Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure (17 page)

“Angel!” I cried, sobbing and stroking matted curls away from her grimy face, while Fang immediately started dismantling the clamps. “
Angel!
We’re right here. We came to get you. Angel—wake up!”

I gently cradled her head, which lolled back. Was it really her? Or just… her body?

I got no response. As soon as Fang was finished with the clamps I gathered her up, and it felt like I was holding Styrofoam. There was hardly anything there, as if she hadn’t eaten since Paris. Numerous puncture wounds dotted both arms. How many times could my baby be torn from me and survive it?

The massive tsunami wave of joy I’d felt moments earlier was already rushing back out to sea.

“Angel, please,” I begged, cuddling her close. “Please be okay. We’re all here now. Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy, Dylan… we’re all right here. You’re safe. We’re all together. Please, sweetie, please wake up.” My words were coming in gasps.

Then—had I imagined it? Had her too-thin, too-light body shifted?

She made a tiny sound. Her eyelids fluttered.

“She’s alive!” Gazzy’s voice was hushed but thrilled.

A fierce joy swelled inside me. She was
alive
! She really was!

And she was going to stay that way, at least while I was on this planet. No matter what, I would never, ever let her out of my sight. We would never be separated again.

56

MY BRAIN WAS on a drunken loop of joy, disbelief, shock, ecstasy.

This is really my Angel, my own Angel….

The others crowded around and tried to touch and embrace her, so they, too, could truly believe what I was still trying to absorb. But I wouldn’t let go of her.

“We need to get her out of here,” Dylan instructed, gently pushing his way in close to help me lift her body. I hardly registered Fang’s irritated look. Nothing in the world mattered to me at that moment except keeping my little girl safe with me.

I stood up and carried Angel upstairs, into the light. Someone had padlocked her in that underground
room—there would have been no way for her to get out. Someone had left her there to die.

“Max?” Her voice was barely a breath.

“Yes, sweetie,” I said, trying not to leak tears on her. “I’m here. We’re going to get you somewhere safe, get you all patched up, good as new.”

Her small head shook. “I’ll never be as good as new,” she whispered weakly. “They messed up my eyes. They clipped my wings.”

“What?”

“I’ll never fly again,” she whimpered sadly. Tears slowly streaked the dirt on her face.

Quickly I traced down her primary feathers to her flight feathers, fanning them gently in my hand. They looked fine.

“No, your feathers are okay,” I reassured her, understanding the kind of crazy confusion the whitecoats’ drugs could cause. “You’ll be fine—I promise. You’ll be flying in no time. We’ll take care of you.”

Her eyes opened slightly and she looked into the sky, past my head. “They experimented on my eyes, Max.”

A cold fist grabbed my heart and yanked. “What?”

“Like Iggy,” she confirmed, and I was seized with fresh horror. “Jeb was here—he said it was for my own good.” Her voice was weak—it was hard to make out what she was saying.

“Tell me, Angel,” I said urgently, pulling Gazzy to my side. “Who is standing right next to me?
Tell me.
Don’t tell me you’re blind.”

“I—I—” She blinked. And blinked again. We were all holding our breath. “My brother… Gazzy…” She breathed. “Is that you?”

Gazzy threw his arms around her and sobbed.

“Everything is kind of a blur,” Angel whispered as Gazzy pulled away.

“Shh, sweetie,” I said. “Don’t try to talk. You’re waking up from a drug-induced nightmare. We’ll make sure you’re okay. We’re going to take you home now.”

Again she shook her head, opened her eyes. She peered up at me anxiously, her eyes not quite focusing. “Max, your mom was there. I saw her. Dr. Martinez. She’s… she’s one of them.”

I looked up to see the flock recoiling in shock.

“No, sweetie,” I said, my mind reeling. “You’ve been hallucinating. Your feathers are fine, and my mom isn’t one of the baddies. It was all just weird hallucinations.”

Angel shook her head. “No. Your mom was there. She helped them. Dr. Martinez is on their side.”

57

I TRIED TO keep my emotions under control as we flew home, but sometimes I could barely see through the tears.

