For a few moments we stood in front of the school, mapping the layout in our minds. Ella and Iggy were holding hands, which would have been kind of adorable if they weren’t all dead-eyed and brainsucked. Then the front door of one of the buildings opened, and we braced ourselves.
I looked at Dylan. “I’ve got your back,” we both said together. He laughed, and I rolled my eyes. Partly at him and partly at myself for feeling all fluttery again.
Students and the occasional teacher began to stream out through the door, moving quietly into the courtyard. Every one of them was smiling and content-looking, if not grinning like a hyena. These were mainly teenagers, people. It was gross.
“Okay,” I whispered to Dylan and Angel. “Let’s spread out. Keep your wits about you, and avoid becoming zombified or whatever. Let’s do this.”
The kids gathered in groups or in pairs. I heard a lot of talk about caring for the planet and saving the world, but, come on, there had to be more to it than that.
“Hello,” one girl said to me brightly, grabbing both of my hands. These people did not grasp the concept of personal space.
“Hello,” I said, mimicking her cheery tone, which, I bet you’ve already guessed, was not superconvincing.
“I’m so glad you came to orientation!” She beamed at me.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “No prob. Doomsday’s been my specialty for, like, ever.”
She cocked her head, her eyes boring into mine. “Do you want to be my friend? I want to be your friend. We need you to follow the One Light. With an earth cleanse, we’ll all be free. We need you to accept the message and join us. Do you accept it?”
She blinked like a possessed doll, and I looked around. Where was Angel? And Dylan? “Let’s back up a smidge. Remind me what the message is.”
“The message is—”
“Max!” Dylan called me over.
“Hold that thought,” I wriggled out of the girl’s grasp and found Dylan talking to a tall boy with a Zac Efron smile.
“Josh, this is Max. Max, Josh is going to get us more flyers to hand out.” Dylan had the glass-eyed, cocked-head look down perfectly. With his movie-star looks, pearly white smile, and smooth face, it was seriously creepy. It almost seemed like…
I raised an eyebrow at him, and he stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes when Josh turned away from us to grab the flyers. It was such a dorky move that I should have felt sorry for him, but it was genuinely… cute. Focus, Max! I mentally kicked myself. This was not exactly the time to get mushy.
“Here you guys go.” Josh loaded our arms with the colorful stacks of paper. “Remember, we need to make sure everyone joins,” he looked at us earnestly. “We have to save the planet.”
The gathering was starting to pulse and get louder, kids shouting stuff about beauty and freedom. All eeriness aside, what they were saying didn’t actually sound that bad. Wasn’t this what my own mission had been for years and years?
“Tell me, Josh, do you know who the flyers came from in the first place? Who’s in charge around here?” I asked.
“They came from the One Light,” he said. “You know that.”
“Oh, yeah,” I mumbled. We had to figure out this whole One Light business, ASAP.
Everyone is affected, Angel broke into my thoughts from across the square. I’m getting bombarded with thoughts, and they’re all jumbled, chaotic, violent. She looked over at me, panic in her eyes. But Max, this is big. Worse than genocide. We’re talking humanicide. Total extermination!
I looked around for my own zombies. Ella was chanting, then she pumped a fist in the air, which a bunch of kids instantly copied. I tried to get to her, but Botboy Josh grabbed my arm, hard, and stepped closer to me, flashing those crazy eyes.
“I don’t think you want to do that, Hoss,” Dylan growled, sounding like he might go grizzly on the kid. Josh’s smile never faltered, but he let go of me, and I spun around toward the mob, trying to see where Ella had gone. I was taller than many of these kids, but when I got up on tiptoe and peered around, I still couldn’t see my sister’s dark head anywhere. She’d been swallowed up.
I spotted Iggy just a few yards away, though, so I nodded at Dylan, and we made our way toward him.
“The Doomsday Group is the hope of tomorrow,” someone said, and there were shouts of agreement. Another kid said, “Save the planet!” Then somebody added, “Kill the humans.”
