Maximum Ride Forever (18 page)

ANGEL CURLED HER body tighter into the nook of the fir tree, where one of the branches met the trunk, and wept.

She held her throbbing head in her hands, her fair hair twisting around her fingers as she gripped it. The images in her head played on a loop now, but they were often just glimpses, like small snippets of film. Close-ups of yellow eyes narrowing, yellow teeth flashing. Fists clenching, feathers falling. Snow stained dark with blood.

Angel wasn’t sure if what she was seeing was in the past or the future, and it was so hard sometimes to know what to do.

It was even harder to wait for the answer.

Angel had been waiting a long time. As the migraines
had worsened, she’d sought out the quietest place she could find. Far north, in the middle of nowhere. She’d crawled inside this tree days ago, and the branches had grown heavy with snow, forming a cocoon around her small body.

She chewed a piece of bark to stave off her hunger, working the soggy wood methodically between her teeth. There wasn’t much else to eat—in this deep cold, most of the animals had gone into hibernation. Like the bears and the squirrels, Angel just wanted to sleep until things got a little easier.

Her mind wouldn’t let her rest, though. Her temples were electrified with each pulse of her blood as horrible scenes flashed behind her eyes, again and again.

Trust in yourself
, she tried to remember.
Nothing else matters.

But she was exhausted and hopeless, and sometimes she fantasized about smashing her forehead into the trunk of the tree, hitting it over and over until her skull caved and the pain stopped…

Angel.

It was a voice inside her head—a
male
voice, and Angel sat up.

She’d been Max’s voice, projecting her own thoughts to Max, trying to help her when she was struggling. Angel had never had anyone to guide her like that, but for a second, she thought that had changed.

Come on, Angel, where are you?

No. This wasn’t a voice. She was hearing someone’s thoughts—someone nearby.

Someone who knew her.

Angel separated the branches and looked out into a world coated in white. She blinked against the harsh brightness of the snow, feeling like a siren was screaming in her skull.

There.
She saw a figure coming out of the blizzard, a fuzzy outline slowly taking shape.

Angel watched the heavy boots sinking in the snow. The broad shoulders looking a little stooped. The powerful wings sagging low behind him. It was something out of a dream—a dream she knew well.

Angel tensed. She had prepared herself for this moment for so long, steeled herself against it, but she was still surprised to feel the icy tears running down her face.

She saw how strong he was, how powerful, and knew her intuition had been right: He would always be the one to prevail.

“It’s you,” Angel whispered as the figure stopped in front of her. “I knew you’d come.”

HORSEMAN PEERED THROUGH the branches of the fir tree and looked Angel in the eye. Her lashes were icy webs—she’d been crying—but unlike the others, Angel stared back at him with a wounded look of acceptance.

Of
course
she’d known. Angel had a different sort of power.

More power, even, than the Remedy, who had planned out the future he wanted. Angel
saw
that future. She knew the outcome of today, and all the days after that.

But could she change it?

Horseman was silent as they regarded each other warily. She was probably reading his mind, anyway. He curled his toes inside his boots, willing himself not to turn away from her relentless blue gaze.

For the first time in a long time, Horseman felt his vulnerability. His reflexes, his superior programming, none of it mattered. Angel was the only one in the world who was ready for whatever happened next, and he found himself waiting for her cue.

Sensing this, Angel swung her legs over the branch and jumped down from the tree, landing almost silently in the deep snow. She stood in front of him, tall for her age and malnourished, and for a moment neither of them moved.

Horseman eyed Angel’s white wings, almost disappearing in the all-white surroundings. Her skin was so pale it seemed translucent, and from the purplish circles under her eyes, he could tell she hadn’t been sleeping. She looked so frail.

Horseman knew better, though. He would not underestimate her.

Angel was studying him, too, and the tension seemed to mount with the falling snow. Could she see the blood on his dark coat? Did she wonder whose it was?

He caught her eyeing his scabbed knuckles, and then the scratches on his wrist, snaking toward the touch screen embedded there. She finally spoke.

“Is it done?” This time, the smallness, the meekness, was gone from Angel’s voice.

