Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure

Many thanks to Gabrielle Charbonnet, my coconspirator, who flies high and cracks wise

To the Reader

THE IDEA FOR the Maximum Ride series comes from earlier books of mine called When the Wind Blows and The Lake House, which also feature a character named Max who escapes from a quite despicable School. Most of the similarities end there. Max and the other kids in the Maximum Ride books are not the same Max and kids featured in those two books. Nor do Frannie and Kit play any part in the series. I hope you enjoy the ride anyway.

Prologue

AFTER

IT WAS NIGHT, and Angel was perched on the hot surface of the scorched rock cliff. Her wings were spread out behind her, her ravaged legs swinging into nothingness, her ears straining in the strange new silence.

It seemed wrong, this silence. Shouldn’t there be the din of destruction thundering around her? The crash of buildings sinking into rubble? Inconsolable wails mourning all that was lost? That the world as they’d known it had gone so quietly, slipping into the ether like an old, beaten dog, was disconcerting, to say the least. Wasn’t noise what the apocalypse was supposed to be about?

Where was the chaos?

But there had been chaos, Angel reminded herself. Before. There had been plenty of screaming, fire and brimstone, and panic. She had endured enough panic to last her a lifetime.

Angel hugged her knees to her chest and folded her dingy white wings around herself, cocoon-like. She traced her fingers along her scars and fought back the memories.

Despite the warnings from nature—the earthquakes, the floods—despite all the efforts of science—Angel winced, remembering the scalpels and fluorescent lightbulbs and blindingly white sheets—despite everything, in the end, the earth had been savagely claimed back for nature.

And despite Max’s missions and the flock’s preparations over the years, they still hadn’t been ready.

But then, who could ever really be ready for the end of the world?

You, Angel whispered to herself. You were ready.

Angel squinted into the darkness. She couldn’t see anything from her night perch on the cliff, but even in the light of day, the horizon didn’t look like anything familiar or natural. You didn’t see what was there—you saw the spaces between.

Watching Max fall had felt like that. Angel had imagined her grief as a blackness stretching out before her, the crushing weight of Max’s death a night without stars, without hope, without end. It had terrified her so much more than the idea of Armageddon.

The power inside her was the only thing that scared Angel now. That she had seen how it would happen. That she had known. That she hadn’t told anyone.

Angel tilted her head back to feel the chill of wind rustling her blond curls, now stringy and dirty. She listened in the silence. No whitecoats probing her, taunting her. No voices at all.

It almost felt like she was completely and totally alone. Almost.

Angel thought of the flock. Flying, diving together in one strong V, with Max at its center. She thought of Max holding her hand, calling Angel her baby. She wasn’t a baby anymore.

How many seven-year-olds had seen the world go up in flames?

Angel shut her eyes tight. She waited for the visions she had fought for so many years before coming to accept and even depend on them. But no future appeared before her.

For the first time in her young life, Angel had no idea what would happen next.

Book One

BEFORE

1

“IN WORLDVIEW THIS morning, whole villages in the Philippines have been demolished, and hundreds are missing as typhoons triggering massive mudslides continue to wreak havoc.”

I sat at the kitchen counter, staring at the small TV. The news anchor peered out at me with grave accusation. Yep, felt like a Monday.

“On the home front, officials rush to quell pockets of unrest as a subversive new movement takes hold in the cities.” The camera zoomed in on a glassy-eyed fanatic raving about an advanced society and how we must act now to preserve the purity of the planet. He carried a sign that read 99% IS THE FUTURE. I shivered involuntarily. The newscaster raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow and leaned forward. “Just who—or what—is ninety-nine percent?”

The newscaster’s face, frozen in practiced concern, dissolved into static as fuzzy black lines hiccupped across the screen. I frowned and smashed a fist down on top of the set, which only resulted in setting off a series of loud, plaintive beeps. Not that it was a quiet morning to start with.

Behind me in the kitchen, the usual chaos was unraveling. Iggy was slinging waffles at Gazzy and Total, who were trying to catch them in their wide-open mouths, like baby birds. How perfect.

“I can’t find the socks that match this skirt!” Nudge said, holding up some floaty, layer-y clothing situation. A waffle whapped her in the head, and with turbo-charged reflexes, she snatched it out of midair and hurled it back at Iggy as hard as she could. It exploded against his forehead. “Don’t throw waffles at me!” she screeched. “I’m trying to get dressed!”

Gazzy shot a fist into the air, his face twisted into that maniacally guilty grin that only nine-year-old angelic-looking boys seem to be able to master. “Food fi—” he began happily, only to stop at the look in my eyes.

“Try it,” I said with deadly calm. He sat down. “Quit throwing waffles!” I yelled, snatching the syrup bottle away from Iggy, who was aiming it at his open mouth. “Use plates! Use forks!”

“But I don’t have thumbs!” Total said indignantly. “Just because I can talk doesn’t mean I’m human,” he complained. For a small, Scotty-like dog, he had a lot of presence.

“Neither are we. At least not completely.” I unfolded my wings partway. Yes, folks—wings. In case this is your first dip into the deep end of the ol’ freak-of-nature pool, I’ll just put it out there: We fly.

Total rolled his eyes. “Yes, Max, I am aware.” He fluttered his own miniature pair of flappers. Unfortunately, his mate for life, Akila, didn’t have wings, so the non-mutant Samoyed spent most of the year with her one-hundred-percent-human owner. She had a hard time keeping up with us.

I shrugged. “So use a dog bowl, then.” His nose twitched in distaste.

“I can’t find—” Nudge started again, but I held up my hand. She knew I couldn’t answer complicated fashion questions. She whirled and stalked off to the bathroom to begin her twelve-step daily beauty regimen—involving many potions, lotions, and certain buffing techniques. The whole thing made my head hurt, and since Nudge was a naturally gorgeous twelve-year-old, I had no idea why she bothered.

Iggy, who can’t even see the TV anyway due to that tiny hitch of being blind and all, expertly manipulated the complicated wire system inside the set with one hand while the other continued to stir waffle batter. When the image was crystal clear and the monotonous beeping had ceased, he cocked his head, listening to the talking head deliver the morning doom with unbeatable pep.

“A new report has stated that steadily increasing levels of pollution in China have caused the extinction of a record number of plants this year. And could the growing number of meteor showers we’re experiencing require the implementation of asteroid deflection strategies? Dr. Emily Elert has some answers.”

“Lemme guess. The end of the world?” Iggy asked.

I smiled. “Yeah, same old, same old.”

“Next on In the Know, Sharon Shattuck uncovers the truth behind the growing number of enhanced humans among us. Created for the greater good, are these genetic anomalies an advanced race or an unpredictable risk? Heroes of science or botched experiments? And what do we have to fear? Stay tuned to find out!”

My mouth twisted in annoyance. I leaned over and snapped off the TV. It was time to get going, anyway. Why had I agreed to this again?

A lot had changed for us in the past year, but one thing had remained constant, and that was my unyielding loathing for a certain activity that all “normal” kids—those with homes, parents, and a distinct lack of genetic mutations—seemed to engage in.

“Okay, guys, are we ready for school?” I rubbed my hands together, trying to at least give the impression of being mildly enthusiastic.

