James Patterson - Maximum Ride Forever

“One man saw a smoking tree rising into the sky, its branches full. Another said it was a pale woman standing tall with a basket on her head. My sister, she says it is God they saw in the sky.”

I chewed my lip, thinking. Dead animals, burned men. Another seemingly huge disaster, but what did it have to do with a virus in Asia, or a betrayal in Russia?

“So none of these people were actually in the center? Was everyone else killed? You didn’t wonder what happened?”

The siblings looked at each other — that silent understanding I’d seen earlier. Nuru’s voice was soft when she spoke. “Yes. We wondered. But we cannot go back to the city.”

“Why not?”

Azizi got quiet for the first time all evening. He shrugged the bright purple cloak aside, and when he unwrapped his arm, I saw that his left hand was gone at the wrist.

“In our country, albinos are said to be good fortune. Witch doctors like to lie to the people to line their pockets. So there have been attacks...”

“Someone cut your hand off?” I gasped.

“Bad fortune for me,” Azizi said, somehow able to laugh about something so horrible.

“We came to the caldera because the Masai tribe thinks we are better luck alive than dead,” Nuru said. “Many times, they bring us their cattle blood milk.” She held out a cup to me.

I didn’t particularly love the idea of the vampire diet, but I wasn’t too picky these days. I also didn’t want to be rude, so I took a long swig.

“Mmm.” The mixture was thick, closer to pudding than milk, and wonderfully warm as it went down my throat. It was salty, with a sharp, coppery tang, but it wasn’t half bad.

“Yes, it is nourishing.” Nuru nodded as I tipped the clay cup back again. “This is the last of it now, so soon we will die.”

I sputtered, choking on the dregs — I couldn’t believe I’d just gulped down the last of their stash! “I’ll help you find food,” I promised, taking Nuru’s hand.

“There is nothing.” Azizi shook his head sadly. “We have searched as far as our feet can carry us. There are only bones.”

“I can search farther than you. And I can go into the city.” I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and shrugged it off my shoulders, stretching my wings long.

Azizi fell backward in the dirt, scrambling away in terror, but Nuru was grinning at me.

“You are a gift to us!” she exclaimed.

I had to smile. In the rest of the world, mutants were old news, but here, I was still a novelty. Here, people still thought I could help.

I stretched my limbs out on the woven rug. I felt the dried grasses poking through my sweatshirt, but I didn’t mind.

The earthy scent of the walls filled my nostrils, along with the musk of bodies packed close and old cooking spices — the smells of community.

I’d always thought of myself as so independent, but as I listened to Nuru’s and Azizi’s slow, steady breathing across the room, I realized just how terribly I’d missed my flock, and I finally felt some comfort.

In the moment before I drifted to sleep, the peaceful snoring stopped. Instead, I heard a ragged, nervous inhale, and my peripheral vision caught the arc of the blade swinging down behind my left shoulder.

My wings exploded outward, and I burst up through the mud roof before the knife could find its mark.

From twenty feet up in the air, still bewildered, I stared down through the wide, crumbling hole I’d torn in the hut. Nuru was on her feet, looking up at me, slack-jawed.

She was holding a machete.

I swooped back through the hole and tore it away from her, then glided out the door with it before my feet had ever touched the ground.

Nuru ran out of the hut, her brother trailing close behind.

I held the weapon in front of my face and plucked a cleanly halved feather off the blade. I exhaled a shaky breath.

So. Close.

When I looked back at Nuru and Azizi, the brother and sister I’d talked and laughed with, my temper exploded. “What were you doing with this thing?” I demanded, gesturing wildly.

“We are sorry,” Azizi said quickly, trying to smooth it over. “It is a mistake, you understand, a misunderstanding, that is all. Do not be angry with my sister.”

“We were only hungry, you see,” Nuru explained.

“You were going to eat me?” I asked, incredulous.

“Of course not!” Azizi answered. “We are not cannibals.”

“Just your wings,” Nuru admitted.

Call me crazy, but I didn’t find that very comforting.

“I told you I would help you find food,” I said sadly, turning away from the little bit of warmth I’d yearned for.

Obviously hoping my offer was still good, Azizi called, “Come back! We are sorry!”

“No doubt,” I answered, but I was already halfway across the desert by then.

Now what?

I had flown long enough for the cannibal creepshow to be far, far behind me, but my strength was giving out. I hadn’t seen anybody or anything for miles — no trees, no water, and definitely no food. I landed on a big pile of hard-packed dirt and thought. I was hungry and dehydrated, on the wrong continent, and completely alone. No flock, no Fang, no Dylan, no nobody.

Our island in the Pacific had been destroyed, apparently Australia had been destroyed, and now here I was in eastern Africa, which seemed extra destroyed.

That was a hefty chunk of the world. What in the heck had happened, to cause so much destruction on such a huge scale? Could any one being mastermind such a thing?

It was time to gather the very last dregs of my energy and head to Russia, thousands of miles north-northeast. The very thought made me want to cry. But first I had to—

“Gah!” I yelled, leaping up and flailing my arms and legs like a maniac. I whipped off my sweatshirt, tore off the undershirt beneath that, and scrambled out of my torn and worn-out jeans. Then I did a chaotic, herky-jerky shivering dance all across the dirt.

The mound I had been sitting on was a termite colony. And those little suckers had survived and were swarming all over me like white on rice.

“Gross, gross, gross!” I screamed, since no one was around to hear. I whirled and jumped and shook my hair out and rubbed my arms and legs until I seemed to be mostly termite free.

Then, panting, I looked back at my clothes, which were now a living carpet of pale white bugs. I was in my underwear and sports bra. I would not be going anywhere like this. I had a bit of mirror — I could maybe set the bugs on fire? That mirror was... safely in the front pocket of my jeans.

I stomped a couple of times and shouted every swear word I knew, which took almost ten minutes. Then, seething, I glared at the termites. Would they eat my clothes? I stared at the sweatshirt Nudge had given me until my eyes swam with tears and my vision blurred. Once my vision blurred, those stupid bugs looked just like... rice. I remembered that many animals, including humans, ate termites. The flock and I had eaten bugs before. Not termites, but big crickets, locusts, et cetera.

My stomach felt so hollow you could practically see my spine through it.

Time to suck it up, Maximum.

I lunged for my sweatshirt, grabbed it up, and started scarfing termites.

Two hours later I felt practically cheerful. That termite mound, once huge, was almost flat. I’d found termite nurseries where I could scoop up handfuls of pupae and wolf them down. Once I’d gotten used to the little feet and antennas tickling my throat, I’d started to appreciate their delicate, nutty flavor.

Now I lay flat on the ground, my belly full, my body surging to life with nourishment. “Yes, the African termite,” I murmured sleepily. “A bit tart, piquant, slightly reminiscent of quinoa...