Horseman paused and nodded. “Fang is dead,” he said, and knelt at her feet.

“NOOO!”
I WOKE up gasping, and the word came out strangled as I inhaled.

I couldn’t get enough air and I was having heart palpitations like I’d just run a marathon.

I thought I might throw up.

I couldn’t remember the details of the nightmare, but I knew I’d been falling. It wasn’t one of those falling-off-the-couch dreams, either—I had been falling for miles.

I’d been having that kind of dream a lot lately, but this time, I couldn’t shake the sense that something was very, very wrong. Blinking, I reoriented myself—me, check. Harry, check. Woods probably somewhere around the Washington-Canada border, check. Sanity? Maybe a bit iffy.

Maximum Ride is next.

I held my breath, certain I heard the rustle of branches or shoes shuffling through the fallen pine needles not too far away.

“Did you hear something?” I whispered, and elbowed Harry next to me, but his only response was making twittering noises in his sleep.

So much for his evolved reflexes.

I listened again, trying not to breathe, but the only thing I heard was the hoot of an owl somewhere in the distance. Okay, maybe I was being paranoid. The adrenaline had kicked my senses into overdrive. I just needed to calm down and try to get back to sleep.

But it had gotten so cold. It felt rooted deep in my body, and I was shivering too much to relax. Since Harry was asleep anyway, I scooched closer to him, trying to get warm. His wings folded forward to encircle me, and for a moment I almost convinced myself that they were Fang’s wings, guarding me from whatever might come.

My breath started to slow…

Suddenly my face hit the dirt as Harry yanked his wing out from under my cheek. When I scrambled to my knees, he was already hovering in the air, alert. The kid had my back after all, and I would have smiled in appreciation if I hadn’t been so concerned with what had set him off: a figure materializing out of the trees.

A guy.

With wings.

Seeing the outline of feathers, Harry relaxed a little, but the sight made my pulse race faster.

I thought of the way my gut had been telling me to come this way all along.

The way I’d been so sick with worry I’d barely been able to eat.

I knew I would find him.

But…

“Dylan?”

“Hey, Max,” he answered, as if he’d just run to the store and was back now. I’d thought he was
dead
all this time.

“Max Mum?” Harry asked uncertainly.

Dylan looked past Harry to where I was still sitting on the ground, but all I could do was blink back at him dumbly. After my silence lasted a beat too long, Dylan asked, “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“Yeah. I just. I thought,” I said haltingly, still out of sorts. “For a second you looked like… Fang.”

Dylan’s entire posture stiffened, but his face seemed to crumple, his gaze falling to the ground.

Nice one, jerkface. Real sensitive.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted, starting to recover from the shock. “I mean
yes, of course!
” I scrambled to my feet and ran to him. “I am
really
happy to see you, Dylan.”

Now I was a grinning idiot, so freaking relieved that he was safe. When he folded me into a hug, I loved the way he squeezed me a little too tight, held on a little too long. I sighed against him, but I was confused by the way my
heart was leaping like a frog on speed when just a minute ago I’d wanted so desperately to see Fang.

I had to pull back.

“Everybody thought you were dead!” I said. I was gripping the sides of his arms, and his muscles were bigger than I remembered, more solid. His hair was changed, too—cropped close to his skull—and his eyes, which had always been so clear and bright, looked strangely cloudy.

“Why do you look so different?” I asked, my gaze traveling down from his black coat to his heavy combat boots. “And why are you dressed like you’re in a biker gang? You even have gloves—so much more prepared for this weather than me.”

Rather than answer me, Dylan turned behind him, and a smaller figure stepped forward.

“Oh, my God!
Angel!
” My heart lit as it always did when I saw her. I rushed to her, saying, “I was on my way to join you! I can’t believe you’re here, too!”

But Angel wasn’t smiling, and the expression on her face stopped me in my tracks. Something wasn’t right.

“What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?” I frowned.

Angel pressed her lips together, like she was trying to hold something in tight. “Max…”

That cold feeling returned, flooding my whole body, and my voice rose shrilly.

