Maximum Ride Forever (7 page)

FANG LET OUT a violent roar of fury.

After all they had been through the last few months—tsunamis, volcanoes, and living on the edge of starvation—
they were still being hunted
.

So Fang reacted like a hunted animal, one that had been cornered and threatened and beaten down too many times, an animal that just needed a way out.

He went completely ballistic.

He seized the head of the biggest beast, wrenching it toward him. Other Cryenas scrambled away, but many jaws still lunged at him, refusing to abandon their meal.

Fang’s fingernails tore at spotted flesh, his arms found strength to break bones, a couple of well-placed kicks cracked their thick necks sideways, and his teeth gnashed
at anything that would bleed. Fang had finally snapped, and he would not back down.

It was only when he paused for a few ragged breaths that he saw that most of the Cryenas were dead or had run away, and he had torn the pack leader almost completely apart.

Fang toed the body cautiously. It was clearly dead, but a high frenzied howl was coming from the fallen Cryena.

Fang grimaced as he peeled back synthetic skin that clearly hadn’t been made for these harsh elements. Real animal or not, dissecting this creature that had been clawing hungrily at him moments before felt grotesque.

But Fang needed every puzzle piece he could find that would lead him toward justice. He didn’t have time for squeamishness. He had to know.

The Cryena’s insides were a complex labyrinth of lab-grown bones and tendons, with added wires, sensors, and metal upgrades. It wasn’t like anything he had seen before—even the Flyboys had been more mechanical and better designed.

The creature’s howl went on and on. It seemed to echo his own anguish, and Fang wanted more than anything to make it stop.

He’d learned all he could here, so he used a rock to crush the robotic skull. The green light stopped blinking as the scene finally settled into silence.

There would be more Cryenas, he was pretty certain of that. Worse things, too, probably. But not yet. Not today.

He had given the flock a parting gift, given them the thing he himself wanted most in the world: a little more time.

Fang gazed up toward the cottage. He saw the shadowy outline of Total’s solid little body, his tail wagging.

The Scottie dog barked, and Fang raised a hand in farewell.

I FELT THE cold at my back when I woke, and sensed the emptiness there even before I turned.

Fang was gone.

Footprints in the film of ash led away from our secluded spot. Away from me.

I flung myself up, stumbling between the eucalyptus trees. I got tangled in the grasses and whacked my shin on a low stump, but I finally made it back to the house.

“Fang?” I couldn’t help calling, but I knew it was pointless.

The front door banged on its hinges as I burst inside, tracking ash behind me. Iggy and Gazzy turned from where they knelt next to the coffee table.

“Is Fang here?” I asked.

“Haven’t seen him,” the Gasman said.

He couldn’t have left. He would’ve told me, right? He couldn’t be
gone
gone. Especially when Iggy and Gazzy didn’t even seem to care.

My gaze traveled to the coffee table, where they had their backpacks and their various bits and pieces of explosives and weapons spread out.

“What are you…” I started to ask, but then I understood:
They don’t care if Fang’s gone because they’re getting ready to leave, too. For real.

I’d thought we’d talk over the fight in the morning, make up and tease one another—like the old days. But their tense shoulders and distant expressions said otherwise.

Uh-uh
, my denial-loving brain insisted.
This is not happening!

I picked up a couch cushion and threw it at the table like a Frisbee. Bottles and fuses went tumbling every which way.

“You guys are idiots!” I glowered at the boys. “You’re really going to just leave? What about our promise to stick together?”

Gazzy stared at the stained carpet guiltily. “What other choice do we have?”

“Just… trust the flock.” I pounded my fist into my palm. Part of me was imagining Fang’s face there. “
Trust
that we can do this together, like we always have. Is that so hard?”

“Trust the flock? Or
you
?” Iggy asked.

“We just want answers, Max,” Gazzy said. “And that doesn’t really seem like a priority for you.”

Iggy stood up. “We want to learn who’s still alive, but you’re too worried about who’s dead.”

Like my mom. I didn’t know what to say. Instead, I stormed out of the cabin, hoping to see Fang soaring back toward us, like he’d just gone out for a morning zip around the block. But no… things don’t work the way they used to in the pre-apocalyptic world. No Hollywood endings here.

I spotted Nudge and Total in the garden over by Akila’s grave. “Has anyone seen Fang?” I called out.

Nudge shook her head miserably. She looked like she’d been crying all night.

Iggy and Gazzy came out of the cabin wearing their backpacks.

“You’re really going, then?” I said angrily as they strode past. “That’s it?”

“Maybe you should start trusting
us
for a change,” Iggy said. “You ready, Gasman?”

