Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure (6 page)

Fang’s insides turned to ice as things clicked into place: how the convoy had found them, why the two girls had looked so freaked out. They hadn’t been nervous about the fight.

They’d been nervous about their betrayal.

“Traitors,” Fang hissed, advancing on them.

Kate shook her head slowly, apologetic. Guilty. “Sorry, Fang, we wanted to help you. It’s just that…”

“Survival comes first,” Star said simply.

Before Fang could respond, two Erasers charged toward him, and everything was a blur of color and instincts.

Fang, on autopilot, kicked and dodged, feeling hollow, anger driving him as he beat the freak out of the guys while Star and Kate just
watched
.

With a last surge of adrenaline he crushed the windpipe of the final Eraser, and then it was over.

Everything was eerily quiet without the sounds of battle.

“Starfish,” Fang called to Holden. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” the kid said, wincing as the cells in his arm multiplied, the deep gash closing before their eyes.

Fang nodded. His side felt bruised, he had a possible cracked wing bone, his arms ached, and a gash on his forehead dripped blood into his eyes. It had felt so satisfying, sweating through his fury.
Hurting
someone. But now that it was over, Fang still had to deal with
this
.

Betrayal.

17

FANG STOOD FACE-TO-FACE with Star and Kate, fists clenched, breathing hard. His muscles stood out on his arms. He felt his agitation vibrating to his fingertips.

Kate looked uneasy and shifted into a more defensive stance. She looked scared. Of him.

Star, on the other hand, looked unrepentant. She looked him straight on, her blue eyes cold and determined. If he was going to attack, she was ready.

Holden looked up at Fang, waiting for his cue. His eyes were wide with anticipation, but he remained loyal. He had Fang’s back.

Was
he going to attack? For one of the very few times in his life, Fang had no idea what to do. Should he scream, walk away, or finish them completely? The unasked
question hung in the air between them, the tension building. Fang’s face twitched. He was furious, but mostly he just felt disappointed.

Only one other situation made him this stressed, this confused… this freaking
emotional
. He looked around. Where was she?

Where was Maya?

And Ari?

“Fang!” Holden grabbed his sleeve. “Up there!” He pointed at the sky.

Fang looked up and felt his heart stop.

Maya and Ari. Five hundred feet up.

Battling to the death.

18

THEY HEARD HER scream pierce the air even from the ground, saw the bright arc of blood splash across the sky. And then she was falling.

Fang felt dazed as he watched her floating down, a long sigh stretching out between them, arms and legs reaching lazily upward, feather-light, body pulling down.

Go
, Fang’s instincts shrieked at him, but time had stopped. He was frozen to the spot, and so was she.

Suspended. A picture snapped, a painting hung against the endless wall of sky.
Still life of a tragedy
, Fang thought. He felt a bright wave of distress, his heart thundering out of his chest, but he couldn’t connect the feeling to the image in front of him.

Her wings were silhouetted against the brilliant flame
of sunlight. Fang knew the exact color of those wings, their span, their texture against his cheek. Hawk’s wings, to match her sharp instincts, her hard looks.

She looked soft now—softer than the air and the clouds around her. Tender. Cradled in blue.

Fang was holding his breath.

He could see her face now, her mouth open in a perfect
O
, caught in mid-sentence, drawing in.

To tell him everything that had never been said. That she’d still be there for him, like she always had. That he shouldn’t have left her and the flock.

That she loved him.

Fang felt his will seeping out of him, crushed beneath the weight of this knowledge. The fall would kill them both.

He blinked and she was moving again, her arms like a marionette’s, in unlikely poses, twisting. A delicate dance, a swaying to music he could not hear.

Down… and down.

Her features came sharply into focus and Fang saw the fear there, her mouth protesting in a silent scream, the ragged ripple of wing tearing behind her, ruined.

The blood in her hair, cut short. So it wouldn’t get tangled in the wind.

The sound caught up to Fang’s ears, the shriek vibrating louder and louder, closer and closer as the ground rushed upward and all the light fell away from her and she was plummeting, as dark and heavy as a stone.

Max—no,
Maya
—was falling to her death.

