James Patterson - Maximum Ride Forever

Kids who had probably already murdered dozens of people and were now coming at us from all sides.

The reality of the situation set in: We were totally screwed.

Harry was in the corner, with his neck tucked in and his feathers all puffed out, rocking back and forth, banging his shoulders against the bars in desperation.

“Get in the middle!” I yelled, and yanked him close to me. “Crouch down. Quick!”

Harry and I huddled together as the lynch mob rocked the cage with frenzied bloodlust. For a brief moment, I was grateful for those thick metal bars holding us in — they were also keeping everyone else out. Then the kids started poking knives and sticks through the spaces.

So we’ll just die a little slower, then.

All the horrible deaths I’d read about on the blog had been true, and now there would be two more. Even if the Remedy wasn’t in this room, he’d gotten to me.

There had never been hope for any of us.

Harry leaned his head back and made a horrible, high-pitched sound, and though I’d only known him for a couple of days, his plaintive cry awoke a fierce maternal instinct in me.

I stood up, sheltering him from the blows like I would my own flock. In my mind I saw flashes of their faces twisted in pain — Fang’s anger, Iggy’s shock, and Nudge’s fear — and though I wanted to break down, I became a stone. I knew I was just delaying the inevitable, but if they wanted Harry, they’d have to go through me first.

The Doomsday kids pressed their hateful faces against the bars, leering as their arms swiped at me with knives and hangers, fingernails and pieces of glass.

At first I fought them. I broke fingers and tried to pry weapons from fists. I used every self-defense move I’d learned over the years, every honed skill. But I was locked in a box that made me vulnerable on all sides. If I wielded a knife, it was knocked from my hands. If I leaned back from a swinging fist, another ripped out a handful of my hair. They gouged and slashed, tore and pummeled. There were just too many of them.

Like the fake Remedy had said, I’d been brought here to die. My life was going to end like it had started — caged like an animal, being poked and prodded, with absolutely nowhere to run.

I clenched my fists together and stood stronger, prouder, even as my arms ached and I lost all hope. I wasn’t going to cry.

“You’re all cowards!” I snarled. “At least I didn’t give up! At least I didn’t—”

Something struck the side of my head and I fell, crumpling to the floor.

When I blinked and looked up, Harry’s wings were open, cramming the small space full of feathers.

“Harry, what are you...?” I asked, dazed with pain.

When Harry thrust his wings out through the bars, leaving them completely exposed to the murderous masses, I thought he was giving up. Until he started to flap.

Amazingly, the cage floor shifted below my feet and I tumbled sideways. Some of the Doomsday kids took advantage and beat me harder or gouged at Harry’s fluttering wings, but most were staring with open mouths and puzzled looks.

Incredibly, the cage was rising off the ground.

Harry’s face turned red, and veins popped out of his neck as he strained. Me, the metal cage, the kids gripping the bottom... Harry’s head was tilted forward and he was supporting the full weight of it on his shoulders as his wings flailed outside the bars.

He was that good of a flier.

I scrambled to my feet and joined him, shoving my wings out through the bars, pumping in rhythm with his so we wouldn’t collide. After just a few seconds, my strength was already starting to fail me.

But with the added power of my wings, the kids couldn’t hold us down anymore. The cage jerked us side to side, rebounding as, one by one, their hands fell away from the floor.

“We’re doing it!” I marveled as, untethered, we carried our small prison up and over the stadium seating. The cult members chased after us, shaking their fists and chanting their words of sacrifice, but we’d already flown high into the top of the dome.

We were actually getting away.

We smashed the cage against the ceiling, the impact jolting me down to my toes. Then Harry’s face grew even more determined and we rose again. And smashed again. My teeth snapped shut hard and I tasted blood.

“What are you doing?” I yelled. “Harry, stop!”

One last time, still trapped inside our metal box, we crashed smack into the ceiling. One last time the force ricocheted through my body, chattering my teeth and rattling my bones.

The heavy door of the cage sprang open just as the ceiling broke from the impact. Chunks of plaster rained down, we scrambled away as the cage dropped, and then we were bursting through the ceiling into the sky above. A huge clang and some screams of agony told me the cage had landed.

We didn’t have to talk — we just flew high, hard, and fast, until the building was out of sight. When I could finally speak without coughing, what came out was laughter. Rolling, uncontrollable giggles that almost sounded like sobs.

Somehow, once again, I’d made it out alive, and I felt so shaken, so insanely grateful, that I had to put the rest of my dark reality aside for the moment and just laugh it out.

Harry looked alarmed at the sounds I was making, so I tried to get my hiccupping snorts under control, and held up my hand for a high five.

“Good job, Harry!” I said. At the sound of his name, that dazzling smile was back, along with his dimples.

I choked out another laugh. “Well, that was a pretty epic escape, huh?” I said.

In response, Harry crowed and soared even higher. I knew exactly how he felt — man, it felt good to be free again.

Even this far from the city, you could see the explosion’s effects. Many trees were stripped of bark, others look singed, and many of them had simply been broken off right above the ground.

There was still some life, though, scampering through the underbrush, and Harry was already scanning the ground for prey. My stomach rumbled at the idea. We hadn’t eaten in almost two days — since the rattlesnake feast Harry had delivered.

Harry screeched like an owl as he swooped low to the ground, and when I followed suit, my voice came out like a war cry. It felt good to be loud and primal, to hunt our own dinner in the woods, to stretch my wings and know my speed and feel my power.

By the time the sun had completely set, we’d strung more than a dozen rodents up over the fire. For dinner, we had a mix of radiation rat, charred chipmunk, and nuclear squirrel. It was absolutely disgusting.

And absolutely delicious.

“This is just like the old days,” I reminisced, tearing into the gamey flesh. “When we were running from the whitecoats, me and the flock—”

I stopped, worried about letting those dark emotions in, but Harry was looking at me with wide, curious eyes, and I wanted to talk about my family. I needed to feel like they were still right here.

Or needed to believe they were still somewhere .

“Here, look.”

I licked squirrel juice off my fingers and grabbed a nearby twig. “Here’s me, Maximum,” I said, tracing a simple shape in the dirt — a stick figure with two triangles for wings. I added another next to it. And then five more. I even drew Total, but he came out more like a fuzzy sausage with a weird growth on his back.

I told Harry about Nudge’s love of fashion, about how Total had adored Akila, and how Iggy was the only one of us who could cook. I described the tree house Dylan had built me and how Fang had pulled me out of the swirling tsunami.

I missed them all desperately, and even if Harry didn’t understand, it just felt good to say their names.