“What’s wrong?”

THEN ANGEL RAN to me, crashing into me, almost bowling me over.

“Oh, Max!” she cried. She wrapped her arms around my waist and buried her face in my shirt as her too-thin body shook against me.

I rubbed her back, smoothed her hair. I was so relieved to be holding her like this, so grateful to have my littlest girl back with me that I didn’t want to speak. I didn’t want to ruin that one happiness.

But I had to know.

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” My voice was flat, certain. “The rest of the flock is dead. Fang, Nudge, Iggy, Total…”

Angel pulled back from me, her eyes red.

“No.” She wiped her nose with her palm and shook her head. “Nudge is okay. Iggy. They’re not all—”

“I saw on the blog. They said Gazzy…” My voice cracked and I swallowed. “I guess if you screw around with explosives for long enough, that’s what happens.”

“It’s not true,” Dylan said, stepping forward. “The deaths were faked. The kids are fine.”

“You don’t have to lie to me,” I said bitterly. “I can handle it.”

But Dylan had always been one of the most honest people I’d known—he was often a little
too
truthful about his feelings—and I saw he was serious now.

“
I
faked their deaths,” he clarified.

“You wha—” I stared at him incredulously. I thought about the misery I’d felt reading those words, the wrenching uncertainty of the past few days. I narrowed my eyes, and my voice was razor sharp. “Why would you do that?”

Dylan sighed and shook his head. “I had to convince the Remedy I’d killed them, so he wouldn’t send the other Horsemen.”

I looked at him sidelong, confused at first. And then I understood, and my eyes flew open.

“The
other
Horsemen?” I repeated. I stepped closer to him, already balling my fists. “
You’re
one of the Horsemen?”

“Not exactly…”

Dylan built a fire, and over the next hour, he explained what had happened when he’d left us—how he’d been
trying to find the water jugs by the lake and had gotten disoriented.

“I guess it was the toxic gases from the volcano. I just kept stumbling around, retracing my steps. My shoe got stuck between rocks, and when I yanked my foot free, the shoe was completely charred. I knew I had to get out of there, but by then the smoke was so thick I could barely see, and my ears were still fuzzy from the blast. So when I heard someone shout my name, I thought it was one of you.”

The knot in my stomach tightened.

“When I turned,” Dylan went on, “a metal pipe smashed into my face. I fell forward onto my knees, and then someone stabbed my neck with a syringe.”

“Who was it?” I prodded.

Dylan shook his head. “Never got a look. Next thing I know, I’m in an underground lab surrounded by cages.”

Harry’s eyes widened—“cage” was a word he understood.

“What did they do to you?” I asked.

“I found out later they call it
upgrading
.” Dylan shut his eyes for a second, his jaw tightening. “When it was over, I did feel different—stronger.” Unconsciously he flexed his fingers, and I remembered how he’d felt so much more muscular.

He looked at me. “But the complete reprogramming didn’t take. I was still me, but I was supposed to be somebody else. The only clue I had to go on was a note in my hand.”

He took a piece of folded paper from his pocket and
held it out to me. “ ‘One True Way,’ ” I read. “Sounds like some Doomsday nonsense.”

Dylan nodded. “I thought the same thing, but when I walked out of the lab, I saw that the streets all had names like that—Right Path, Just Causeway. One True Way was an address, not a slogan.”

“How did you just walk out of the lab?” I asked.

“I don’t know—one day the door was open. I went through it, expecting to be captured at any second, but I just kept going. Then it was up a bunch of stairs, and I was on a street.”

“Where? What city?” I pressed.

Dylan shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t recognize it. And when I got to the address on True Way, Dr. Gunther-Hagen was waiting for me.”

“Wait, Hans is
alive
?” I perked up. The last we’d seen of the German geneticist was in the fiery blaze of a plane crash over a year ago. We’d all assumed he was dead.

Dylan glanced at Angel, and she gave a slight nod. He turned back to me and rested his hands on my shoulders. His face was serious.

“Max, Dr. Gunther-Hagen is the Remedy.”