Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure (15 page)

What? My heart stopped. I couldn’t breathe.

Feeling completely numb—I refused to get my hopes up—I clicked on the image that came with the comment. Fang and I were both silent, waiting with bated breath, as the image loaded.

It was a blurry, grainy photo, maybe taken on an old cell phone. The background was dark and murky, with a couple of blocky shadows that looked a bit like hospital equipment. I ignored that and focused on the foreground, which had better lighting.

Better lighting that revealed a chunk of limp blond
ringlets. A clump of dirty white feathers. A small, pale hand—the same hand I’d held a million times throughout the years.

“Oh, my God,” I breathed. “Oh, my God.”

Fang leaned toward the computer screen, gazing at the photo. “So you think it’s really her?” he asked softly. I caught the faint undercurrents of insane, wild, un-Fanglike excitement.

“Yeah,” I squeaked, hardly believing I was saying it. “Yes,” I said louder, looking into his eyes and seeing my own certainty reflected there. “Fang, I think that’s Angel.”

“What?”

It wasn’t Fang who’d spoken. The two of us turned to the doorway to see Nudge and Gazzy staring at us. Gazzy was holding the second pie, and Nudge was carrying two forks. Under different circumstances, I’d have whooped their conniving, thieving little behinds. But right now, all I could do was frantically process plans, ideas, possibilities, while I tried to contain the enormous hopeful smile that was threatening to take over my face.

“Angel,” said Fang. “Angel might be alive.”

The Gasman gasped and dropped the pie, which splattered all over the floor. None of us even flinched.
“What?”
he said again.

“Look,” I choked out, and he and Nudge hurried over to the bed. I watched as they read this Mazin Nourahmed person’s comment and studied the photo.

“Trap?” Nudge asked immediately.
That’s my girl.

“Maybe,” I replied. Then I regretfully added: “Probably.”

“Do we care?” That was Gazzy. I knew how much he wanted to see his little sister again—under any circumstances.

Fang and I glanced at each other, then answered at the same time: “No.”

The four of us sat there for a few more moments, just letting the news sink in.

Then Gazzy hollered, “Iggy! Dylan! Fang’s room!
Now!
”

“
Oh, my God!
” Nudge yelled, bouncing on her heels in excitement. “Oh, my God,
Angel
!”

“Did I hear ‘Angel’?” Dylan asked, poking his head around the door.

“What?” Iggy demanded, coming on Dylan’s heels and skidding to a stop in the hallway.

Gazzy read the blog comment aloud. As before, we were all quiet for a bit as Iggy and Dylan processed the information.

And then—without any warning—we all leaped up, screaming and yelling and hugging until our voices and arms gave out. Nudge was sobbing; Gazzy kept chanting “My sister’s alive! My sister’s alive!” over and over; Iggy was laughing maniacally; Dylan stayed next to me, grinning, while I acted like my usual stoic, leaderly self (read: sobbing just as hard as Nudge). And in the middle of all of us, Fang was smiling with an abandon that I’d never seen him show before.

For the first time in my life, I saw tears in Fang’s eyes.

He squeezed my hand, and I knew right then that regardless of traps, regardless of risks, everything was going to be all right. The flock was about to be complete again.

Our baby was coming home.

50

THE VERY NEXT morning, all six of us—Gazzy, Nudge, Iggy, Fang, Dylan, and I—got up bright and early to leave on the first rescue mission in… how many months? Three? Four? Man, that might have been the longest period of time without a rescue since Jeb had whisked us away from the School. Impressive.

We didn’t bother telling the principal or teachers at Newton the small, insignificant fact that their precious bird kids were leaving on an impromptu trip to California, possibly never to return. After all, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: We’ve spent our entire, unglamorous lives not being controlled by grown-ups. Why start now?

“Okeydokey,” I said to myself, stuffing another bag of beef jerky into a backpack. “Provisions, check. Clothes,
check. Enough explosives to pose a legitimate threat to multiple small countries”—I eyed the duffel bags that Gazzy and Iggy had packed—“check. Destination”—I glanced at the printed-out sheet with a marked map, courtesy of Mazin Nourahmed the Helpful (and Possibly Evil?) Blog Commenter—“check.”

Six backpacks were laid out before me, for six bird kids. Usually I’d have to pack one for Total, too, but following my recommendation, he’d agreed to stay behind for this one. I’d arranged for him to stay with Akila. If this mission didn’t go well, I didn’t want his canine ladyfriend to end up a widow.

“Ready?” Fang asked, sliding his arms through the straps of his backpack and giving me a warm, excited, anxious look—a look that betrayed way more emotion than I was used to seeing Fang display.

“Yup. Let’s bust this joint,” I said. Nudge and Gazzy exchanged smiles—we all had the same feeling about this mission.
Just like old times.

Except, of course, this wasn’t old times, or just any mission. It was Angel. And it was probably a trap. And even if we did somehow manage to find her, she might not be as okay as we were all desperately hoping she was. A lot can happen to a seven-year-old girl all alone at a School.

I let out a long breath, my hands shaking as I fumbled with my bag’s zipper.
Stay positive. She is
alive.

“It’s okay,” said a familiar voice beside me. Dylan. “We’ll find her.”

I turned to face him. He looked serious and sincere. A lump suddenly formed in my throat, and I wanted to hug him. But Fang was right behind me, so I just nodded, knowing that Dylan understood, and praying hard that he was right.

I hoisted my backpack into the proper position for flight, looking over my shoulder at Fang as I did so. We exchanged a brief look, I did a silent head count, and then he said, “Okay! Everybody ready?”

“
Ready!
” the flock shouted in unison. Then, with Fang leading the way, we all kicked off the ground and soared into the bright blue sky.

