James Patterson - Maximum Ride Forever

Fang had been so weak he hadn’t sought out proper shelter. Cursing his carelessness, he flattened himself against the dusty red earth.

He’d spent days trying to track down the H-men and hadn’t been able to catch even a whiff of their scent in the crackling desert air. Now that he was in such bad shape, the Remedy’s goons were the very last people he wanted to encounter.

That was the way the world worked, though: Life always managed to surprise you with child assassins at just the right moment. And find him they did.

“Well, look what we have here,” a stocky boy said with obvious delight when he almost stepped on Fang.

So much for hiding.

“Nice score, Chuck.” Another kid with bright yellow hair and a face erupting with acne stumbled into view.

The boys couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen, but they already had the swagger of abusive power. Fang eyed the shotguns slung over their shoulders. They held the guns with casual affection, obviously used to handling them.

“You said the scavengers had picked these trails clean,” chubby Chuck said to his companion. He nodded at Fang’s wounds. “Looks like they got a taste and decided the meat was too tough.”

That’s not too far off base , Fang thought.

“Lucky for me, my Benelli doesn’t discriminate,” the blond one said, his hand caressing the gun.

Fang stared back at them from sunken eye sockets. Were these posturing preteens, who days earlier he could’ve knocked out cold with a flick of the wrist, really going to be his executioners? Fang actually started laughing at his sorry situation.

“Is something funny?” Chuck demanded, trying to sound tough but verging on a whine. “Keep laughing. We’ll shut you up by cutting out your tongue before we kill you.”

“Or we could just string you up in a dead tree,” the nameless pimpled punk offered. “Leave you for the vultures to polish off.”

“Go ahead, please prove your manhood by one-upping each other in acts of cruelty,” Fang said dryly. If they didn’t use the guns, he might stand a chance. Maybe.

Trying not to wince, Fang struggled to his feet. The boys immediately cocked their weapons, their faces twitching nervously, but neither shot.

“Who do you think you are?” the blond kid demanded, and Fang didn’t miss the slight quiver in his voice. He would take full advantage of it.

Fang unfurled his huge wings. With his black feathers framing his scabbed face and haunted eyes, he looked like the Angel of Death, and he knew it. He smiled, and the blond kid stumbled backward, suddenly pale.

“Renny, look at him,” Chuck chided, awestruck. “He’s obviously a Horseman. Idiot.”

Fang kept his poker face. He still had no idea what the H-men looked like, but if he could convince these twerps he was one of them, he’d take it.

“A Horseman?” Renny asked excitedly. “Maaan. Who did you fight?” He glanced at Fang’s scars and bruises.

“A whole bunch of... survivors,” Fang said, mildly amused. If he played along, maybe he could actually get some information out of these morons.

“Did you cut their heads off?” Chuck asked, his cruel eyes sparkling. “I heard they’re like zombies — if you don’t cut off the head, they’re not dead.”

Fang’s jaw twitched with fury as he imagined his flock’s necks stretched over chopping blocks.

“The weak must be rooted out,” Chuck recited. “The earth shall be cleansed so we may evolve.”

Pretty sure that’s not how evolution works.

Fang stared at these little monsters with black, unblinking eyes. “Who did you say you were with again?”

“We serve the One Light,” Renny said. He lowered his gun and sat on the rock across from Fang.

So the Doomsday Group is still alive, still wreaking destruction.

When the flock had run across the cult a year ago, its glassy-eyed members had a mission of global genocide. The flock had done a lot to break the cult up, but obviously not enough.

Since then, apparently someone had taken things to the next level.

“We’re hoping the Remedy will turn us into Horsemen one day,” the yellow-haired boy continued chattily. “They say you just have to kill fifty survivors. I’m only at seven so far, but Chuck’s already up to like twenty.”

“Twenty-two,” the bigger kid corrected.

Fang had no doubt that number was an exaggeration, but from the naked meanness in Chuck’s eyes, Fang was sure he’d killed at least a couple of helpless souls.

Fifty people , Fang thought disgustedly. The Remedy was convincing kids all over the world to kill at least fifty innocent people each.

“That’s just a rumor,” he said. “The Remedy values intelligence above all in his elite squad.” He raised a skeptical eyebrow at Chuck. “Guess that means you boys are out of luck. Sorry.”

“I could do anything the Remedy asked me to do,” Chuck said hotly, his round cheeks flushing with color.

“Maybe you could train us,” Renny suggested eagerly. “Teach us what it takes to be an elite soldier.”

“Maybe so,” Fang said. “My services aren’t free, though. You got any food?”

Renny nodded and fished some jerky from his pocket.

“Okay, then.” Fang’s dark irises glittered with contempt. “Class is now in session.”

“First lesson: murdering people to purify the population isn’t evolution,” Fang explained in his patient teacher voice. “That’s genocide.”

Chuck squinted at him, obviously weighing Fang’s words against what he’d been taught. He wasn’t quite ready to challenge Fang, though — not without the support of the other kid. And Renny was looking up at Fang with open adoration, his shotgun leaning against the rock pile.

“And second...” Fang walked slowly around the boys, noting the positions of cacti in his path as he gathered strength to make his move. “If you like to pick on the weak, you should remember that there’s always someone stronger than you.”

Moving fast, Fang kicked Renny’s gun away, then snap-kicked the kid’s knees before he could make a move. He spun around, lunging toward Chuck, but the bigger kid had already flipped his weapon to his hip.

“ These make us strong,” he said, curling his lip as he pointed it at Fang. “Freak.”

And then he pulled the trigger.

Fang launched himself into a somersault right as he heard the first loud pop-pop-pop and saw the dust fly at his feet.

Then, when he grimly expected the next volley of bullets to rip into his flesh, Fang heard Renny squeal and Chuck groan instead.

Turning, he saw a blur of motion: a sneaker driving into Renny’s gut, pigtails flying as legs propelled in a windmill toward Chuck’s red face. All of this was at lightning speed, too — by the time the shells from the first round hit the ground, the acrobatic avenger had both boys on the ground, curled up, gun free, and moaning.

“Star?” Fang said, recognizing the preppy blonde who’d been a member of his mutant gang when he’d broken off from the flock. Star had supernatural speed, sometimes moving too fast to be seen. And even in this stifling heat, she hadn’t broken a sweat.

“Think you can handle them now?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she sped off.

“As I was saying...” Fang looped the rifle slings around his neck. “There’s always going to be someone more skilled than you, more powerful than you. Now, march.”

Fang hauled both boys up by their shirt collars and prodded them in the back with a rifle. Ideally he’d love to pick them up and fly around with them until they barfed, but he wasn’t up to that. Not in the shape he was in. He would have to improvise.