Fang surged upward. Racing gravity, he stretched out his arms toward Maya’s free-falling body. He just barely managed to catch her, then sagged as her deadweight dragged him down.

Hovering with Maya clutched in his arms, Fang felt his jaw tighten as he saw that her neck was covered in blood, which was streaming down her skin and onto her shirt.
No, no, no
, his brain protested with growing distress. Ari’s claws had sliced her up like deli meat.

“Fang,” Maya whispered.

“You’re okay,” Fang said, as much to convince himself as Maya. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

Scenes flashed in Fang’s mind: Maya laughing easily. Maya asking if he was okay, her eyes soft, concerned. Maya after her haircut—happy, confident, ready for a fresh start. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he had thought they could be each other’s fresh start. He ground his teeth into his lips to keep from screaming.

“Fang… I love you,” Maya said, starting to cry. Tears trickled over her lovely cheeks, down her jaw, into the mutilated mess of her neck.

The sound of wings filtered into his brain, but only vaguely, as if he were hearing it through a long tunnel.

“I know,” Fang whispered.

Then he felt the wind shift behind him, felt the hairs on his neck rising. Before he could move, before he could react, Ari appeared, and with a final, murderous lunge, smashed his elbow into Maya’s chest with crushing force.

“No!” Fang screamed as Ari soared away from them. Still struggling to hold Maya up, Fang couldn’t defend her, couldn’t fight back. He could only clutch at her and watch it happen.

Helpless.

Fang landed as gently as he could. He fell to his knees, arranging Maya’s head on his lap.

“Crap,” Ratchet said, awake again and limping over. “I saw Ari take a swipe at her, but I didn’t think it was
that
bad.”

“Get me something to stop the bleeding,” Fang said tersely. Ratchet looked around, then grabbed Holden and yanked the boy’s shirt off. He tossed it to Fang, who pressed the cloth to Maya’s neck.

He was aware of Star and Kate, unsure what to do, huddling together off to the side. They clearly hadn’t been prepared for this. Fang would deal with them later.

Ratchet and Holden leaned silently over him. They knew, just as Fang knew, that it was too late.

“I’m sorry,” Maya cried helplessly. She coughed and sputtered, her breath growing shallow.

“Shh,” Fang said. “Don’t talk. Just focus on breathing. You’re going to get through this.
We’re
going to get through this,” he repeated.

Maya’s brown eyes struggled to focus on his. “Sorry I’m… not st-strong af… ter all.”

“Maya,” he said quietly. “You
are
strong. Stronger than anyone.”

“After Max,” she said, trying to smile. Blood began to seep from beneath Holden’s shirt and drip on the ground.

Fang shook his head. “Not after Max. Right next to her. Equal.”

“Thank you,” Maya whispered. Then her eyes seemed to focus on a spot just to one side of Fang’s face, and her head lolled.

Fang didn’t move.

He just sat there, staring at the dead girl. The dead Maya, the dead Max, the dead almost everything he cared about. He felt like a freight train was slamming into his chest, over and over again.

Ratchet and Holden tensed beside Fang as footsteps approached. Ratchet said, “Fang? Wolfboy’s back.”

Still Fang didn’t move from his place on the ground, didn’t stop cradling Maya’s body.

Ari’s voice, gruff and taunting, cut through the fog. “Fang—sorry, man. Had to happen. Don’t worry, though—she’s a clone, right? Dime a dozen.”

Finally Fang looked up, his eyes swimming. “We’ll finish this later,” he said through clenched teeth.

Ari grinned. “I’m counting on it,” he said, turning. “C’mon, you weaklings, get up,” he shouted at the injured Erasers. Many large bodies heaved themselves noisily toward the trucks.

“Coward!” Ratchet hurled the dented, bloodied tire iron through the air.

Ari stepped swiftly to the left, and the metal clanged
against a truck. His laughter, grating and harsh, filled the empty desert battlefield. Then the engines roared and the entire convoy spun around and faded away in a cloud of dust.