I studied the faces before me. Nudge’s: excited. Iggy’s: bored. Gazzy’s: mischievous. Total’s: furry.

Someone was missing. Someone whose stupid idea this whole thing was in the first place.

“Where’s—?”

“Present,” a voice said from behind me.

I whirled around and found myself face-to-face with Dylan. Actually, I had to look up slightly, since he was almost six-one to my five-nine. He gave me a slow smile and I wondered, not for the first time, how anyone could manage to look so flawless in general, let alone at buttcrack-of-dawn o’clock in the morning.

“Oh, good, you’re up,” I said, inappropriate thoughts running around my head like squirrels on speed. “About time.” I coughed. “Everyone else is ready. We were about to leave without you.”

“Um, Max?” Dylan said, dipping a waffle into a bowl of syrup. I looked into his Caribbean Sea–colored eyes, trying to ignore the little thrill that went through my body when I thought of the time I woke up next to those bright blues.

“What?” I asked, a little too defensively.

“You’re in your pajamas.”

2

“WHY ARE WE walking?” Gazzy’s voice was plaintive.

“We’re walking because other kids walk to school,” I said, again, as I’d said every morning that week. “It’s part of the whole being-normal experience.”

Next to me, Dylan smiled. “And I appreciate your sacrifice,” he said.

I tried to ignore his movie-star looks, with approximately zero success. Every once in a while his arm brushed mine, and each time it was like a tiny electric shock. Maybe it was a new trait he was developing, like an electric eel. (Don’t laugh—stranger things have happened. Like when we bird kids developed the ability to breathe underwater.)

“I’m glad we’re going to school,” Nudge said, as she had every morning that week. Was this normalcy—predictable patterns, the certainty of doing the same thing every day? Because if so, normalcy was about to make me freak out and start screaming.

“Me, too,” said Dylan. “Only for me, it’s the first time, of course.”

Dylan’s had a lot of firsts since he joined the flock, but school was something he actually wanted to try. He was kind of weirdly obsessed with learning—especially anything about science. (Which I, of course, thought was totally repulsive. Science = Wackjob Whitecoats in my sad and tragic life story.)

“If it’s your first time in school, it might as well be a schmancy joint like Newton,” Gazzy said, and Dylan smiled.

I had to admit, so far our school week hadn’t been a complete suckfest. Would I rather be home, doing almost anything else? Yes. Of course. I’m not nuts. But when our mysterious billionaire BFF Nino Pierpont, who some might call our “benefactor,” had offered to pay for Newton, here in mountain-licious Oregon, Dylan had made Bambi eyes at me and I had caved.

Beyond the regular guilt trips from Nudge about wanting to lead a “normal” life, I felt kind of… responsible for Dylan. There was so much he didn’t know about surviving. He might’ve looked like the original teenager he was cloned from, and it was true he was a kick-butt fighter, but I had to keep reminding myself that this version had been alive only about two years.

Plus, there was that whole issue of him supposedly being created especially for me. To be my “perfect other half.”

No pressure or anything.

I thought maybe he liked me more than I liked him, but still—once someone has kissed you in the rain on top of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris at sunset, you’re kind of toast.

Anyway, agreeing to go to school with him—just for a while—didn’t seem like that much of a big deal for me. The ratio of my discomfort to his happiness was acceptable. And because he’s, you know, perfect, he fit right in at school and was already super popular. Because I’m, you know, me, I wasn’t exactly super popular. Or popular. Or even noticed that much. Which was the whole point, right? Normalcy.

“Thank you for doing this.” Dylan’s voice was quiet, meant just for me.

I looked up at him, feeling the inevitable flush warming my cheeks. “Let’s see how long I can stomach it.”

He grinned. He didn’t seem to mind that I wasn’t all girly-girl and didn’t have the smoothest of social skills. True, I was trying to brush my hair more these days, but I was still predictably clueless about clothes and how regular girls acted. Dylan seemed to accept me for me.

But why was I even thinking about that? Sooner or later, his crush on me would end, right? And we’d go back to being—there’s that word again—normal.

And just like that, my thin facade of agreeableness shattered.

“You know, life’s not about being normal,” I snapped.

Dylan glanced at me, one eyebrow raised.

“It’s about being happy. And right now, what would make me happy is not walking!” And just like that, I took off at a run, then threw myself into the air, snapping my wings out.

I stroked downward powerfully and pushed upward, the familiar rush of exhilaration at taking flight filling me. I knew the other five bird kids—no, four—would be close behind.

I kept forgetting we were only five. There’d always been six of us (plus Total), but my flock had changed a lot recently. First Dylan showed up, then Fang left—don’t get me started about that—and then, not too long ago… something happened. And we were down to five.

But I’m not going to talk about that. I can’t. Not yet.

“Tag!” I felt a rush of wind and Dylan’s hand tapped my foot as he rose strongly above me, his fifteen-foot wings shining in the morning sun.

I blinked at him, breathing in deeply, and the trees shrank below me, along with all those painful memories.

“Come on, slowpoke. You’re it!” Dylan said, surging ahead.

Laughing, I soared after him, feeling a dash of pride. I’d been the one to teach him how to fly, even if he was a wicked-fast learner. The two of us rose and swooped and chased each other until we were a block away from school. At one point I looked over at him, still smiling wide, and something seemed to light up his eyes.

“Normal’s overrated,” he said.

3

FANG OPENED ONE alert eye to see the early-morning sky lightening on the desert horizon. The slow, even breathing around him told him his gang was still asleep, and Fang felt the familiar weight of anxiety closing in on him snugger than his sleeping bag. They had to get going. He could feel it—the new threat was developing exponentially with every minute.

Get up, his instincts hissed. Go. Now.

But Fang felt the warm body in the sleeping bag next to his stir slightly in her sleep and knew there was something else entirely that was making it difficult to breathe. It was this whole situation. It was her.

He studied her relaxed features: the familiar cheekbones; the strong arch of the brow, making her look surprised in sleep like she never would in daylight; the full mouth he knew so well, the mouth he wanted to kiss, but wouldn’t, not now… She still looked so heart-stoppingly like Max that it made Fang wince.

Fang wriggled up out of the cocoon of his sleeping bag and leaned over her. He reached one tentative hand out and ran his fingers through her short hair. She sighed.

“Time to get up,” he whispered into her ear. “We have to get going.”

“Stay,” the girl murmured dreamily, pulling him back down next to her. She nuzzled into his neck and stretched one smooth arm over him. Fang swallowed. Even through the sleeping bag he could feel the heat coming off her body, sense the outline of her shape. It felt so natural, so familiar.

He felt so guilty.

Fang had never imagined he’d be sleeping next to a different girl, ever, in his life. And here he was, with Maya, of all people—Max’s clone. The cute, short pixie cut she’d gotten two days ago helped. No ratty mane to get tangled when I’m flying, she’d said. But Fang knew she needed it for other reasons, too. She wanted to look different. To distinguish herself from Max.

And she was different. She was tough, but she seemed less angry than Max did, more accepting of her Gen 54 status. She smiled more often, and more easily. It made him feel way disloyal, but in some ways, Maya was just easier to be around than Max was.

Very carefully, with Fanglike stealth, he eased out from under Maya’s arm, lifting it and placing it back on his sleeping bag without waking her. He needed to… not be lying there anymore. He wasn’t comfortable with where his mind—or his heart—was taking him.

