James Patterson: Maximum Ride Forever

For hours we stayed close to the shore where the ash was less dense, and took turns flying through the debris to search the cliffs. But the volcano was still pumping black smoke, and the air was getting harder to breathe.

I was bent over after one of these missions, hacking up some blood and wondering if my fast-healing ability included my guts, when I spotted a charred gray knob poking out of the rubble.

“Another cave bone,” I sighed. “Looks kind of femur-y.” That’s how we had known the island’s underwater tunnels had collapsed after the apocalyptic meteor: The corpses had started washing up on shore. We were still finding them, almost three months later. I didn’t know if any of the bones had belonged to my mother or my half sister. How would I be able to tell?

“Not necessarily.” Fang’s lips pressed together.

I held it up: Though charred, it was totally a human femur.

Gazzy shook his head. “It’s burned. We don’t know how old it is. The lava would’ve done that if it had been a cave corpse or someone more recently, like...”

Yesterday.

I was having trouble swallowing, trouble breathing.

“Let’s go back to the cave,” Nudge said gently. “We can try another path—”

I whirled around. “Angel, try to tap into Dylan’s thoughts. He’s got to be somewhere. He’s just hiding. Or looking for us. I’m sure he’s nearby.”

Angel looked away.

“Ig? Can’t you smell him or something?”

Iggy leaned heavily against a rock. Flakes of ash fell from his white-blond hair when he shook his head. Though his eyes were unseeing, they were full of pity.

“It’s not him,” I insisted, kicking ash back over the bones.

“It’s like Dylan’s cognitive connection just stopped,” Angel said finally. “Like with your mom and Ella—”

“We never found their bodies.” My jaw tightened. “We don’t know what happened to them. Just like we don’t know what happened... here.”

It was getting harder to say his name.

“Everything is dead, Max.” Angel’s tone was firm. “Everything except us.”

“No.” I wanted to shake her.

“Guys.”

I looked down the beach. At first I couldn’t make out what Fang was holding, it was so black and warped. Then he turned it over, and I saw a tiny flash of color.

That spot of bright green — a shade Dylan loved, that none of us had seen since the last of the trees had died — was enough to buckle my knees, and enough to force out the awful, wounded sob that had been building in my chest all day.

Because that burned-to-cinders object Fang cradled in his hand was one of Dylan’s size-twelve sneakers.

I watched the shadow of our V moving across the water hundreds of feet below — one dog in a harness, one bird kid short on the right side — and clutched the charred sneaker tighter to my chest as my wings carried me. We couldn’t give Dylan a twelve-gun salute, or even a funeral. At least we could give him one last flight.

I banked left, and the flock fell into line behind me, following like an extension of my own body. Ahead of us, sunlight peeked through the eerie rainbow of color that had illuminated the sky since D-day. Below us, the water still churned with the rough waves left over from the tsunami, and a chain of volcanoes rose from the depths of the ocean. Their combined cloud of ash was racing to cover everything, from the pink cliffs of the islands to the white feathers of Angel’s wings.

I’d thought flying would make me feel better, like it always had. Wind rustling my hair and muting my thoughts as I soared into the open. No sounds, no obstacles — just the ocean before us and sky all around. Freedom.

Growing up in a cage makes you really appreciate open spaces.

But it had been a while since I’d seen the world this way, and taken stock of all we’d lost. Cities. People. The grief felt like a cold, hard knot in the center of me, pulling me down, down into all that gray water.

I felt a hand on my left shoulder and sensed Fang’s dark figure just outside my peripheral vision. “You okay?” I nodded and slowed down, realizing we’d been flying for probably half a day.

I’d just wanted to get ahead of the cloud, to lay Dylan to rest under a clear sky. But the ash was moving too fast.

I held the shoe out and the kids hovered in a circle. It was just a shoe, just a piece of half-melted rubber. I took a breath.

You have to do it. Do it for the flock.

“Good-bye, Dylan,” I whispered.

“Good-bye,” my flock echoed.

Then I opened my fingers. Just like that.

As I watched the sneaker plummet, I remembered Dylan falling from the roof when I’d taught him to fly, barely a year ago. The feeling of his body beside mine that night we took refuge in the desert. The tree house he had made just for me. His last words: “I’ll catch up.” Wasn’t he always trying to catch up with me? I drew a shaky breath.

No.

I dove hard, reaching toward the chunk of blackened rubber. But I was too late, and I watched the waves swallow up all that remained of Dylan.

I flipped and shot back into the sky, angry tears streaming down my face. He was just one more person who had fallen beyond my reach. Like my mom and Ella.

I’d refused to believe it. Even when Angel stopped hearing their thoughts from the underground caves, and even when the months had passed without any sign of life other than us, I couldn’t accept that we were all alone.

Their bodies could still be there, somewhere.

“Let’s turn back,” I shouted over my shoulder.

Fang looked alarmed. “You want to go back to the island?”

“It’s our home.” My words were thick, threatening another waterfall. Their home.

He flew up next to my ear. “Max, it’s a wasteland,” he said urgently. “And even if we could somehow breathe the air, we’ll never make it back before nightfall.”

“It doesn’t—”

“Them’s the rules, Max.” Angel’s voice in my head.

“I felt a pressure change a couple of miles back — I’m pretty sure we passed land to the west,” Iggy offered from my other side. Despite his blindness — or because of it — his other senses were sharper than razors. “It might be worth checking out.”

We’d passed other islands before, but most were tiny — no shelter, no fresh water. When we reached the one Iggy had felt, it was different. Bigger. We couldn’t even see where it ended. Actually, we couldn’t see much: Three active volcanoes just off the coast were spewing towers of lava and ash. It made us feel right at home. Not.

It was a big detour to get around them, but once we were closer to the huge island we saw square cliffs in the distance, spaced like jack-o’-lantern teeth. And near the water’s edge, a blur of something big and white and triangular.

Like sails billowing in the wind.

“Is that a ship?” My heart sped up.

Are there people here? Alive?

“No, it’s...” Nudge hesitated. “I think it’s the Sydney Opera House.”

I spun around to stare at her. “How do you know what that even looks like?”

“Because I know things,” she replied curtly. “More than you think I do.” And then, “Haven’t you ever seen Finding Nemo ?”

I cackled. “That is not seriously what you’re basing—”

“Actually, I think I’d recognize the pinnacle of modern architecture,” Total said, “and that is not ...”

I tuned him out, really studying the shoreline. I saw the skeletal remains of a bridge in the surrounding harbor, and the white blur started to look more like a building than a boat. But it didn’t make sense — Sydney, Australia, was a huge city.