Something in my brain finally clicked, and then it seemed so freaking obvious. The ’noids back at the school. The delirious kid in the desert. “The Earth or Us.” And now these kids. Desert Boy was right: the end was near.
“Kill the humans,” Iggy shrieked, unfolding his giant wings.
“Oh, Ig,” I whispered. “No.”
37
“WE NEED TO get out of here, now,” Dylan said under his breath.
But the cult was already swarming around Iggy.
“He’s the new generation,” I heard someone say. “He’s the future.” It was like they wanted him to be their leader.
“Iggy! Iggy!” kids were chanting, closing in on us. They were touching his face, stroking his wings. “He’s the future.”
Some girls sobbed as if he were Robert Pattinson or something. “I want to be you,” they said, weeping, their painted-on smiles making the whole scene even weirder. “Can you sign my flyer?”
“I’ll take out my eyes,” one psycho volunteered happily. “I want to be blind like Iggy.”
“This is bad,” Angel said next to me. “Max, this is really, really bad.” I gave her a look that said, “Like, you think?!”
Normally, I follow the “no birdkid or flock relative left behind” rule. For all I knew, Ella was about to gouge out her eyes too. But I was being swept up in a crowd of insane, horrifying zombies, all chanting about saving the planet and murdering about seven billion people to do it.
So I made a fast, horrible decision.
“On the count of three, we grab Iggy and blow this popsicle stand,” I yelled. “One, two, three!”
Dylan, Angel, and I broke away from the group and pounded across the school parking lot until we had room to jump in the air to get aloft. This, obviously, prompted a new round of murmurs about us being the future, which we’d heard before, but it felt a bit less… flattering than it usually did.
Dylan and I swooped over Iggy, grabbed him under the arms, and lifted him up, just like the flying monkeys did to Dorothy in Oz.
“Let me go,” Iggy said. “I am the future!” He squirmed a bit and kicked his legs. I held on tighter. He’s tall but superskinny, so we could carry him without too much trouble.
I sighed. “Right now, Ig, the Magic 8 Ball of your future says ‘Signs point to nutso.’ ”
Angel scanned the ground below. “I don’t see Ella anywhere!”
“I can’t believe we just… left her there,” Dylan said. I shot him a look. I was the flock leader. I knew I’d made the right call in the moment, and I didn’t need anyone’s approval. But it still stung not to have him on my side.
“Maybe, just maybe, we can convince Mom and Jeb to come back and get Ella,” I said. “First, though, let’s get Iggy away from that creepy crowd!”
“They weren’t creepy,” Iggy said, trying to flail. “They want to build a new society, a better society, after the world ends. And all we have to do is kill all the humans.” He smiled up at us.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m picking up on a couple of problem phrases. Like, ‘after the world ends’ and the ‘kill all the humans’ part.”
“There’s no problem,” Iggy said.
“We have to deprogram him!” Angel yelled frantically.
Iggy blinked and, with his face still blank and happy, babbled about killing everyone. I couldn’t even see my Iggy anymore. It was terrifying.
We’ll save you, Ig. If you’re in there, we’ll save you.
38
IGGY HUNG LIMPLY between Dylan and me, like he’d forgotten he could fly too. At last,
my mom’s house came into view, and we began our descent. When I saw Total out front waiting for us, my stomach knotted up.
“Where’s Ella?” he asked right away.
“We lost her in the mob of zombies at the school,” I reported. “My mom and Jeb need to go back and get her while we deprogram Iggy.”
Total shook his shaggy black head. “Not long after you left, your mom and Jeb disappeared. Nudge and Gazzy didn’t even seem to notice they left—both of them are still here.”
“They left? Where did they go?” I asked. “Did they take the car?”
“That’s the weird thing,” said Total. “They walked out. After a couple minutes, I thought, ‘Hey, maybe I should check on ’em,’ you know? So I went out. The car’s still here, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. I even flew around and searched the whole area. It’s like a spaceship picked them up or something.”