Gazzy glanced up at the roof. Angel was balancing on top of the lightning rod, swaying with the wind. She didn’t make a move to come down.

“Let’s see if America is still the land of the free.” Gazzy arranged the pack straps on his shoulders, and both he and Iggy snapped open their wings.

Nudge walked over to join me. As we watched the boys take off, I shoved clenched fists deep into my
pockets. Silent tears ran down Nudge’s face, and when Total put his paws against her legs, she bent down and held him tight.

Before I could even process the fact that I might never again see these kids I’d known since they were hatchlings, Total pulled away from Nudge and touched my hand with his wet nose.

“Fang left at dawn,” he said quietly. “I think he wanted me to tell you.”

“He—” I squeaked, but the words felt strangled in my throat. After… last night? I thought that had cemented things between us. Now it looked like it had done the opposite.

I’d known the truth, deep in my bones, even if I hadn’t wanted to believe it at first. Now it was real, verified: He wasn’t coming back, despite everything. Despite me. He was
gone
gone. Total’s sad eyes confirmed it.

Fang really was gone.

Forever.

I STARTED TO hyperventilate.

“You know that boy adores you, Max,” Total said.

“Stop it,” I said, covering my ears and squeezing my eyes shut tight.

Tears threatened to overflow, but I couldn’t give in to them, not yet. I was too furious—at Iggy and Gazzy for leaving, at Fang for not even bothering to say good-bye, at Angel for starting this whole thing.

I stomped across the yard and glared up at our little towheaded mystic. Angel was crouched like a gargoyle, her lips pursed into a pout.

“Are you happy with yourself?” I snarled. “We could’ve figured out a plan. A place to go together. Instead, you broke up the whole flock!”

She looked down at me sadly, unblinkingly, for a long time. Finally, she stepped off the lightning rod and fluttered down to the ground. “I should get going, too,” she said.

With those words, the reality finally hit home: I was going to lose her—again. As hard as I’d tried to keep us together through the years, she was leaving, along with everyone else—my mom, Ella, Dylan, Akila, Fang, Gazzy, Iggy…

The anger disappeared, and I reached out and clutched her to me in a fierce hug. What else could I do?

“Please,” I whispered. “You can’t go.”

Angel wrapped her arms around my neck and I pressed my face into her ashy, once-fluffy locks, remembering how I use to smooth her hair from her face when she was little, how I’d promised I would protect her. I imagined Angel out in that awful new world alone, without her flock. Without me.

I’m not your baby anymore, Max
, her voice said in my head.
I never really was.

She wriggled out of my grasp and turned to Nudge and Total. “Take care of each other, okay?”

Nudge nodded and hugged her tearfully, and Total licked her face, leaving odd clean streaks. Angel unfurled her wings, her primary feathers still tipped with crud from the ash and rain. But before she took off, she turned back to me.

“One day you’ll understand,” she said, her face an
infuriating picture of Zen confidence. “You might even thank me.”

“I seriously doubt that,” I muttered.

I guess we can’t all be enlightened.
Angel grinned.
See you in Russia.

Moments later, I watched the little kid I’d raised and loved and butted heads with fly away from me. I watched her curls bouncing as she pushed off, waiting to see if she’d turn her head again, but she never did.

Instead, Angel’s white wings rose through the ash, and soon she was a speck I couldn’t tell apart from the rest of the sky.

I STOOD NEXT to the mound where we’d buried Akila, staring up at the churning sky and biting hard on the insides of my cheeks as I tried to keep from screaming.

They’ve left. They’ve really left.

Sure, we’d had our ups and downs. The boys had splintered off briefly before. Fang had gone off on his own more than once. Iggy had joined a cult. Nudge once wanted to cut off her wings. Gazzy almost blew up his sister, and Angel had always had a bit of a God complex.

But this was the first time that the flock had really, truly, broken up, and it was the worst possible timing. After the world ends, you really need someone you can count on, you know?

No problem. Just leave it to Numero Uno to pick up the pieces. As usual.

I went back into the house, past Nudge and Total, who were sitting dejectedly at the kitchen table.

“I used to think you couldn’t trust adults,” I announced, banging open the cupboards to search for anything we could use. “But really, you can’t trust anyone. Not kids, not mutants.”

My fingers trembled with rage. I swiped my arm across the shelf and Total whistled as dishes clattered to the floor. I flung jars of rotten Vegemite at the wall and stabbed a dull, useless knife into the counter. Nudge gasped.

“Nothing, nothing,
nothing
!” I bellowed.

I collapsed onto the couch and raked my hands back through my snarled hair, trying to get a grip on myself. “How am I going to do this alone? There’s no one left.”