One glance showed Fang that the members of his small gang—Maya, Ratchet, Star, and Kate—were all still asleep. He poked at the sleeping bags and shook some shoulders but got little more in response than annoyed grunts and thick snores. These kids were definitely not the light sleepers the flock had been. Fang sighed. First, some fuel.

The previous night’s fire had been banked, and now Fang stirred the embers and added more tinder. Five minutes later he had a nice blaze, and he opened his wings, letting them bask in the heat. On the horizon, the sun was just starting to spill its pink glaze over the mountaintops. He tried to swallow the sense of urgency building within him. They weren’t actually being chased, he reminded himself. He was in charge.

Years on the run had taught Fang how to make almost anything edible, including desert rats, pigeons, cacti, dandelions, and stuff reclaimed from restaurant Dumpsters. But this morning he had better raw materials to work with. He set the collapsible grill over the fire and pulled out a lightweight bowl and the one small frying pan he had in his pack.

Max was… Max. She wasn’t easy, she wasn’t restful, she wasn’t a little dollop of sunshine. But since when did he need a little dollop of sunshine? It wasn’t exactly what a life on the run tended to create. Max was… his soul mate. Wasn’t she? She knew him better than anyone.

He cracked some eggs open a little more forcefully than he needed to and started whisking them in the bowl. He and Max had been through so much together—losses, betrayals, joyous reunions. Life-threatening injuries, gunshots, broken bones. Christmases and birthdays and Max Appreciation Days and Angel’s—

A pain almost physical made Fang pause as he chopped the supermarket ham. Don’t think about that, he told himself.

Anyway. Max. She was so familiar to him. So familiar. Maybe even… too familiar?

No! He couldn’t believe he was thinking that way. She still surprised him, after all. It was just that he hardly knew Maya. He couldn’t predict what she would say or how she would say it. It was all really… new.

He’d thought leaving the flock would simplify things, make things easier. Instead his life was just more complicated, more confusing.

He blinked when Maya’s arms came around his waist. Only years of pseudo-military training had kept him from jumping a foot in the air. How had she snuck up behind him?

“Mmm,” Maya said sleepily, leaning her head against his back. “That smells like heaven. Where’d you learn to cook like that? You’re amazing.”

Fang swallowed again and shrugged. “Just picked it up.”

Maya came to stand next to him, one arm still around his waist. Her hair was just so… cute. He blinked again in surprise. When had he ever thought someone’s hair was cute? Not since… never.

Frowning, he looked down at Maya, who met his frown with a slow smile. She reached up on her tiptoes as he stood, frozen, and kissed his cheek. Her lips were cool and soft.

“Thanks for… breakfast,” she said, and Fang got the feeling that he was caught in an undertow. And he didn’t know if he wanted to get out of it.

4

AS A RULE, I like to remain an international girl of mystery. I err on the side of caution, to put it mildly, and we used to go to extreme lengths to not let regular people see us fly. But we’d been outed ages ago, and now we bother with non-winged-person camouflage only when we absolutely have to.

All of which explains why we landed right on top of the school buses in the parking lot, then jumped to the ground, where we were greeted with much wide-eyed amazement and murmurs of surprise from kids who’d been milling around, waiting for the bell.

I gave my shirt a little tug and unzipped my ever-present windbreaker. I felt stares and started to get that zoo-exhibit feeling. I bristled and put my shoulders back—I’m all too used to dealing with people’s curiosity, fear, and even, I dare say, a little awe.

Then I realized they weren’t staring at me.

“Dylan!” A girl separated from her clowder (look it up—you’ll learn something) and practically knocked me down to get to him.

“That was—” she began.

“So awesome!” another girl interrupted.

Right about then I noticed that these girls were wearing short skirts and spaghetti-strap tank tops, and had long, shiny hair. Trendy flip-flops emphasized dainty toenails painted blue and green and pink. It would be shallow to mention what I was wearing, so I won’t.

If I’d been with Fang, he would have stiffened and then slipped away into the shadows before they even realized what had happened.

But I was with Dylan.

“Hello, ladies,” he said, and his smile visibly took their breath away. I had no idea eyelashes could flutter that fast. Or why they would.

“I haven’t seen anything that cool since Andi’s couch caught on fire at our last party,” said one girl, expertly flipping her hair over one shoulder.

“It was totally an accident!” the girl I guessed was Andi said, giving the first girl a little shove. Dylan’s smile widened, and I waited for the girls to bow down and chant We are not worthy!

Except they clearly thought they were so worthy. Completely secure in their worthiness.

The first girl tapped Dylan on the chest with one painted fingernail. I stuck my hands in my pockets and fell back to walk with the rest of the flock.

“You’re eating with me at lunchtime!” possibly-Andi said, smiling up at Dylan.

“And me!” said the other girl.

“And us!” Three more girls crowded around him and I had a sudden mental image of a bunch of hyenas circling their prey.

“I’m gonna have to get some wings,” I heard a guy mutter as they watched the girls move with Dylan toward the school.

“Retrofitted wings are a disaster!” I informed him wryly, remembering my sometimes-evil, now-deceased half brother Ari’s horrible grafted-on pair. The guy’s eyes widened, and I got too late that he didn’t actually mean he was going to get himself wings. In my science-gone-wrong world, it was only too possible, and I’d seen enough botched experiments to prove it.

“Sloan!”

Nudge’s excited greeting made me look over to where a boy was loping toward us. He had smooth brown skin and a million thin dreadlocks pulled back in a loose ponytail. He was male-model cute, and I could practically hear the squeal Nudge was repressing.

“Hey, girl,” Sloan called back with an easy smile.

“How old is he?” I hissed under my breath. Sure, Nudge is five-six, but she’s only twelve years old, and in way too much of a hurry to get older, IMHO.

“I don’t know,” Nudge said blithely, heading off to meet him. I gave him a once-over—he was wearing a varsity jersey, which meant he was in at least tenth grade, probably eleventh. So, like, fifteen? Sixteen? Crap. What was she doing?

A light touch grazed my arm and I snapped my head sideways to see Dylan turning his full wattage to me.

“Catch you later,” he said, and his sea-colored eyes seemed to look right into my soul. Again I remembered kissing him on top of the Arc de Triomphe. And a couple other places. Now he was throwing himself into the group of girls like chum into shark-infested waters.

Well, they can have him, I thought, touching my arm where his fingers had left a warm trail.

I didn’t want him.

Right?

5

“WE NEED TO hit the road,” Fang said to his small gang. “San Francisco’s next up.”

Maya squeezed his leg and flashed a smile that instantly eased his anxiety. “Ready when you are,” she said, her eyes meeting his.

“Go, go, go,” Star complained with characteristic attitude. “We just got here. At least let me finish breakfast.” She tied back her silky blond hair and proceeded to house her entire omelet in one enormous bite. It reminded Fang of Gazzy gnawing every bit of meat off the hind leg of a roasted rabbit, and contrasted so sharply with Star’s spotless Catholic-schoolgirl image that he had to smirk.

“What?” Star challenged Holden Squibb, who was also openly staring from behind his huge glasses. “You know my heart’s beating like five times as fast as yours. Speed needs fuel.”

