James Patterson - Maximum Ride Forever

Whoaaa—

I windmilled my arms as momentum propelled me out into midair, with nothing but red-hot death below. As gravity took hold and I felt myself starting to drop, my avian survival instinct kicked in automatically. A pair of huge speckled wings snapped out from my back and caught the air, swooping me aloft on a hot, acrid updraft. I quickly wheeled back to the outcropping and closed my highly flammable wings.

“Wow!” Total’s voice reached me over the sounds of the eruption, and then I saw his small, black Scottie-like head peer out from a shallow cave beneath the boulders. He came and stood next to me, his paws stepping gingerly on the hot ground. His small black wings were tucked neatly along his back. Did I mention that everyone in my mutant flock had wings? Yup, even our talking dog.

“I thought you were a goner,” he said, nose wrinkling from the horrible smell.

“Your faith in me is touching, Total.” I tried to steady my voice, but it sounded hollow and shaky.

Gazzy came out and nodded up at the volcano with seriously misplaced admiration. “She’s a feisty one. This is just the start of it.” With his love of fire and explosions, this eruption was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

“The lava’s, what? Fifty feet wide?” I backed up as the edge of the outcropping began to get swallowed up by the tar-like river — a thick black goo with brilliant flashes of orange where molten stone glowed with heat. “We’ll fly across, find a safer place on the northern side.”

Gazzy nodded. “Right now we can. But see that molten mudslide rolling toward us? It’s about two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. If we don’t get to high ground fast, we’re cooked.”

It already felt like my clothes were melting onto my body — clearly Gazzy knew what he was talking about.

“Let’s move!” I yelled.

Fang was already grabbing up the backpacks. Always calm and always competent, he was the steady rock to my whirling tornado. I rushed to join him, trying not to wince as my burned hand throbbed. We didn’t have much, but what we had we couldn’t replace: Besides our few weapons, we had some clothing stripped from the dead, cans of food that had washed up on shore, medicinal herbs plucked from now-extinct trees.

“Okay,” I panted. “Have we got everything?”

Nudge shook her head, her lovely face smudged with soot. “But if the lava reaches the lake...”

Then the water supply we’ve stored there will be obliterated.

“I’ll go back for the jugs,” Dylan and I said at the same time.

“The sulfur levels just tripled!” Iggy shouted. “Smells like acid rain!”

“I’ll go,” Dylan repeated firmly.

Fang was my true love, but Dylan had literally been created to be a perfect partner for me: It would be against his nature not to protect me if he could. It was both endearing and maddening, because, hello? I’m not so much a damsel in distress as I am an ass-kicking mutant bird kid.

Now Dylan touched my burned hand so tenderly that for a second I forgot about being tough and was just grateful for his help during the chaos. He nodded at the other kids. “They need you here. Just work on getting everyone to the northern beaches, and I’ll be back in a minute.”

I frowned. “Yeah. But be careful, okay?”

“You’re not actually worried about me, are you, Max?” His turquoise eyes twinkled playfully.

“No,” I said, making an ew face at him.

He laughed. “I’ll catch up.”

I turned, smiling and shaking my head, and of course there was Fang, standing behind me silent as a shadow. He cocked an eyebrow and I flushed. I opened my mouth to say something, but he was already reaching past me for the backpack Dylan had left.

“Hover chain?” Fang asked brusquely. He knew me better than anyone, so he knew when to leave things alone. When I nodded, he unfurled his huge black wings, then leaned down and picked up Akila. A big, beautiful malamute, she was the only non-mutant among us — and the love of Total’s life. Trying not to breathe the poisonous air, Fang leaped up and took off across the steaming river of molten rock.

“Okay, Iggy,” I ordered. “You’re up next! Nudge, get ready. Total, wings out. Gazzy and Angel, I’ll be right behind you. Let’s go, go, go!”

When I was sure my flock was airborne, I shook out my wings and followed, pushing down hard with each stroke as I struggled through the swirling ash. Burning and smoking debris pelted me from above, and waves of lava roiled below. The air was so toxic I could actually feel my lungs shriveling.

It was a short, hard flight. There was a fierce swirling wind from above that pushed us down almost as hard as we pushed up against it. The lava below us burned a deep red-orange, and as it took in more oxygen, it crackled loudly and started to spit. It took all my strength to stay aloft as my flight feathers curled up in embers. I blinked away tears, trying to spot my flock through the sizzling smoke and steam. The skin on my ankles started to blister — I was literally being slow-roasted, and I prayed that the others had made it across.

You are in a cool place. You are in Alaska. It’s freezing. Cool air in your lungs... I saw Fang emerge from the steam, a dark figure carrying a large dog. Everyone else was across now, but I veered back over the river of lava to do one final sweep, make sure we had everything...

My neck snapped sideways as a red-hot rock smacked into my head, and before I knew it I was careening down again toward the smoking, burping mouth of hell. I managed a strangled scream and then felt my whole body jerk as a hand yanked me upward.

“Gotcha.” Fang smirked at me with that crooked smile of his and held me in his arms. “What do you say we get outta here?” Even with the chaos swirling around us, my heart skipped a beat at that smile.

Our feet sank into the far bank just before the mudslide surged into the river. It sent lava shooting up hundreds of feet like a fizzy explosion of orange soda, but we were already out of its reach. And even though my feathers were smoking and my eyebrows were singed and I was gagging on ash, I was grinning as I ran.

We made it. We’ve all—

“Wait.” I skidded to a stop and turned around.

“What is it?” Fang asked, still tugging at my hand.

The hot air pressed in and sweat dripped down my face, but cold horror gripped my stomach like a fist.

“Where’s Dylan?”

Hours later, the swirling wind had turned into a pouring rainstorm. I squinted into the rain and billowing steam, scanning the horizon, searching for the silhouette of a kid with a fifteen-foot wingspan.

I began pacing back and forth across the rocky ledge on the northern side of the island, which was our go-to meeting place. All I saw was the volcano in the distance, still belching its plume of black smoke into the sky.

Just three months ago, this island had been a tropical paradise, a safe haven for dozens of mutant kids like us. That was before some kind of huge meteor had crashed into Earth and killed most everyone on it, as far as we knew. Then the resulting tsunamis arrived to flood our paradise, including the underground caves where the dwellings were.

Where my mom and half sister were.

We’d tried to leave, but the meteor’s impact had devastated everything within immediate flying distance. The neighboring islands? As black and crispy as toasted marshmallows. And part of me couldn’t just leave without some hope that my mom and Ella had somehow survived the floods. But now, with this erupting volcano as a strong motivator, we had to go whether I wanted to or not.