James Patterson - Maximum Ride Forever

“They’re not all mutants, either,” Gazzy said. “Like the girls we brought from the silo — they’re human, but they’re super hard-core.” He beamed. I raised a suggestive eyebrow, and Gazzy snickered, always the lady-killer. “There’s also a lot of lab escapees, like the bug boys over there.”

I followed his gaze to where a bunch of small, athletic kids were kicking around a ball of newspaper tied with rope in place of a soccer ball. They almost didn’t look like mutants at all, except for the hard brown shell that started on their upper arms and went down their backs. There was a paler kid with them who seemed familiar.

“Is that...”

“Holden from Fang’s gang?” Iggy said. “Yeah, that’s the Starfish. They actually have contests over who has the weirder epidermis.” He chuckled. “Kate and Ratchet are here, too, somewhere.”

“Kate?” I jerked my head around to stare at Angel. “The traitor?”

“I found her and Ratchet in San Francisco, in an abandoned mall,” Angel explained. “They were emaciated, living off whatever hadn’t rotted in the food court. Almost everyone else within a thousand miles had died of the H8E virus, but since they were immune, they’d set up a clinic and were transfusing their own blood to save other kids.”

Well, what little martyrs.

“But she still betrayed Fang,” I repeated, emphasizing each word with my open palm. “She and Star sold him out to Jeb.”

It had meant the death of my clone, Maya, and the dissolution of Fang’s gang.

“Trust me, Kate regrets that,” Angel said. “That’s why she’s here — to fix what she did. And we’re going to need her strength against the Remedy’s forces.”

Dylan nodded in agreement, and I remembered what he’d told me about the Horsemen, how they were almost superhuman. Kate might have lightning reflexes and be able to punch with the force of a wrecking ball, but she could never “fix” what she’d done.

“Speaking of Fang’s gang,” Total said curiously, twitching his furry ears. “Where is our dark, brooding brother?”

“Yeah, I thought Fang was coming with you guys,” Iggy said. “Dylan told us—”

“Fang is dead,” Angel answered bluntly.

The words were still like knives, slicing up my heart.

“Yeah, right.” Gazzy started to laugh but then saw the looks on our faces, and his expression morphed into horror. “What do you mean, he’s dead ?”

“He was killed by Horsemen,” Dylan said, clenching his fist. “I tried to stop it, but there were just too many of them.”

The words tore through the flock like a hurricane. It hurt to see them realize that nothing would ever be the same.

Nudge’s face crumpled and she buried her face in Dylan’s shoulder as her body shook with sobs. Total flopped on the ground, wailing. Tears ran down Gazzy’s cheeks and he sat abruptly, ripping at blades of grass. Angel rubbed his back, trying to comfort her big brother.

Iggy walked off to the side and blindly stared into the woods, his body incredibly still, his face a mask I couldn’t read. Just like after Ella.

Only I stood alone, my eyes dry. I wouldn’t revisit that grief — not yet. At that point I felt only pure, distilled anger, a seemingly bottomless well of fury.

At Angel, for saying it would happen. At Dylan, for making it true. At myself, for letting him go.

And at Fang, most of all, for leaving. For dying.

How could I ever, ever forgive him for that?

So when Total suggested we say some words for Fang, when Gazzy said we would fight the battle in his name, and when Nudge wanted to hold a candlelit vigil, I bit down hard on my tongue to keep from screaming.

I didn’t want to tell stories or share memories. I didn’t know if I could even say his name.

With the taste of blood in my mouth, I shoved my hands in my pockets and turned away.

“Max?” Nudge called after me, a quaver in her voice.

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” I said as I walked away from my family. I trudged deeper into the camp, ducking under clotheslines and trying to lose myself in the sea of strangers.

“I just can’t.”

The next day, the camp buzzed with nervous energy as everyone prepared for battle.

Iggy and Gazzy had rigged up a catapult out of fallen trees, and Holden was shouting directions about angle placement and velocity. All around me, kids were trying to psych each other up, banging their weapons together like they’d seen in movies, even though no one knew what we were up against.

Most of us didn’t, anyway.

Angel was the one who’d gathered us here, and of course she was nowhere in sight. And Dylan was the one person who’d actually seen the underground layout, and so far, he’d told us nothing.

We were here. It was time. What were we waiting for?

Restless, I wandered through the muddy rows of the camp, veering right to avoid a damp-eyed prayer circle Nudge was leading, complete with candles. I ground my teeth.

“Not into that praying crap, either, huh?”

Startled, I turned to see Ratchet lying on a tarp, doing sit-ups.

“We’re gonna win or we’re gonna lose. Personally, I think we’re gonna lose. But either way, praying to some yahoo isn’t going to change anything.”

“Where’s Kate?” I asked.

“Over with the baby general.” Ratchet nodded past me without breaking rhythm.

About a hundred yards away, near the edge of the woods, Angel was talking to Kate and Dylan.

“If they wanna whisper secrets,” Ratchet said, taking a breath, “maybe they shouldn’t be so loud about it.”

I could barely see their expressions from here, let alone hear their voices, but with his extraordinary senses, not much got past Ratchet.

“What secrets?”

Ratchet did several more sit-ups, his trademark aviator glasses reflecting back at me with each one. Finally, he stopped and wiped his forehead with his sleeve.

“Maybe you should go find out for yourself.”

When I approached, Angel seemed completely different than I’d ever seen her. Her voice was still the same, soft and young, but her tone was one of unmistakable authority. Sitting on a stump with her legs tucked under her, she looked like a child empress, consulting with her trusted advisors.

Which apparently didn’t include me.

As I approached, they stopped talking abruptly. Dylan coughed and shifted uneasily, and Kate flashed me a wide fake smile.

“Getting chummy in the cool kids’ club?” I asked.

“Hmm?” Angel said distractedly. “What is it, Max?”

“Sorry to break up this little party, but is someone going to explain what the heck is going on? Shouldn’t we be casing the entrances? Or at least organizing the giant mass of people you convinced to meet here?”

“Dylan and Kate have been working out a strategy of attack,” Angel said, standing. “And I was about to make an address on the field that should answer some of your questions.”

“All I need,” I said coldly, “is a face to smash my fist against.”

All eyes were on Angel now. Yet, hovering a hundred feet above the field, facing her makeshift army, she felt about as powerful as a sparrow.

Her wings ached from constant traveling. Like all bird kids, she was naturally skinny, but her weight had dropped dangerously from the stress. And after so many sleepless nights, she was almost delirious. Everything had been building to this, though — this was the most important moment in her life. Angel gathered her strength.

“Thank you for coming,” she began.

But her small, quivery voice was swallowed up by wind, and the kids below frowned uncertainly, fidgeted, whispered to one another. They stared up at the pale little girl who had led them here, her white wings keeping her aloft. They waited.