Holden was the youngest, most awkward member of the gang, and his main skill seemed to be annoying Star. Well, that and being an incredibly fast healer. Came in handy, since he’d been horribly bullied in school.

“What’s in San Fran that’s got your panties in a bunch, anyway?” Ratchet was eyeing Fang cautiously. Regardless of his extraordinarily perceptive senses, after living on the streets, he could always smell trouble.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Kate brushed her glossy black hair back from her face and followed Ratchet’s gaze, looking worried. For someone with the kind of superhuman strength Kate had, she tended to look worried way more often than Fang was comfortable with.

“I’ll show you.” Fang flipped open his laptop and the others crowded around. “I’ve been tracking world news reports. A new threat is developing faster than anything I’ve seen so far. Three days ago there were five mentions of it. Two days ago there were five thousand. Yesterday, a hundred thousand different sources were talking about this movement. And today my Web counter shows more than a million mentions.”

“You going to tell us what it is, or what?” Holden asked, showering the keyboard with toast crumbs.

“They call themselves the Apocalypticas,” Fang said, flipping through tabs until he found their home page. “More commonly known as the 99 Percenters. I’ve done some hunting, and I think one of their bases is around San Francisco.”

“99 Percenters?” Star leaned closer to read. “Please. That sounds so lame. At least the Apocalypticas sounds kind of like a rock band.”

“I wouldn’t dismiss them so lightly.” Fang leveled his gaze at Star, and then at the rest of the gang. “You all remember the Doomsday Group.”

Solemn nods all around.

“This is, like, the next level,” Fang said. “The Apocalypticas make the Doomsday Group look like a glee club. They call themselves that because they want to start where the Doomsday Group left off—they want to reduce the world’s population by ninety-nine percent, to obliterate all non-enhanced people.”

Enhanced people. Fang and the flock had always called them mutant freaks, like themselves. Now it was enhanced people.

“Man, that is so messed up.” Ratchet shook his head, the aviator glasses he wore even in darkness reflecting the screen.

“I mean, we’re safe, though, right?” Kate said uneasily. “We’re enhanced. It’s not us they’re after. Maybe we should… I don’t know… stay out of the line of fire this time. We don’t have to seek them out. Let’s not forget what happened in Paris.”

Once again Fang felt a stab of pain so sharp that it almost took his breath away. As if he could forget. He bristled, frowning at Kate.

“Aren’t you the vegan?” he asked. “The one who’s always talking about the plight of other creatures and how we have to work together to make a difference? So now that things are getting a bit heavy, you just want to walk away?”

“It’s not that, it’s just…” Kate trailed off, looking sheepish.

“It’s just that it’s none of our business and we have ourselves to worry about,” Star continued for her. Kate and Star stuck together because they’d been the only two freaks in their private school, but it was Star who had the mouth on her.

“What exactly are you saying?” Fang’s words were low, measured. “We’re talking about the human apocalypse.”

“Come on, Fang,” Star said harshly. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought that the world might be better if everyone was a bit more evolved.” Fang gaped at her, but Star took it a step further. “Just look at Maya. She’s like the next generation of your old girlfriend, isn’t she?”

“Ouch.” Holden gave a low whistle.

Maya’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Star shrugged. “I’m just saying, looks like Fang went for the upgrade. Shouldn’t the rest of the world? Anyway, like Kate said, it’s not us they’re after.”

“Look, you’re welcome to leave at any time,” Fang said, his eyes dark and furious. “You wanted the protection of the group, and I gave you that. I totally understand if, now that you’re safe, you just want to slink away like a coward and let everyone else take the fall. I couldn’t live with myself, but that’s just me.”

“Can you all just stop for a sec?” Rachet said, pushing his oversized hoodie back and tilting his head to the side.

“I can take care of myself,” Star snapped at Fang, ignoring Ratchet. “I didn’t realize being a part of ‘Fang’s gang’ meant following you like lemmings over a cliff.”

“Fang, Star doesn’t mean that,” Kate said, trying to defuse the situation. “You know we believe in stopping these maniacs as much as you do. We’re just… we’re nervous after Paris. We’re still not used to being targets and all.”

“Yeah, it must be really tough, being away from the cushy comforts of your private-school McMansions,” Maya said icily, and Kate’s face fell.

“Don’t even—” Star started.

“You guys, shut up!” Ratchet yelled. He took in a deep, slow breath, his hypersensitive ears listening intently. “Something’s coming this way.”

Immediately Fang went on alert, jumping to his feet, putting the argument—as screwed up as it was—behind him for now. “Stow the gear in the van,” he directed. “Maya and I will scout it out from above.”

He glanced at the sky, cursing. It was maybe seven AM. They should have been on the road an hour ago.

“You guys, we’re in the middle of the desert,” Kate said. “Maybe we shouldn’t freak out yet. There are tons of wild animals around here—coyotes and big lizards and turkey buzzards—and that might be what Ratchet’s hearing. I really think we should keep talking this out, try to find some middle ground, and—”

Ratchet shook his head. “Yo. I can tell the difference between a fox or a lizard and… this thing. This mofo is big—bigger than a wolf, or even a bear. And I smell blood. Lots of it.”

6

“I SMELL BLOOOOD,” Star intoned in a deep voice an hour later. “Lots of it.”

Ratchet scowled. “Say it again, girl, and see what happens to you. Go on—say it one more time. I’m telling you, something was out there.”

“At least it wasn’t worse,” Kate said, her easy smile returning.

Fang nodded, glancing quickly in the rearview mirror. All he and Maya had found was a bunch of buzzards having a prairie-dog party.

“Yeah,” said Star solemnly, “it could’ve been a small lizard, bent on destroying us all. Or a mutant desert bat, prone to feasting on the hearts of ‘enhanced humans’. Right, Ratch?”

Holden and Kate couldn’t help giggling, and Fang was reminded of the flock. How many times had they joked with one another just like this, teasing and arguing? And here he was with a whole new gang. But the teasing felt harsher, the arguments more real. No flock in sight.

No flock, but there was Maya, next to him. She sighed unconsciously, like she felt as separate from the group as he did. It made sense. As the only two flyers, they could’ve made it to San Francisco in about forty-five minutes, but instead they had six hours of driving ahead of them.

Maya leaned her head on his shoulder. The bench seat in the front of their “borrowed” van meant she could sit really close, and she was.

Really close.

He breathed her in, ignoring the squabbling in the backseat, and an understanding seemed to pass between them. It was more than just having wings that separated them from the gang. They felt weird with the others because they felt good alone. Together.

Like he had with Max.

Just as Fang’s thoughts started to spiral, Maya straightened up and frowned, leaning forward. “Do you see that? Like a dust cloud, way ahead, on the road?”

Fang squinted and saw what she was talking about: a growing haze, blocking the road ahead of them. “Ratchet?”

Ratchet looked smug. “I thought you guys didn’t trust my senses.”

Fang sighed. After the theatrics with Star and Kate, his gang was exhausting him. “Please?”

Ratchet sighed and lowered his sunglasses, peering through the windshield. When he spoke his voice was gruff, all business. “We got company. Looks like a convoy of vehicles, hogging both lanes and about to pay us a visit.”

In seconds Fang had slammed on the brakes and made a tight, fast U-turn that sent the van up on two wheels. He stomped on the gas and shot them down the road in the direction they’d just come from.