I looked into his bright black eyes and saw worry there.
“Crap,” I said and went inside. In the living room, Nudge and Gazzy were sitting on the couch watching news stories that featured—you guessed it—the Doomsday Group. After one brief mention yesterday, the Doomsday Group now dominated the coverage on every news channel.
“One Light,” Iggy said serenely, reaching toward the TV.
“Okay, we’ve got to get him back from never-never land,” I said. “Angel, can you get in his head, sort of do a reset?”
Angel sighed. “I told you. I’ve been in his head. It’s jumbled up, just like the minds of the rest of those kids at the rally. Everything’s a mishmash. I don’t even know how to untangle all the weird thoughts.”
“What kind of weird thoughts?” Dylan asked.
“It’s more like pictures, like dreams, sort of,” Angel tried to explain. “But as soon as I try to follow one thing, it slips away.”
“Kill the humans!” Iggy yelled.
“Those kind of weird thoughts, apparently,” I said. “He’s just too way out right now. In the movies, they always throw people in cold showers to make them calm down. Think that’d work?”
Angel gave me a look. “Max, when has Iggy ever been docile about taking a shower?” She had a point, but it was worth a shot anyway. We didn’t exactly have a backup plan.
It wasn’t pretty. It took all three of us to get Iggy into the tub and turn on the cold water. Then Iggy went haywire. He bolted like a wild horse and tried to leap out. Dylan and I grabbed him, using all our strength to wrestle him back under the shower.
“What are you doing?” Iggy wailed in a voice I’d never heard before, as if the water were acid. “What are you doing?”
He seemed terrified, but the three of us fought to hold him under the shower while he thrashed around.
“Stop! Stop!” Iggy yelled, tears running down his cheeks. He was drenched, like the rest of us, his reddish-blond hair flopping to one side. Tiny water droplets clung to his eyelashes, and his cheeks were flushed. “What’s happening?!”
“I don’t know!” I shouted.
“You’re killing me!” Iggy shrieked, hardly sounding human. He writhed and moaned, wrenching his body back and forth.
“I’m dying!” Iggy wailed, his hands clawing at the side of the tub. “I’m dying!!”
I was seriously freaked. I mean, all the kids hated taking showers, but I’d never seen anything like this.
Then Iggy suddenly slumped down in the tub, his eyes closed.
“Oh, my God!” I panicked. “Turn it to warm water, Dylan—now!”
“I’m getting in,” Angel whispered as the water temperature rose. “Lines of communication are opening up, and if I work at these crazy knots of death thoughts, I can break through to him. He’s still freaking out, but there doesn’t seem to be the same level of resistance.”
Then he twitched.
“Iggy…” I held my breath.
He blinked slowly and shook the water out of his eyes.
“What… what are you doing?” he asked, sounding kind of groggy. Groggy… a lot like the old Iggy.
My eyes brightened, and Dylan and Angel and I all exchanged hopeful glances.
“Iggy?” I asked again.
“Yeah?” He blinked, wiping his face with one hand. “What are you guys doing? If you wanted me to take a shower, all you had to do was pay me ten bucks, like you usually do.” He ran one hand through his hair, making it stand up in wet peaks.
I let out a deep breath and looked at Angel: her face was beaming. She looked at me and nodded—his thoughts were back to normal.
“So what’s going on?” he demanded, sitting up a bit.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“Like a wet dog,” he answered irritably. “What’s wrong with you guys?”
39
“I WON’T DO IT,” Star said.
“Then I guess this whole trust exercise has failed,” Fang said mildly. The gang had fun together earlier—he’d forgotten how simultaneously repulsive and delicious Cheez Whiz could be—but within minutes they were all at each other’s throats again.
Max used to threaten and bully people into working together. But that approach quit having the desired effect long before Fang had left. He needed to do something different, something better.
So, he Googled “team building.” Which, he discovered, really meant a rousing little game of Never Have I Ever.
“I don’t even know how to play,” Holden Squibb complained.
