James Patterson - Maximum Ride Forever

“Nice going, doofus,” Iggy grumbled.

“I was just trying to be neighborly,” Gazzy said, his voice echoing around the small room. “What if they had really needed our help?”

The boys were on their hands and knees, scrubbing crusty cement walls with hard-bristled brushes and heavy-duty chemicals. Iggy sat back on his heels and nodded at the armed guard he heard pacing the scaffolding above them.

“Pro tip, macho man: When someone has a crossbow pointed at your head, they’re probably not all that vulnerable.”

“I said I was sorry!”

The room was at least a hundred feet underground, at the very bottom of the silo. The dim light made it hard to see — and though that didn’t make much difference to Iggy, Gazzy was grateful. He didn’t want to know what the walls looked like, or what they were scrubbing.

They could both smell it well enough.

“ ‘ Men’s work ,’ ” Iggy scoffed, shaking his head. “Oh, would Max get a kick out of this. I can almost hear her laughing from across the ocean.”

“At least Max never made us clean toilets,” Gazzy said, dunking his brush into a rusty metal pail of cleaner.

“We call it the dump tank,” the guard called from above them. “We figured since most guys are crap, you two would feel right at home.”

“I’m pretty sure that girl with the black hair has a thing for me,” Gazzy said wistfully as they worked.

Iggy shook his head. “ That’s what you’re thinking about right now? Man, you sure have a one-track mind.”

“Hey, she totally wiggled her eyebrows in my direction. I think she was checking out my wings.” Gazzy spread his wings proudly in the darkness, as if the girl were watching right now.

But Iggy was skeptical. “She was, like, probably almost twice your age.”

“Women dig a younger man. When we get out of here, I’m gonna make some fireworks — you know, romance her the old-fashioned way.”

“I’m glad someone has motivation.”

Iggy’s mind was on something else, though. He was remembering what the leader, Jackie, had said — that the woods were almost picked clean of food. The guys had thought they’d finally found an untouched paradise among all the wreckage, but it sounded like they wouldn’t be able to survive here for long. And neither would these girls.

“Gasman? I’ve been thinking,” Iggy said in a more serious tone. He heard Gazzy stop scrubbing for a second, waiting for him to continue. “Maybe we should join up with the flock again. Somebody needs to stand up to this Remedy dude, and there are obviously some tough survivors left in the world.”

As nervous as Iggy had been when they were first surrounded, when he’d learned that this troupe of street-smart survivors was against the Remedy, his spirit had been buoyed with hope.

“If we met up with Angel, and convinced some of these girls to join us...” Iggy trailed off.

“Then we might just stand a chance,” Gazzy finished. Iggy couldn’t see, but Gazzy’s eyes were glistening.

“Let’s do it,” he said enthusiastically, and nudged Iggy’s shoulder. “Let me just go grab my girlfriend, and we can leave for Russia right now!”

They heard a gurgling sound, and then a pipe protruding from the wall started to spit. Fresh sludge surged onto the floor.

“Gross!”

The guard laughed as they scrambled away from the slime. “You missed a spot,” she taunted.

“It’s a regular comedy hour down here,” Iggy muttered, lifting his wet feet in disgust.

Gazzy watched the waste circling down the drain. “What’s the point of cleaning this place if it just keeps pumping down?”

Iggy pulled his shirt up over his nose to filter the fresh stink. “There is no point,” he said, his voice muffled. “ That’s the point — we’re unnecessary.”

“Ugh, I just can’t take the smell,” Gazzy said, gagging.

Iggy chuckled to himself. “Oh, Gasman, I think that aroma’s called karma .”

Gazzy socked Iggy in the arm.

“Wait, I smell something else,” Iggy whispered suddenly. “There’s someone in here with us.”

Horseman stepped from the shadows and clamped a hand over the Gasman’s mouth before he could turn around.

“Don’t move,” Horseman whispered, keenly aware of the guard standing overhead. “Stay calm.”

But when you’ve spent your entire life running, someone telling you not to move seems pretty suspicious.

The Gasman bit down on Horseman’s fingers so hard that, even through the gloves, he almost cut through bone. Horseman cursed, hunching over his wounded hand, and everything dissolved into quick chaos.

“Get out of here, Iggy!” Gazzy screamed.

Iggy shook his head. “I won’t leave—”

“Go!” Gazzy insisted, pulling something from his pocket. “I’m right behind you!”

“What’s going on?” the guard demanded, waving her crossbow. “Who’s that down there?”

Iggy heard the snag of the match and dove for the ladder just as Gazzy tossed the small flame into the bucket of chemicals they’d been using for cleaning.

And then the blast drowned out everything.

It made the walls shudder and the floor disappear. It blew Gazzy, Iggy, and Horseman upward. Horseman shot his arm out to catch the ladder, dangling to the side. As smoke billowed up through the shaft, the dangerous mix of chemicals burned his eyes. He squeezed them shut, but the insides of his eyelids felt like they were lined with thorns.

He didn’t have time to worry about it, though — just kept his eyes shut and scrambled up the ladder as fast as he could, three rungs at a time. The fire alarm was wailing, and the army of girls was spilling out of the floors he’d been blown past.

“Breach!” they shouted when they saw Horseman on the ladder. “Stop him!”

Two arrows whizzed past his ears, and he heard the warriors climbing after him in fierce pursuit. He hadn’t heard the Gasman or Iggy since the explosion.

Horseman’s left hand felt nearly crippled, but the chute was too narrow to fly through, so he did the only thing he could do: He climbed as fast as possible.

His eyes still burned, and he tried opening them. Tears poured down his cheeks — everything was blurry and he couldn’t see through the smoke. The ladder seemed endless, but finally, after at least a hundred rungs of agony, Horseman burst out of the silo and blinked painfully in the light. His eyes were still tearing, but a quick glance showed him that the bird kids were nowhere to be seen. He turned quickly to screw down the heavy cement lid over the manhole, ignoring the loud bangs coming from beneath his feet — he’d deal with the group later.

He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and turned over his wrist, where he saw a number of impatient queries on the screen. The letters blurred — had the chemicals permanently damaged his vision? — but Horseman knew the gist of his master’s concerns. He tapped out a quick message to the Remedy: “The Gasman is dead. The kid blew himself up.”

Standing on top of the silo, Horseman turned in a slow circle.

Now, where is Iggy?

Horseman saw the flash out of the corner of his eye — a figure disappearing into the trees like a pale ghost.

“Iggy!” Horseman called, blazing after him on the trail through the pines. “Let’s not make this harder than it has to be.”

Horseman didn’t exactly enjoy this part of the job — the kids’ fear reminded him too much of how he felt around the doctor — but he knew his body was made for the hunt. His wings were longer, his body stronger, and he had the eyesight of a hawk.