“Sorry, but I’m not into sticking around for the welcoming committee,” Fang said tersely, scanning the road ahead for the turnoff he’d seen a while back.

There was a slim chance that he was overreacting, that these were trucks taking vegetables somewhere or something. Fang estimated the chance of that to be approximately point-zero-one percent.

He accelerated more. He could feel the engine straining—and the van definitely wasn’t up to off-roading. Fang watched the dust cloud advancing in the rearview mirror and felt Maya’s tension next to him, her wings brushing his. It was tempting to break loose and fly… but no. They couldn’t leave the others.

Fang breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the thin outline of the gravel road ahead. After the turnoff, they could ditch the van, flee to forest cover, and take whoever it was hand to hand. If necessary.

“Almost there,” Fang muttered under his breath.

Half a mile… a few more seconds…

Wham!

7

THE IMPACT ROCKED the van sideways, and there was a deafening screech as it skidded across the asphalt. The doors on the left side were crunched shut. Windows shattered, Kate shrieked, and Ratchet started swearing—they’d been T-boned by a truck shooting out from the dirt road that Fang had planned to turn down.

Fang looked to his right and felt a tightening in his chest as he saw the gash, the slack jaw, the unfocused eyes. “Maya?” Fang said sharply, shaking her arm.

“I’m fine.” Maya blinked, touching the blood at her temple. She smiled. “Just a bump.”

Fang gave a brief nod and started climbing out through the broken windshield, reaching behind him for Maya’s hand. Why was he worried? Maya could take care of herself.

“Out and scatter!” he ordered, and the gang started to scramble out the right side of the van. Fang leaped to the roof and did a 360. Two monster trucks blocked the dirt road, and four others had screamed into place in front of the van. The other convoy was maybe a quarter of a mile away and speeding toward them.

They were boxed in.

He surveyed the gang. Ratchet was holding a tire iron, and Holden had already assumed a battle stance. Star’s speed and Kate’s strength made them a fierce pair. And Maya… he had complete confidence in Maya. He’d seen her fight before, and knew what she was capable of.

In seconds, the other convoy was screeching to a halt behind the van.

Here we go, Fang thought, and felt his muscles tighten in readiness for whatever craziness was about to explode in the next thirty seconds.

For several moments, it was dead silent.

“What is this?” Fang heard Ratchet mutter. “I want to bust some heads.”

Then, slowly, a door on one of the trucks opened. Fang tensed, ready to dodge bullets. But what emerged from the truck was a much more effective weapon, one that left Fang speechless, with his eyes bugging out of his head.

“Hello, Fang,” said Ari.

Ari, Max’s usually evil half brother, who was enhanced, like the rest of the Erasers, with wolf DNA. Ari, who Fang had seen die, twice. He’d helped bury him! But… here Ari was. With a missile launcher balanced on one hulking shoulder. Pointed at Fang.

“Ari,” Fang managed to say.

“I heard you were going to be the first to die,” Ari said, his amused tone in sharp contrast to the crazy, feral gleam in his eyes. Fang shifted, remembering Angel’s creepy doomsday prediction. “I wanted to make sure I got to do the honors.” Ari pointed the heavy launcher on his huge, unnaturally muscled body at Fang. He smiled, baring long yellow teeth. “How about it, sport? You ready to die?” He tilted his head and looked through the gunsight.

For maybe the first time in his life, Fang felt… absolutely frozen.

8

“GUYS! OVER HERE!”

Dylan waved to me, Gazzy, Iggy, and Nudge from where he sat sandwiched between Eager Girl #1 and Eager Girl #2 at the popular-crowd lunch table.

I’d been headed toward the dweeb and misfit section, but when Dylan called out to us, Nudge squealed and hurried over. She confidently squeezed herself between some girls who looked less than thrilled at her arrival.

That decided it.

“Cover me,” I said, sighing. “I’m going in.”

“Got your back,” said Iggy.

“Later, bye,” Gazzy said, making a U-turn to go eat with some kids his own age.

I couldn’t blame him. I, too, would rather eat with a bunch of nine-year-olds than have to bear witness to the popular girls slavering over Dylan.

“Max!” Dylan beckoned. “Sarah, could you scoot over a little, please?”

Sarah looked like she would rather eat a slug than make room for me, but then Dylan turned his Pied Piper smile on her and she melted. She even patted the bench next to her.

It was almost scary, the effect he had. Thank God I was completely immune to it.

I sat down and a sudden silence fell as the girls looked at my heavily laden lunch tray. Dylan seemed oblivious, and kept up his easy conversation with Nudge.

“You must be… hungry,” said one girl, whose name I think was Bethany.

I wasn’t about to go into bird-kid caloric requirements, so I just smiled and said, “I don’t have to watch my weight, thank goodness.” So bite me.

Nudge popped open her juice. “Last night on Project Makeover, did you guys see where Tabitha was wearing those capris that looked like fruit salad?” she asked, her eyes wide.

Eyes quickly turned to her and heads nodded.

“Those were the ugliest pants I’ve ever seen,” Sarah said solemnly.

I busied myself with my huge chunk of cafeteria meat loaf. Of that last exchange, I had understood the words “pants” and “fruit,” but I couldn’t see how they would go together. Then it hit me: Nudge really did fit into this world. I mean, okay, she’d told me that a thousand times. But seeing her like this, chatting with these other girls, normal girls—the only thing that didn’t fit here was… her wings.

“How’s your morning going?” Dylan asked me, ignoring the pop-culture bonanza surrounding us.

I swallowed, savoring the availability of lots o’ food. To those of you who may sneer at cafeteria fare, I say: Try Dumpster-diving for a month, and then let’s see how happy you are with Monday Meatball Medley or whatever.

“I’m at school,” I said pointedly, and got that smile again, the one that seemed to suck the air out of my lungs. “You seem to be doing well, though.” I slanted my eyes at the girls and then looked back at him.

He grinned. “Same old, same old.”

“Uh-huh. Being God’s gift to girls everywhere is just your cross to bear.”

Dylan nudged my knee with his. “You think I’m God’s gift?” He sounded horribly pleased, and I wanted to smack myself.

“No, but at least you do.” I smiled and took a sip of juice. Dylan smiled wider and I felt a tiny thrill run down my spine. I knew I was courting danger, but this kind of easy almost flirtation was rapidly becoming addictive.

“I couldn’t believe it when Terry said that orange was the new black,” Nudge chattered on next to me.

“I know!” said maybe-Melinda. “I mean, black is the new black, you know?”

Nudge stabbed the air with a french fry. “Exactly! Nothing needs to be the new black, because black will always, always be the new black!”

There was fervent agreement around the table. I had no idea what they were talking about. Black what?

“Actually, it seems to me that blind is the new black,” Iggy said, apparently deciding to shake things up.

“What?” a girl named Madison said.

“I mean, I can’t believe there are so many blind students! A whole school of them!”

Silence. Nudge pressed her lips together; it had been going so well.

I started working intently on my square of spice cake.

“Um…” said Bethany.

“I know why I’m blind. Let’s hear your stories!” Iggy waved his hand, “accidentally” flinging peas all over the people sitting closest to him. Nudge’s cheeks flushed, and she stared at me, like, Stop him.