Angel weighed so little that it was no problem for Dylan, Iggy, Fang, and me to take turns carrying her on the flight. We also picked up Total on the return trip. I knew he’d want to see Angel right away, and I was right—I’d never heard him bark so wildly with joy.

As soon as Angel was settled—cleaned up and in fresh clothes, but still pale and worn out—I left her sleeping peacefully, with Nudge and Gazzy in charge and Total curled up at her side. I needed to be alone in the woods for a minute to get my emotions under control—otherwise I’d be a crying mess when Angel was finally ready to talk about what had happened.

So it wasn’t necessarily the best timing when Fang crept up quietly behind me, just like he always used to, and scared the stuffing out of me.

“We need to talk. About you. And me.”

I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks. “There
is
no you and me, per your instructions,” I said, my jaw clenching.

“I don’t know about that,” he said.

“Oh, please. You
left
,” I said accusingly. “
Twice
, actually. You threw any
us
we had in my face! Then you decided to get all hot and heavy with Maya.” That last part came out before I could stop it, and I cringed, remembering what Ari had said.

“Maya’s dead,” Fang said tensely, confirming what I already knew. I winced at the grief in his voice. “And this isn’t about her. It’s about the connection you and I have—will
always
have, no matter what.” I opened my mouth to retort, but nothing came out, so Fang forged right on, breaking my heart with his honesty.

“I heard a Voice, Max,” he said, gripping my arm, pulling me closer, “and it told me I needed to come home to you. Even though I had to practically
walk
the whole way. Even though I was close to dying. I came back. To you. And I wanted to tell you—maybe I never told you very clearly before…”

My heart was racing so fast I thought I was having a heart attack.

“I wanted to tell you that I—”

“Stop!” I cried, putting my hands over my ears. “Just
don’t
, okay?”

But Fang looked determined, and there was only one thing to do when he looked like that. I took off.

If I pour on the speed, I can hit almost three hundred miles per hour while flying—faster than any recombinant life-form I’ve ever heard about. Faster than anyone. Except Fang.

I was probably already a couple of miles away, still sniveling and cursing, when I felt a hand grab my sneaker. He stayed with me, matching me stroke for stroke without releasing his death grip on my ankle.

Finally it was too hard to stay balanced, so I put on the brakes. I banked steeply and whirled around to face him.

“Fang, I can’t hear this right now!” I shouted, tears streaming down my face. “My life is hard and confusing enough without you making it harder! Everything’s just really, you know,
complicated
, and…” I trailed off, thinking of the complicated things in my life. The other complicated
someone
.

“I’m not trying to make it harder or more confusing,” Fang said quietly, smiling that lopsided smile of his. Warm emotion showed in his black eyes, and for a minute I actually had to concentrate on staying airborne. “I’m trying to tell you what you already know. I just…
need
you. We need each other.”

“But
I
just can’t do
this
.” I flailed my arms around, indicating whatever
this
was—encompassing everything. “With you. Not now, not
today
, not after everything we’ve been through with Angel, so…” I swallowed, trying to ignore my stupid heart. “Just don’t say any more,” I whispered. “Please.”

But if I could hear the catch in my voice, I knew Fang had picked up on it, too.

He had moved closer. We were nose to nose now, our wings almost overlapping as each stroke took us up ten feet, then down again. We’d been flying together our whole lives, and keeping in perfect rhythm was second nature to us. My arms were crossed over my chest, my elbows almost brushing against him, and Fang reached out and held my arms, below my shoulders. He let his thumbs brush against my skin, slowly.

I shivered. Fang’s touch was so familiar. How many times had he done this? Old times and new all jumbled together. Emotions and memories became indecipherable. The only thing I knew was that we’d grown and changed. It was almost like he was a new Fang. I felt almost like a new Max. Could we still… fit together?

“Max.” He said my name like it was a life raft. Like it was a religion. His warm fingers stroked up and down my arms.

“What?” I whispered. Or had I even said it aloud? I didn’t know what to do, so I stared into his eyes for the
answer. And I let them rest there. I didn’t want to be the first to look away.

