Max, sooner or later you have to take this seriously. If it was just your life, no one would care if you bothered. But we’re talking about saving everyone’s lives.
For some reason that really stung. My jaw set. Shut up! I’m tired of you! Tired of my so-called destiny! I’m acting like a child because I am a child! Just leave me the hell alone!
I felt tears forming in my eyes, which burned from the constant wind. I couldn’t take this anymore. I’d been having a rare decent day, and now the Voice had ruined it, dropping the whole world onto my shoulders again.
“Yo.”
I looked over to see Fang watching me. “You okay? Is this a headache?”
I nodded and wiped my eyes, feeling like I was about to explode. “Yeah,” I said. “A huge, freaking, unbearable headache!” I was practically shouting at the end, and five heads turned toward me. I had to get out of here. And, thanks to my supersonic power, I could, in the blink of an eye.
102
See you at the beach,” I muttered to Fang, and then I hunched my shoulders and poured on the speed. In seconds I had shot way past the flock, the wind making my eyes water more. It was funny, but going this fast almost made me want to put my arms out in front of me, like Superman, as if it would split the air out of my way or something.
What the hey—no one could see me. I stretched my arms out in front, feeling like an arrow, a spear, slicing through heaven.
I was at the beach in four minutes. I braked and slowed down, but not enough, and ended up running too fast through the sand and then tripping onto my face. Slowly I got up, spitting out sand, and brushed myself off. I was burning up and pulled off my sweatshirt.
I had maybe twenty minutes till the rest of them came. I walked along the beach, keeping my wings out so they would cool off. I felt desperate and scared and angry. “I don’t even know how to save the world,” I said out loud, hating how pathetic I sounded.
By existing, said the Voice. By being strong. By lasting.
“Shut up!” I yelled, kicking a piece of driftwood so hard it practically flew out of sight.
I’d had it, totally had it. No more. I ran to the water’s edge and looked down at the sand. In moments I had found it—a piece of broken shell, sharp on one side.
It was time for the chip to go. The Voice came from the chip, I was sure of it. No chip, no Voice inside my head that I couldn’t get away from. I pressed my lips together hard and started sawing at my forearm, where I had seen the chip on an X-ray, three lifetimes ago, in Dr. Martinez’s office.
The first slice brought blood and a surprising amount of pain. I clenched my teeth harder and kept sawing. Blood ran down my arm. I would have to cut through tendons and muscles and veins to get to the chip. Dr. Martinez had said that if I tried to take it out, I could lose the use of my arm.
Too bad.
I heard skidding, running footsteps behind me, and then Fang was panting over me.
“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted, and grabbed my wrist, smacking my hand to make me drop the piece of shell. “Are you crazy?”
I glared at him, then saw the rest of the flock approaching slowly. I realized what they must be seeing: me kneeling on sand stained red with blood. I was beyond being upset.
“Want the chip out,” I said brokenly. I looked down, feeling a thousand years old. Just over a week ago, I’d been a fourteen-year-old girl on her first date, getting her first kiss. Now I was me again, a mutant freak running away from a fate that was closing around me like a net.
“Look where you’re cutting!” Fang snapped. “You’re going to bleed to death, you idiot!” He threw my hand down and took off his backpack. In the next moment he was dumping antiseptic into my wound, making me wince.
Nudge lowered herself to the sand next to me. “Max,” she said, her eyes huge, “what were you doing?” She sounded horrified, shocked.
“I wanted to get the chip out,” I whispered.
“Well, forget it!” Fang said angrily, now starting to bandage my arm. “The chip stays in. You don’t get off that easy! You die when we die!”
I looked up at him, his face pale with anger, his jaw tight. I had scared him. I had scared them all. I was supposed to be the solution, not the problem. I wasn’t supposed to make things worse.
“I’m sorry,” I barely managed, and then—get this—I burst into tears.
103
I could count on one hand how many times these kids had seen me cry. I’d learned to swallow my feelings because they needed me to be strong. Invincible Max. Saving the world, one bird kid at a time. For the first six years of Angel’s life, I don’t think she saw me cry once. In the last few months? I was about to run out of fingers to count on.
I didn’t even have the strength to run off and hide. I just knelt in the sand, my hands over my face. My cut hurt like hell.
Then strong arms were around me, a gentle hand was pressing me into a wiry, rock-hard shoulder. Fang. I pulled my wings in, leaned against him, and sobbed. Soon I felt other, tentative hands patting my back, stroking my hair. Someone said, “Shh, shh.” Nudge.
“It’s okay, Max,” Iggy said, sounding shaken. “Everything’s okay.”
Nothing in our world was okay. Except that we had one another. I nodded into Fang’s shoulder.