Oh, yeah, that could happen. No prob.

He turned to Madison. “What about you? Were you born this way, or did something happen to you?”

The people around the table looked at one another in uncomfortable silence.

“I’m not blind,” said Madison.

Iggy pretended to look confused, then shook his head, the soul of compassionate understanding. “You’ve got to face up to it. You can’t let it hold you back,” he said gently. “Denial is not just a river in Egypt.”

“I’m really not blind,” Madison said, looking confused.

Nudge gritted her teeth and stared down at her food, mortified.

Yep, we spread joy and sunshine wherever we go.

9

I TICKED OFF bird kids on my fingers. “Gazzy has Science Club today. If he blows something up, I will personally take a belt to him. Nudge is walking home, unwilling to be seen with any of us. And Iggy has soccer.”

“I saw him on the field yesterday,” said Dylan. “He looked great.”

“He’s always been good at it,” I said. Somehow, Iggy’s blindness had forced all of his other senses to overcompensate. His navigational skills and coordination were sometimes even superior to the rest of the flock’s. “So can we fly home, or do we have to be normal some more?”

“Oh, I have something better planned, sugar drop,” Dylan said with a twinkle in his eye as he led me to the school’s parking lot.

“Call me that again and I will flay you alive,” I promised, but I followed him to a large red motorcycle. “What’s this?”

“I’m borrowing it,” Dylan said, swinging one leg over the saddle. He patted the seat behind him. “Hop on.”

I had been raised unburdened by the concept of “other people’s property,” so I hopped on. Dylan kicked the motorcycle into gear, and off we went.

I don’t know if you have ever been on a motorcycle (if your parents don’t know, please do not nod now), but I must say: If I didn’t have wings, and if motorcycles weren’t, essentially, extremely cool death traps, I would want to ride on one all the time. It’s about the closest approximation to flying there is. The wind whipping through your hair, the sense of freedom, the bugs slamming into your face—it’s flying, but on the ground, burning gasoline and making a lot of noise. What’s not to love?

We didn’t go straight home. I put my arms around Dylan’s waist, leaned my head against his back, and closed my eyes. He felt warm and solid. I didn’t have to do anything, for once—I just sat there. It was almost scary. Because I wasn’t totally in control of the situation.

I felt the motorcycle slow, and then come to a rolling stop. Reluctantly, I opened my eyes. “Where are we?” I asked.

Dylan climbed off the motorcycle and held it steady while I got off. He waved his hand at the view. We were on the coastal highway, with rocky cliffs on one side and the Oregon coast in front of us. The ocean looked gray-blue and choppy, and the air temperature had dropped about fifteen degrees. Seagulls wheeled above the waves, cawing, and I wanted to join them.

I moved to the railing, ready to jump off.

“Wait, Max.” Suddenly, Dylan’s dazzling smile was nowhere in sight. His face was solemn, his eyes a darker shade of teal. For a second I thought he’d spotted some kind of trouble far in the distance, across the cliffs. You could say Dylan didn’t just have the eyesight of a hawk—he had the eyes of the Hubble Space Telescope. His gift for seeing faraway things, especially in space, was a little mutant DNA bonus from the mad scientist-slash-genetic engineer who created him.

“I found this place the other day, when I was out flying,” he said, shifting to a less guarded, more emotional tone. “I feel closer to the clouds here, more than anywhere else. I wanted to share it with you because… I feel closer to… to Angel here, too.”

My eyes flew to his face, my mouth partly open in shock. Angel. The youngest member of our flock. My littlest bird.

I was assaulted with memories: Angel smiling sweetly at Total, her pale blond curls making a halo of fluff around her head. The depth in Angel’s eyes when we witnessed disaster, way more knowing than any seven-year-old’s should be. The way she’d get into my head, under my skin, inside my heart, always. And then—

Angel disappearing in a cloud of smoke. I grimaced, thinking of Paris and the explosion.

“We do not talk about that,” I reminded him tightly.

He gave a sad smile and gestured out at the vast ocean, the craggy cliffs behind us. No one was around—it was me and Dylan, water and rock and sky. And my bleeding, ripped-open heart.

“You can’t pretend she was never born,” he said as I narrowed my eyes and pulled out my trusty standby: rage.

I opened my mouth to snap at him, but he continued, gently, saying, “You can’t pretend she never died.”

I actually gasped, drawing away from him in shock, feeling a sharp pain in my chest as if he’d plunged a dagger into me. It’ll be okay, Angel had said the last time I saw her. I’ll be with you always. But it wasn’t okay. She wasn’t with us. She never would be again.

“Shut up!” I croaked.

Dylan put his hand on my shoulder, holding me as I tried to spin away. He pulled me to him firmly, cradling me against his hard chest, one hand on the back of my neck, the other on my back. “We all miss her, Max,” he whispered against my hair. “We’ll always miss her.”

And that was it. A horrible keening sound filled my ears, and it took me several seconds to realize it was coming from me. Then I was clutching Dylan’s shirt, pressing my face against him, sobbing uncontrollably.

He held me tightly, his cheek against my hair, stroking my back and whispering, “I know. I know. Let it out, Max. There’s no one here but me and you. Just let it all out.”

I almost never cry. I keep my emotions on a supertight leash. They normally don’t just burst out of me like that, but once they did, I sobbed and sobbed until my throat was raw and Dylan’s shirt was wet from my tears.

My baby was gone. After everything we had been through, after love and betrayal and fury and love and forgiveness, she was gone. Forever. She’d sacrificed herself to save thousands, and she would never, ever be back.

And I hadn’t let myself believe that, until now.

10

I DREW IN shuddering breaths, my sobs subsiding. I had needed to grieve over Angel. And I had a lot of other things to grieve about, too. I’d been abandoned by my mother, my half sister, my pseudo-father, and the boy I thought was my soul mate.

And so finally, after all this time, I wailed my guts out. In a really loud, out-of-control, sloppy, wet way. All over Dylan.

I pulled away from him awkwardly. I was thirsty and empty and feeling hollow, and imagining the possible humiliation resulting from the revolting scene I had just made was vomit-inducing. “Remember that time you bawled like a baby?” Dylan would say for years to come. “That was hysterical!” I just wanted to collapse on my bed with the covers over my head. Forever.

But Dylan was still looking at my puffy face. “Remember how Angel saved that little kid from the hotel fire?” he asked, his eyes shining.

I did. I could still picture her smile shining victoriously out of her dirty face, the boy clutched in her arms, her wings gray with smoke. Angel, rising from the ashes.

I wiped my nose. “I’m done talking about her.”

Dylan nodded. He was silent for a moment, looking out over the ocean. His hair looked dusty in the afternoon sun. “I don’t know what to do with the sadness,” he said finally, sighing. I looked up at him, surprised at his directness.

“Why do you keep talking about it, then?” I was too worn out to even get angry.

“I don’t know what else to do.” He shrugged. “I have all these hard feelings inside, and I thought talking about them might help. And… I don’t want to forget Angel. I’m scared that if we don’t talk about her, it will be like she never existed.”

I nodded warily. I had my own hard feelings that I didn’t know what to do with. They sat like a pile of rocks in my stomach. Building and building.

“You’re the strongest person I know, Max,” said Dylan.