Please be okay, Angel. We’re coming.

51

IT WAS THE beginning of the end, but not the end that Angel expected.

When she awoke, her lungs were screaming. She thought she saw a blurry flash, and then the image of a giant, belching fireball exploding behind her damaged eyes, and she cried out in terror.

Another vision of the apocalypse. It had to be. There was nothing else that sent hot panic surging through her like that. The very essence of chaos, fire and brimstone. The violent sound of the earth being savagely reclaimed for nature.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this
, Angel thought.
When the end comes, I’m supposed to be with Max. With my flock. When we die, we will be together.

She had just sucked in a ragged, hot breath of stinking smoke when she realized she was still in the lab, clamped to the table, her limbs splayed out as if she were a butterfly on display. For a fleeting second the surrounding madness was drowned out by the deafeningly quiet memory of the whisper-sound of her feathers drifting to the lab floor, the endless flow of tears running down her face. After that, she’d passed out.

Now she coughed weakly into her shoulder, but she couldn’t seem to take in enough oxygen as she choked on the smoke that was forcing itself under the door and into the room where she lay, alone.

Outside the door she heard muffled shouts and frantic footsteps.

“It’s time!” Angel was able to make out a woman’s voice yelling. “It’s really happening!”

Somewhere an alarm was triggered, and the high, plaintive cry drowned out much of the chaos. The door of the lab burst open then, and someone was banging through cupboards while someone else rifled through papers and clanged metal objects around.

They were ignoring Angel completely.

“Help,” she croaked. “Dr. Martinez?”

“Take everything!” a voice Angel didn’t recognize commanded to someone else. “The 99% Plan is in effect!”

For the first time since the operation, Angel became dimly aware of being able to see movement, but she didn’t have time to wonder about what was happening to her eyesight. She was wired to survive, and focused on trying
to decipher who was in the room with her, and what they were doing. She fumbled wildly, trying to figure out how she might unlock her clamps, anything to free herself. But Angel could only make out blurred fractions of light, movements masked in smoke.

“Help,” she said again, coughing.

But no one answered, and the footsteps were already fading away. And then, over the wail of the alarm, she couldn’t hear any more voices. Beyond the wall of smoke, she couldn’t breathe.

No!
her brain shouted, rebelling against the inevitable.
No, I will not die like this, alone in smoky darkness. Not after the hell I have been through.

She began to fight then, really fight, even though every single muscle and bone in her body ached.

“You can’t leave me here!” Angel screeched with fury and despair to the empty walls around her. “I’m human, do you hear me? It
hurts
!”

She sobbed as she thrashed against the clamps and felt the cords digging into her flesh. But no matter how hard she struggled, she was trapped.

Smoke filled Angel’s lungs and she hacked wildly, gasping. The sound of the alarm seemed to ricochet around her brain.

It’s over
, she thought with a sense of crushing defeat. Images of a giant, unstoppable wave gathering speed tormented her as she started to lose consciousness.
For once, the freaks were right: It’s the end.

Book Three

THE END

52

“HOW MUCH LONGER?” Gazzy asked breathlessly, catching a small updraft and banking left till he was flying next to me. He was grinning, but his face was lined with strain, and he looked more determined than I’d ever seen him.

“Just a little bit more,” I said. Less than five hours after leaving Oregon, we had begun to near the facility, which, according to our source, was in Death Valley—so close to the School that Jeb had taken us from that I almost had a memory-induced panic attack.

“Days? Hours? Minutes?” Gazzy pressed.

“In fifteen minutes we should be within a mile radius. Then we find the place, touch down, do some recon.”

“And then find Angel,” he said fervently. “And spring
her out of there. And do serious damage to whoever’s had her.”

I winced. “Gaz…”

“I know, I know,” the Gasman said. “Could be a trap, she might not be there, I get it. But still. She could be alive, Max!”

“Yeah, sweetie,” I said, grinning. “She could be.”

I happened to look over and meet Dylan’s eyes, which were as blue as the sky we were flying in. He hadn’t said much this morning. Actually, he hadn’t been saying all that much since Fang had returned. Mr. Discuss Everything was suddenly how Fang used to be. Meanwhile, Fang was now talking and emoting and expressing more than ever before. It was like the two of them had switched personalities.

“Yo, up ahead!” Fang said suddenly. “I see something!”

Nudge nodded excitedly. “It looks like a cluster of buildings!”

We all—well, except Iggy—concentrated on the ground, letting our raptor vision focus in on what indeed appeared to be a cluster of buildings, some of which were made of boring gray and black stone, others of brick and gleaming one-way glass. The buildings were arranged in the shape of a
T
, and to be honest, they looked like they could hold pretty much
anything
institutional and uninteresting. A coat-hanger factory. Whatever.

Except for the fact that they were in the middle of nowhere, with no cities, towns, or even houses in sight.
And their location corresponded perfectly with the map we’d been given online.

“This is it,” Fang muttered. “Circle down.”

As we drifted back down to earth, Dylan moved closer to me. “Ready to beat up some whitecoats?” he said over the noise of the wind.

“Always,” I said. And I was glad he was with me.

The six of us landed among a sea of small desert shrubs and immediately sank down to their height, keeping low. Then we got in a huddle to go over the plan for the umpteenth time.

“Okay, so first Max and I scout the place,” said Fang. “Look for possible cracks in the armor, etc. If we don’t come back within a half hour—”

“We fly to Badwater Basin,” Iggy interrupted. “Then we wait for three days. Then, if you’re still not back—”

“We absolutely
do not
barge in there and attempt to rescue you,” Nudge deadpanned, repeating the words I’d drilled into all of them over and over again. “We act like sensible, self-preserving mutants and head back to Oregon.”