I don’t know how long this touching scene rolled on, but eventually my sobs gave way to shuddering breaths, and finally I was spent. Fang’s shirt was soaked.
I was so embarrassed. I was the leader, and here I was breaking down like a baby. How could I boss them around if I was so weak? I sniffled and sat back, knowing I must look like a train wreck. Fang let me go, not saying anything. Slowly I raised my eyes, turning slightly to see the flock. I was way too embarrassed to look at Fang.
“Sorry, guys.” My voice sounded rusty.
Total came and rested his head on my leg, his black eyes sympathetic.
The Gasman looked frightened. “We didn’t have to go to the beach, Max.”
A sort of choking laugh left me, and I reached out to ruffle his hair. “It wasn’t that, Gazzy. Just other stuff, getting to me.”
“Like what?” Iggy asked.
I sighed heavily and wiped my eyes. “Stuff. The Voice in my head. Everyone chasing us. School. Anne. Ari. Jeb.
They keep telling me I’m supposed to save the world, but how, and from what, I don’t even know.”
Angel reached out and patted my knee. “From, you know, after everything gets blown up and most of the people are gone. We’ll be stronger, and able to fly, so we can leave the blown-up parts and find some nice land that isn’t blown up or contan—contama—”
“Contaminated?” Iggy provided, and Angel nodded.
“Yeah, that. Then we can keep on living, even if there are hardly any people left.”
104
There was silence after this little bombshell. I stared at Angel.
“Uh . . . where did you hear that, sweetie?” I asked.
Angel sat back on her heels and trailed her fingers through the cool sand. “At the School. I wasn’t supposed to hear it, but that’s what they thought.” She sounded nonchalant and started digging out a moat for a sand castle.
“Who’s going to blow up the world?” the Gasman asked indignantly.
Angel shrugged. “Lots of people can—they have big bombs. Countries and stuff. But the people at the School kept thinking it would be just one company, a business company. They think it’s going to blow up the world, mostly. Maybe even by accident.”
Well, this was an interesting turn of events.
“And what company was that?” I asked.
Angel looked off into the distance, frowning. “Don’t remember,” she said. “Like, the name of a deer or something. A gazelle. Can I go swim?”
“Uh, sure,” I said faintly.
Happily pulling her swimsuit out of her backpack, Angel raced Total down to the water. Within seconds he came trotting back, shaking his fur. “That water’s freezing,” he said. He raised his nose, sniffed the air, then headed off to investigate some rocks.
Gazzy, after a nod from me, also ran down to the water, shedding clothes. Nudge and Iggy moved over to sit on a big rock. They fished around in their backpacks and pulled out some protein bars.
“So, huh?” I said to Fang when the others were gone.
He shook his head, stuffing the remaining bandages back into his pack. “Yeah. Surprise.”
“How long has she been sitting on this? Why hasn’t it come up before?”
“Because she’s six and more concerned with her stuffed bear and her dog? I don’t know. Plus, we don’t even know if she understood what she heard. There’s a chance she got it wrong.”
I thought for a moment. “Even if aspects of it are wrong, I don’t see how she could misunderstand the whole blowing-up-the-world concept. And the fact that we were designed to outlast a catastrophe. It fits in with what Jeb keeps telling me.”
Fang let out a breath. “So what now?”
“I don’t know. I need to think.”
We were silent for a while. My arm was throbbing.
“So what was that about?” Fang said finally.
I couldn’t pretend to not know what he was talking about. “I’m just—really tired. The Voice was ragging on me about my destiny and how I have to get on the stick about saving the world. It just feels like too much sometimes.” I never would have admitted that to the others. Sure, I could tell them that things were getting to me, but let them know I wasn’t sure I could handle it? No way.
“I’ve been running on adrenaline, without a master plan. Every day it’s just, keep the flock safe, keep us together. But now everything else has been dumped on me, all these bits and pieces that aren’t adding up to a whole picture, and it’s too much.”
“Pieces like Ari and Jeb and Anne and the Voice?”
“Yeah. Everything. Everything that’s happened to us since we left home. I don’t know what to do, and it’s so freaking hard even pretending that I do.”
“Walk away from it,” Fang said. “Let’s find an island. Drop off the screen.”
“That sounds really good,” I said slowly. “But we’d have to get the others on board. I’m pretty sure the younger kids still really want to find their parents. And now I want to find out what this company is that Angel heard about. What if—you do research on an island possibility and I’ll focus on this other stuff?” It was the closest I’d ever come to sharing my role as leader. Actually, it didn’t feel so bad.
“Yeah, cool,” Fang said.
For a few minutes we watched Angel and the Gasman playing in the shallow surf. I was amazed they weren’t cold, but they seemed fine. Iggy and Nudge were walking down the beach. Nudge was putting different-shaped shells in Iggy’s hands so he could feel them. I wanted time to freeze here, right here, right now, forever.