“Yeah…” I picked at my nails, thinking about my meltdown. I had never been very good at receiving compliments, especially ones that seemed heartfelt.

“Seriously. I’m learning how to be strong just from watching you.” Dylan put his hands on my shoulders. “But I know not everyone can be strong all the time. I just wanted to tell you that if you ever need to not be strong, you can lean on me. I can be strong enough for both of us—for a while, at least.” He gave a slight grin.

Dylan looked into my eyes with such naked trust I had to look away. Below, the waves smashed into the rocks, spraying a cool mist over everything, and I felt goose bumps rise on my arms.

Fang always had my back—that is, until he didn’t. He didn’t have to say it aloud; I’d known it anyway. Dylan was so different. It was like he didn’t know how to be guarded. His emotions were raw, on the surface for everyone to see, and the sarcastic wall that had protected me so efficiently in the past was slowly crumbling in the face of his honesty.

I felt vulnerable, exposed, so out of my element. I shifted uncomfortably.

“Can we fly now?” I asked, my throat dry.

Dylan smiled, his face lighting up, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He stuck the motorcycle’s keys under its seat and took my hand, and we climbed up on the guardrail.

I took a deep breath, and together we jumped off.

11

THICK, HEAVY CLOUDS had rolled in, blocking the sun, and it felt like Dylan and I were the only two people on earth. Our wings took us high over the water, up and up until the cars on the highway looked like shiny beetles, bustling to and fro.

We wheeled freely through the air, no destination in mind, copying the gulls, seeing dark schools of fish in the water below. My chest expanded again, after being all crumpled up from crying. I felt my heart beating hard, felt the cool mist against my skin, and I felt fresh and alive and somehow lighter. Like I’d dropped some of those hard, heavy rocks I’d been carrying around.

Dylan was good for me, in some ways. I had to admit it.

“What?” he asked, raising his voice over the wind.

“What what?”

“You were sort of smiling.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know why.”

“You know, Max,” he said after a few more minutes. We’d slowly turned in a huge circle and begun to head toward home.

I looked at him, eyebrows raised.

“You know I love you.”

I almost dropped right out of the sky. I literally forgot to flap my wings for a couple of seconds, and plummeted about fifteen feet before they started working on their own.

“I know you were programmed to love me,” I said cautiously, rising back level with Dylan.

“Maybe I was,” he said. “I don’t know. I just know I do. And I know that love has to go both ways. You might not love me now, but I hope you will, in time. I can wait. I’m not going anywhere.”

I said nothing, and we flew together wordlessly, higher and higher, as if we could touch the sky.

12

THERE WERE NO days. There were no nights. There were tubes and bright lights and indistinct voices. And pain. Always, always pain.

When Angel was finally put into a kennel, she whimpered with relief. This had to be better than the crisp white sheets, the stretcher that meant scalpels and masks and gloved hands always reaching for her. She shuddered violently, thinking of those hands, and shrank into herself. She never wanted to be touched again.

The kennel was meant for a large dog, but Angel still couldn’t stand upright in it. She felt around in the cage, her hands brushing against the cool metal of the bars. She searched for a water bottle; her throat was sore from the feeding tube. She winced as she shifted her small body in the cramped space. She was covered with bruises, and her healing wounds stung.

Angel could hear muffled voices in the hallway, echoes of footfalls on the linoleum floor, the squeak of rolling wheels—seemingly innocuous sounds that now haunted her dreams—but she didn’t cry out. She was way past that.

“Help!” she had shrieked at first, for days it seemed, as loud as she could. And later, when it was clear no help was coming, she had only croaked “Why?” as they probed and prodded, her voice a thin, wheezy rasp. But there were no answers, so she had stopped asking.

Angel had always felt stronger and more capable than everyone—well, than Max—thought she was. But in the end, she was still just a little kid, with bones that could snap and a heart that could break.

She was broken. And totally alone.

A long, silent sob trapped in her chest, Angel curled up on the thin towel in the corner of the kennel and went to sleep.

“Wake up!” a voice barked after what seemed only moments.

So it wasn’t over, then.

Her heart raced in time to the familiar fear, the dread that made her whole body quiver, but Angel resisted. For several long, delicious moments she allowed herself to indulge the fantasy that it was Max calling her to wake. Even if they were on the run, even if Max was being bossy, even if… Well, anything would be better than the reality she would find when she opened her eyes.

“Wake up! There’s no sense pretending! Your brain waves show you’re awake.”

Her blue eyes fluttered open just as a bucket of icy water was dumped on her head. Gasping, Angel scrambled farther into her corner, but she was a trapped animal, and she knew it.

The back of her head stung unbearably from the icy water and she tentatively touched it with her fingers. A small section of hair had been shaved, and a neat line of small stitches made tiny ridges under her fingers. They’d operated on her brain. A pitiful cry escaped her lips.

Max, Angel thought frantically, overwhelmed with horror. Max—help!

13

“LOOK HERE,” the voice commanded. “Pay attention.”

Angel blinked water out of her eyes and squeezed her hair, feeling chilly rivulets trickling down her back. Outside her crate, the room went dark. Angel saw extremely well in the dark, but then a lit screen flickered on, several feet away.

She saw a young child, a boy, with pale, almost white hair. He was lying on a table, very still, covered with a sheet. A crisp, white, sterile sheet. Angel shuddered involuntarily, the wounds on her body aching in response to the image.

The camera panned to look down on the boy, and Angel saw that he was in an operating room. He had a mask over his nose and mouth, and his eyes were clamped open. Angel recognized the look in them. It was a feeling she knew well: pure, undiluted terror. Angel felt an icy coldness in her temples as the view zoomed in. There, on the little boy’s neck, was the trio of freckles, right where she knew they’d be.

Iggy.

It was Iggy as a little kid. Before…

Angel swallowed hard, her eyes trained on the large screen as gowned and masked doctors came in and shone spotlights onto Iggy’s operating table. One doctor, his eyes hidden behind large magnifying glasses, spoke directly to the camera.

“Today we’re experimenting with a new technique, only recently developed. It involves a surgical stimulation of a certain area of the rods and cones in the backs of this hybrid’s eyes. We estimate that the subject will have its night vision improved by at least four hundred percent.”

Then Iggy’s panicked blue eyes filled the screen.

Angel shook her head, horrified. She couldn’t watch. They weren’t really going to make her watch…?

But the video continued, and she couldn’t look away. She stared as the scalpel found its mark and plunged in as if slicing a boiled egg, as tweezers pinched and needles probed, as blood pooled and tubes suctioned it away.

As they hacked into him, like butchers.

She listened as Iggy’s agonized moans grew more and more frenzied. They sounded visceral, verging on madness, louder and louder and louder.

He was awake. The whole time.

Angel shrank back into her crate and squeezed her own eyes shut, the screams echoing in her ears. She had just seen a film of the crazy whitecoats at the School making Iggy blind.

“No!” she wailed, her voice joining Iggy’s. “No no no no.”

The movie flickered to a stop and the room’s lights came back on.

“That was thirteen years ago,” someone said from out of view. “The techniques were unbelievably primitive, which no doubt caused the less than optimum results.”

Less than optimum? Angel thought with rising hysteria. You mean the total blindness? That result?