I reached out and put my hands on his shoulders, felt his strong, light bones under his skin. I remembered what he had carved into a cactus once.

MAX + FANG—4EVER.

58

TEARS POURED DOWN Dylan’s face. He dashed them away angrily with the back of his hand, flapping his wings powerfully and putting as much distance between himself and
them
as he could.

He’d been in a tree a good half mile away from them—not
spying
, just…
seeing
. Seeing his past going up in flames, his future crumbling into dust. He wasn’t about to stick around to watch Max and Fang finally have their little private reunion party.

He’d thought what he and Max had was starting to grow into something… real. She’d let him sleep in her room. And that night in the tree house… He remembered the feel of Max’s skin under his fingertips, her wildly tangled
hair brushing against his cheek, the look she gave him just before their lips met….

He could live and die inside that single look.

Dylan shook his head, flapped his wings harder. Faster. He took the next turn too tightly and lost control, dropping hundreds of feet before he could level himself. He saw the forest ahead. Tall trees, growing thickly together. He narrowed his eyes and dove down.

He wove crazily in and out of the trees, at top speed. He scared birds, startled a group of deer, and still he went as fast as possible, so fast that the wind would dry his tears.

Again and again he flipped sideways to fit through narrow openings. His sneakers smacked against tree trunks. Bark raked the skin on his hands and face raw. Branches caught at his feathers, and he felt some get yanked out, but he didn’t even wince.

It felt good, the pain. He wanted more.

All this time he’d tried to be good. He’d followed the rules—or at least the rules
Max
had set. He had learned to fly and to fight, had followed her lead. He had given her space, and then pressed a little closer when she seemed to want it. He’d done everything he was supposed to,
when
he was supposed to. He had thought if he could just be
perfect
, Max would love him.

But she loved Fang instead.
Fang
, who seemed to break every rule in the book. Dylan set his jaw.
Fine
, he thought.
She wants a bad boy like Fang, I can do that.

Bam!

He brought his feet down, hard, on the roof of a car that was driving toward town, making a huge dent.

Bam! Bam! Bam!
Three more cars suffered the same fate. Dylan felt a rush of thrill and fear: This was the best he’d felt since Fang had come back.

On the next car, Dylan dropped down even lower.
Snap!
One quick kick took the side mirror right off.
Crash!
A rear windshield was smashed to smithereens.

It was an incredible feeling of power, a power he’d never felt before.

He rose a bit and banked sideways dramatically, hearing car horns honking, people shouting. He wheeled around the store on the corner, then swooped down and grabbed the store’s banner with one hand, ripping it from where it had hung across the sidewalk. It landed on a car driving underneath it, causing the driver to lose control and crash into a telephone pole.

But Dylan was already halfway down the street, ripping street signs from their posts and hurling them like Frisbees. People were yelling at him now. A baseball whistled past his head. He could hear sirens behind him.

Over and over, he dropped down suddenly, kicked over a mailbox, a trash can, a trellis. But the pain in his chest was returning. He reached up and ripped the electrical wires strung along the street from their poles. Sparks shot everywhere as the live wires fell to the ground, igniting the bulging trash bags that lined the curb.

At last Dylan realized he was weeping again. He could hardly see. What was happening to him? Nothing was making sense—least of all his behavior.

He rose gracefully, powerfully into the air, leaving behind a roiling fire that was beginning to streak through a destroyed neighborhood.

This isn’t the answer, Dylan
, said his Voice.
You know what your job is
.
You know what you have to do.
Dylan shook his head, as if he could shake the Voice loose, make it go away forever.

A thought flitted through his brain like the light fingers of a practiced thief. He turned around slowly and tasted bile in his throat.

No. He
couldn’t
. Could he?

It was the answer to so many of his problems. What he
couldn’t
do was what the science teacher had demanded on that awful day in the lab at school—he couldn’t turn Fang over for the whitecoats to experiment on, no matter how much he hated him at that moment. He would never condemn anyone to such a fate.