There was something I needed to say. “Sorry. About before.”
Fang shot a sideways glance at me, his eyes dark and inscrutable, as always. He looked back out at the water. I didn’t expect any more acknowledgment than that. Fang never—
“You almost gave me a heart attack,” he said quietly. “When I saw you, and all that blood . . .” He threw a small rock as hard as he could down the beach.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t do it again,” he said.
I swallowed hard. “I won’t.”
Something changed right then, but I didn’t know what.
“Hey!” said Angel, standing up in knee-high water. “I can talk to fish!”
That wasn’t it.
105
You can what?” I called, getting up and walking toward the water.
“I can talk to fish!” Angel said happily, water dripping off her long, skinny body.
“Ask one over for dinner,” Fang said, joining us.
The Gasman shook his head like a wet dog. “You can not,” he said.
“I’ll prove it!” Angel dived back under the water.
By this time, Nudge and Iggy were walking up.
“She talks to fish now?” Iggy asked.
Then, with no warning, a six-foot shark surfaced, mouth open, maybe two yards away from Gazzy. None of us made a sound—we were conditioned not to yell in a crisis. I’m sure we were all screaming in our heads. I sprang into the water, grabbed Gazzy’s arm, and hauled him toward shore. He was frozen with fright and seemed like dead weight. I kept expecting to feel the huge tug of the shark taking off my leg.
Angel popped back out of the chest-high water. I motioned her urgently to do an up-and-away. She laughed.
“He’s my friend!” she shouted. “He’s saying hi!” The shark had circled and was now moving right toward her. My heart was in my throat—what if she only thought she could talk to fish? “Go on, maybe you should wave,” Angel said to the shark, as I tensed to fly out over the water to snatch her up.
Before our eyes, the shark literally turned on its side, came a little bit out of the water, and waved a fin slightly.
“Holy cra—,” the Gasman began, but I said, “Gazzy!”
“Would someone please tell me what the heck is going on?” Iggy said.
“Angel just made a shark wave its fin at us,” Nudge told him breathlessly.
“Uh—wha . . . ?”
Then three more sharks appeared in the shallow water around Angel. Together, the four sharks turned on their sides and waved their fins.
Angel was laughing. “Isn’t that so great?”
Total trotted up next to me, his little feet kicking sand. “That’s awesome! Make them do it again!”
My knees felt weak. I needed to sit down. “That was neat, sweetie,” I said, trying to sound calm. “Now please ask the sharks to leave, okay?”
Angel shrugged and talked to the sharks again. Slowly they turned and headed back out to sea.
“That was so awesome,” Total said, as Angel splashed toward shore. He licked Angel’s leg, then spit. “Ugh! Salt.”
“So, Angel talks to fish, is that right?” Iggy said carefully. “And this is useful how?”
106
We had to keep on the move. It was going to be dark soon, and we needed shelter. Most kids my age would be bummed about their next math test or that their parents cut their phone calls sh
ort. I was more concerned with shelter, food, water. The little luxuries of life.
We were over northern Florida now. All along the coast we saw a million twinkling lights of homes and stores and cars moving in threads like blood cells in a vein. If blood cells had, you know, weensy little headlights.
But there was a huge unlit area below us. In general, dark = no people. I looked over at Fang, and he nodded. We started to descend.
A few minutes’ reconnaissance informed us that this was the Ocala National Forest. It looked like a good place, and we dropped down out of the twilight and aimed ourselves carefully through small gaps in the umbrella of treetops. And landed in water.
“Yuck!” I was calf-deep in muddy water, surrounded by cypress knees and towering pines. Looking around, I saw land a couple yards away and slogged over to it. “To the left!” I called, as Nudge and Iggy swooped in.
“This is good,” I said, looking around in what was rapidly becoming the pitch-darkness. “Easy to get out of, straight up through the trees, but almost impossible for anyone to track us overland.”
“Home, sweet swamp,” said the Gasman, and I smiled.
An hour later we had a small fire going and were roasting things on sticks. I was so used to eating this way that even if I were, like, a grown-up making breakfast for my 2.4 children, I would probably be impaling Pop-Tarts on the ends of sticks and holding them over a fire.
Now Fang pulled a smoking, meaty chunk off a stick and dropped it onto an empty Baggie, which was Nudge’s plate.
“Want some more raccoon?” he asked.
Nudge paused in midbite. “It is not! You went to the store. Didn’t you? There’s no way this is raccoon.” She examined the meat critically.
Fang shrugged. I rolled my eyes at him.
“Oh, maybe you’re right,” he said seriously. “Maybe this is the raccoon, and I gave you the possum.”
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