When they were gone, Fang passed his fingers over Maya’s face, closing her eyes and brushing away some blood. He forced himself to lay Maya’s already cooling body on the ground. As Fang looked down at her, he wanted to tear his own heart out.

Ari would die for this.

19

AS SOON AS I walked into biology class, the nauseating smell of formaldehyde hit me smack in the face.
Hello, buttload of horrible memories!
Clearly today was going to be even more nightmare-y than school usually was.

“Hello, Max. Glad you could join us,” Dr. Williams said.

Frowning, I nodded and plopped down beside Dylan as jealous girls nearby prayed for my death. So I got sidetracked by the schmanciness of the bathrooms on the way here. Sue me.

The smelly chemicals were already getting to me (read: making me want to run away screaming), and I could tell they were also bothering Iggy, who was sitting a
couple tables over. His face was drawn and even paler than usual.

Dr. Williams passed out packets of paper. “Today we’ll be doing our first hands-on lab assignment,” he said. “For some of you, this will be your first dissection. It’s a very simple one, but if anyone feels sick, the trash can is right here. Please try to make it.”

Dissection.

Oh, God.

I glanced down at my packet and my stomach dropped.
Chicken Dissection Lab.

Of course. This was
my
life, after all—if something could conceivably get worse, then by golly, it would get worse. We couldn’t just dissect a frog, or an earthworm, or whatever. We had to dissect something with
wings
.

The other students chattered around me, their reactions ranging from excited to grossed out. Iggy, Dylan, and I were the only silent ones.

Dr. Williams began handing out plastic bags containing rubbery chicken carcasses. I fought back a wave of panic and nausea as I skimmed my info packet. Phrases like
Count the number of primary feathers
and
Remove the heart
and
Examine the air sacs
popped out at me.

Please, if there’s any justice at all in this screwed-up world,
please
don’t make me have a mental breakdown and start hyperventilating in front of my entire biology class.

Dr. Williams placed a plastic bag on our table, two feet
from my nose. Dylan and I both stared at it, unwilling to touch it.

“Okay, folks,” Dr. Williams said merrily. “Get your goggles, your gloves, and your trays. The packet explains everything, but come to me if you have questions. Happy dissecting!”

20

I PUT ON my clear, dorktastic goggles automatically while Dylan fetched the dissecting tray. It was equipped with a scalpel, a small pair of scissors, three pokey, suspicious-looking tools, and a pair of tweezers.

“So,” I said, mentally smacking myself upside the head when my voice shook. “Ready to cut this thing open?”

“We can leave, if you want,” Dylan replied softly. “I don’t want to do this any more than you do.”

I clenched my teeth and pulled my shoulders back, shaking my head. “No. Normal people do dissection labs. And we’re normal people, remember?”

He nodded, his aquamarine eyes fixed on me.

I regretted my decision almost as soon as we set the chicken on the tray. It splayed out pathetically, headless
and mostly featherless, with puckered pink skin. I felt the chill of goose bumps on my own flesh and shivered.

The chicken’s wings were small and had tiny tufts of down still stuck to them.

White down.

Like Angel’s.

“Step one,” Dylan read aloud. His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Place chicken on its back. Grasp both legs and push down and away from the pelvis.”

In another time, I might have snickered immaturely at the word “pelvis.” But at that moment, all I could do was numbly follow the instructions, while trying to block smells and memories.

It was bred for this
, I reminded myself, holding the scalpel. Inside a claustrophobic metal cage, it had been fed scraps. It had been genetically manipulated for a satisfactory amount of plumpness and complacency. It had been bred with a smaller brain, too; it was too stupid to see how trapped it was. To see that this is how it would end up, amid the glint of scalpels, the
snick
of blades sliding into flesh.

I was stuck in an in-between place, not sure whether I was in biology class or back at the School. Student voices and whitecoat voices bounced around in my mind.

Then Dr. Williams’s face materialized all up in my grill. “Max, Dylan, how’s it going so far?”

I nodded, trying to slow my breathing—I hadn’t realized I’d been hyperventilating. “I’m okay… really.” I looked
up at his face, at the four wrinkles on his forehead, his almost calculating hazel eyes.

It was all somewhat… familiar.