Ratchet cackled. “That’s ’cause you’re a baby, Starfish, even if you can regenerate limbs and stuff. What are you, like, twelve?” Holden glared at Ratchet.
“Cut it out, guys,” Fang said. “Look, we’re six really different people. But we need to work together as a team, or we’ll all end up dead.” The surprise on their faces made Fang think that maybe the word dead was a bit too strong. But he knew what he had said could possibly be true.
“All you have to do is say ‘Never have I ever…’ and fill in the blank. Then anyone in the group who’s done it has to raise their hand, including you, if you’ve actually done it. If you want to reveal something about yourself, say something you’ve done. If you don’t want to reveal anything personal, say something that you think someone else in the group might’ve done. Cool?” Fang sighed. He felt like a camp counselor or something. It was exhausting.
But to his surprise, everyone formed a circle, even if they did roll their eyes.
“Great. I’ll start,” Fang said. He sure hated being the leader all the time. Why did Angel always want this job so much? he wondered. “Never have I ever… played a team-building game as stupid as this before.” Maya smiled, but everyone else’s eyes shot daggers at him as he raised his hand.
“Never have I ever… gotten mistaken for a ten-year-old when I was almost fifteen,” Ratchet said, and no one budged.
Star shoved Holden into the center of the circle. “I think that’s you, squirt.”
“Never have I ever… owned a designer bag,” Holden quipped in response, and Star glared, raising her hand.
Fang made himself count backward from twenty by threes.
“Never have I ever… had Cheez Whiz up my nose, in my hair, and between my toes at the same time,” Maya said. Everyone laughed, and they all shot up their hands.
“Never have I ever… played down my strength so no one would look at me funny,” Kate said, holding up her hand.
“Never have I ever… been seriously hungry all day every day because I can’t get enough calories to sustain energy,” Star said, raising her hand along with Fang and Maya.
“Never have I ever… accidentally chopped off my finger and watched it grow back,” Holden said, and mimed hacking his finger off, resulting in a few chuckles and a cry of “Yeah, Starfish!” from Ratchet.
Maya spoke up, her eyes shining at Fang from across the circle. “Never have I ever… felt the wind whip through my hair as I soared twenty thousand feet up with only my wings to carry me.” They both raised their hands.
“Never have I
ever… been thrown out of my house for being a freak,” Ratchet said quietly and raised his hand. Across the room, Star raised her hand too, and they stood like that for a few seconds, just looking at each other.
“Never have I ever… been injected with hypodermic needles and locked in a cage,” Fang said. Every single hand went up, and as they looked around the room, everyone seemed to really get each other for the first time. They had all been abused, and they all needed the same help.
“Never have I ever… received a message telling me that I had to help save the world,” Maya said, staring deeply into Fang’s eyes. He looked back at her, and she nodded almost imperceptibly. His hand slowly went up.
No one, not even Max, knows about that…. He felt a faint shiver run down his spine.
“So… you want to do something about the Doomsday Group, or what?” Holden asked.
Fang nodded. “I read that they’re holding a big rally in San Diego, starting tomorrow,” Fang said. “It’ll be at Comic-Con, that huge convention. I don’t know how the DG will fit in with that, but I think it’s the first thing we should check out.”
“If it means we can get to the butchers who experimented on us, who cut us up, I’m all for it,” Kate said.
Holden nodded, rubbing the scars on his arms.
“Let’s take ’em down,” Ratchet said, and Star actually smiled.
“So… San Diego?” Fang asked.
“San Diego!” the gang agreed.
40
AFTER A DAY of zombified culties shrieking about wiping out the human race and an hour of hysterical panic holding Iggy down while fighting for his mind as he writhed in the bathtub, I’d aged about five years, and I swear I got my first gray hair from that ordeal.
However, we were now back on track. We were six normalish birdkids, one of whom had recently endured a freezing cold deprogramming experience, and a small black dog thrilled that he’d escaped a bath. Together we sat, a little freaked out, around the table, trying to plan our next course of action.
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