“Gee, thanks, Maximum,” Total said pointedly, and strode out, his black nose pointed in the air.

“Come on,” I called. “I didn’t mean—”

“That we don’t count?” Nudge said coolly from the kitchen, where she was opening other cupboards. “Even though we’re the only ones who stayed with you?” Her cheek was healing, but there was still a huge, jaw-shaped wound, and it made her expression hard to read.

I sighed. “Of course you count, Nudge. Let’s just go back to the island, all right? Like we said.”

“There’re no
boys
left is what you meant,” she continued bitterly, cocking her head. “No Dylan. No Fang. No more cute guys to obsess over you.”

I pressed my lips together and stared at her. “What?”

But Nudge was on a roll. “Poor, poor Max,” she said, finding some ancient cans of tuna and an old jar of hearts of palm. Who
eats
that? “How are you going to survive with no one to fight over your attention?”

“Nudge,” I said, getting up, “you know I’ve never been the princess. Always been the dragon-slayer. Look at me: If I wanted guys falling all over me, don’t you think I would wash up once in a while?”

Nudge frowned but followed me through the cottage as I gathered our meager belongings, layering clothes and tucking a rusty hammer and an old water bottle into my tattered pack. It wouldn’t last much longer.

“It’s just always about you,” Nudge said, but with less heat.

That stopped me in my tracks. I turned and took both her shoulders, looking up into the face that might never regain its startling, budding beauty. “Sweetie,” I said softly. “It’s always about us, the flock. It’s always, always,
always
about the flock. I don’t know how to do it any other way.”

Nudge gave a shuddering breath, then nodded and rested her untorn cheek on my shoulder. We hugged for a long time, until a neglected Total weaseled his way between our legs, pushing like a little bulldozer until we made room for him.

With a watery smile, I patted his head and nodded at Nudge.

“Pack up,” I said. “It’s time to go.”

We would survive. We always had. We just had less to lose now.

THE JOURNEY BACK to our island seemed to take twice as long as we remembered. Ever wonder why birds fly in a V? Because each bird deflects a little of the wind for the birds behind it. It’s all about teamwork, folks. Of course, with just Nudge and Total, my team was really more of a trio.

Despite Total’s protests about the fabulousness of his wings, he’s still a little guy and flying long distance is hard for him. Nudge and I took turns letting him piggyback. By the time we saw the outline of familiar cliffs in the distance, I was more exhausted than I’d ever been, and the only thought in my head was
The flock is over. The flock is over. The flock is over.

“Just a little farther,” I said, as much to convince myself as Nudge and Total.

But our island was still a desolate disaster. Black smoke hung thick over everything, and by half a mile out, Nudge sounded like she was coughing glass, and tears streamed down my face as tiny flecks of burning material flew into my eyes.

The air was so toxic that flying inland just wasn’t possible. Instead, we flew along the outer edge of the island, heading upwind for the far north side, away from the volcano, where the smoke wasn’t quite so thick.

“I’m so tired,” Nudge complained, moving her wings in slow arcs to conserve energy. “Max, what are we gonna do?”

“We’ll find a place to land,” I assured her, though it was hard to keep the doubt out of my voice.

My flock of three hovered in silence for a few moments, contemplating the ash cloud and the sea of lava that now coated everything.

“Max… I’m not questioning your judgment, but our former home doesn’t exactly look livable at the moment.” Total gave my neck a brief lick, as if to soften his words.

Total had always been a little high-maintenance, but I had to admit he had a point. Food alone was already starting to feel urgent, and anything that had survived the initial explosion and tsunami was now almost certainly overcooked barbecue.

We were in dire straits indeed.

“Wait—there’s something moving down there.” I pointed. “Look.”

As we dipped lower, I saw that it wasn’t just something alive. It was some
one
.
Human.

“Hey!” I screamed at the boy.
“Hey!”

If you know me, you know I’m normally a big believer in Stranger Danger. My friends wouldn’t exactly describe me as a people person, since I generally loathe most of the people I come in contact with. (To be fair, a lot of them have tried to kill me.)

But the population of the world had been sliced drastically, I’d just lost most of my family, and I really just wanted a little sympathetic company, okay?

So I kept shouting and waving like a maniac, barely noticing when one of the figures moved away from the others and bent down to position something on the shore.

And when I saw the spark, my first thought was about how these people could be useful to us, since they had a lighter.

But then there was a whizzing sound in the air, and the small spark suddenly got very large as it rocketed up at us. Suddenly, it all clicked into place for me.

“Bank!” I yelled, yanking Nudge’s arm right as the firework exploded with a pop of dazzling red.