Once again she tried to hack into someone’s brain, the brain of even one person in this awful torture chamber. But it was like the room itself had a dampening field—she hadn’t been able to read a single thought the whole time she’d been there.

“But you see, Angel,” the voice went on smoothly, “we’ve made tremendous progress since then. Those were the days of cavemen. The science, the technique, is vastly improved. This time, it will go beautifully.”

“No,” Angel whispered again, her adrenaline surging and making her voice seem small, fuzzy. “No, please—”

A gloved hand reached for the door of her crate.

This time, they would operate on Angel. On her eyes.

14

“ARI, WHAT ARE you talking about?” Fang said. “We’re on the same side, remember? You saved Max.”

“Times change.” Ari smiled again and looked down the sight of his missile launcher, as if gauging how far away Fang was. Fang shifted his weight, primed to leap. “Having the same goal doesn’t mean we’re on the same side.”

“What—” Fang began, but he was cut off by a chorus of deep growls. Four more thugs climbed out of the truck to stand behind Ari, looking like a row of college linebackers. Their resemblance to Ari was freakish, surreal: They had the same glint in their eyes, the same unnatural, stretched-out features, the same wolfish undertones. Clones? Or just well-made copies? Fang didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out.

“Fang, who are they?” Star hissed. She was standing beside Kate, her face even tenser than usual, and Holden was right behind them. Ratchet was glowering at these ugly strangers, smacking the tire iron against his palm. Maya stood silently at Fang’s left wing—Fang remembered that she knew Ari.

“Erasers,” Fang answered quietly. “Human-wolf hybrids. Except they’re supposed to be extinct.” So how was Ari alive?

And more important: Why was he suddenly evil again?

Maya met Fang’s eyes. Fight or flight?

“Enough talking,” Ari said, almost lazily. “Let’s play a game!”

Fight.

15

BEFORE FANG HAD time to think, Ari fired a missile.

Right at him.

Instantly, Fang unfroze, his instincts going from shock to hyperdrive in zero point two seconds. “Duck and cover!” he barely had time to shout as he threw himself sideways off the van. The missile missed Fang by a hair, singeing his shirt as it shot past.

And then—boom! Their van exploded in a mushroom of flames, flying metal, and roiling black smoke. Kate shrieked as a shard of glass swiped across her cheek, leaving a thin line of blood, but the sound was just barely audible above the roar of the fireball.

Fang jumped to his feet, ears ringing. The van was nothing but a few smoldering, smoking chunks scattered in a circle around the blast zone.

Holden scrambled to his feet, dust-covered and wide-eyed, as Kate wiped blood from her cheek. Ratchet was hardly visible through the thick black smoke. “Man! Friggin’ almost busted my ears!”

“Never really liked that van anyway,” called Star, a little shakily. She, unlike the rest, looked perfectly unharmed and clean—the ability to be forty yards away in the blink of an eye sure did come in handy.

Fang’s gang dropped into their battle positions, but they all looked a bit wigged out. Even Fang was tense with an apprehension he wasn’t used to. Ari was a wild card, and even after all the training they’d done, even with their advanced abilities, he didn’t trust any of the gang under pressure like he had the flock. Well, any of them except…

Fang could make out Maya’s shape walking toward him through the dust cloud, her wings outstretched, looking powerful and ethereal in silhouette.

We’ll be okay, Fang thought.

“Aw, I missed,” Ari said in his rusty voice. He was still grinning wickedly, like a tiger cornering its prey. “Enough of the theatrics. Let’s do this thing, Fang. You and me. Let’s make some history here, before your freaky friends get hurt.”

“Works for me,” Fang snarled, but to his surprise, Maya’s hand shot out in front of him. She stepped forward, putting herself between Ari and Fang.

“Hey,” she said to Fang. “Sorry—I got thrown. But listen: If we fight, we fight together. We’re a team. Got it?” Fang nodded, knowing there was no use arguing. She was as stubborn as a mule.

Like someone else he knew.

“Can’t ever just stay out of it, can you, Max?” Ari shook his head. “You’re looking a bit rough, sis. The hair’s a little G.I. Jane, don’t you think?”

“Not Max. Maya,” she said, running her fingers through her short pixie cut.

Ari laughed, his yellow fangs glinting. “Oh, yeah, Max II. That explains it, then—the delayed reflexes, the bravado. The life of a clone, so difficult.” Ari pouted in mock sympathy, and Maya’s eyes narrowed. “We understand your pain, don’t we, boys?” The row of Erasers behind him twitched impatiently, growling and muttering. “I have to say, though, Deux—as clones go, you seem like more of a cheap imitation. Did Fang pick you up in the discount aisle?”

“I said, the name is Maya,” she repeated, jaw clenched.

“Same, same,” Ari said, still smiling. “Fresh meat either way.”

And then, before Fang could even react, all heck broke loose.

Maya crashed into Ari, her eyes furious and vengeful, knocking the missile launcher out of his grasp with one swift kick.

Fang lunged toward them, protesting. Team or no team, Ari was his fight. But in their adrenaline-boosted frenzy, Ari’s goons leaped forward, driving Fang and the rest of the gang into defense mode, away from one another.

Away from Ari and Maya.

16

FANG WAS BACK in his comfort zone—that is, beating the living pus out of freaking Erasers, as usual.

I have to get back there, Fang thought, trying to see through the wall of hulking bodies. Maya was hard core, but Fang had known Ari to be a vicious fighter, and this new version of Ari would likely be even tougher.

After he finished off another Eraser, blood from the guy’s nose spattering his black feathers, Fang pushed off the dusty ground and did an up- and-away. He hovered about fifty feet up, searching the scene.

There, near the demolished van, landing blow after blow, was Maya, holding her own. Ari was no longer smiling. He was clearly sweating with the effort, and his face was furious. And surprised. Fang almost smiled. Maya was fearless and graceful and merciless. She was beautiful to watch.

He scanned the road and spotted Holden backed into a corner with an Eraser. Fang frowned. The kid’s technique was all off, and he looked terrified and in way over his head. The Eraser advanced on him, murder in his feral eyes.

The Eraser tore into Holden’s arm and raised his claw for the final blow, and Fang dove.

The dive was short and lightning quick—the half-dazed Eraser never saw him coming.

Fang stood up, looking around for Holden, and caught a glimpse of Ratchet wailing on some guy with the tire iron… right as Kate paused in her own fight and clipped Ratchet under the chin with her left hand, sending him reeling backward.

“Kate!” Fang yelled sharply. “Watch your aim!”

Ratchet was already standing back up, looking annoyed but ready to take on the next Eraser, when Star, appearing out of nowhere, spun him around just in time for Kate to land another bone-crunching blow to his chest. As Ratchet crumpled to the ground, the Eraser gave Kate a brief nod of acknowledgment.

Fang’s insides turned to ice as things clicked into place: how the convoy had found them, why the two girls had looked so freaked out. They hadn’t been nervous about the fight.

They’d been nervous about their betrayal.

“Traitors,” Fang hissed, advancing on them.

Kate shook her head slowly, apologetic. Guilty. “Sorry, Fang, we wanted to help you. It’s just that…”

“Survival comes first,” Star said simply.

Before Fang could respond, two Erasers charged toward him, and everything was a blur of color and instincts.

Fang, on autopilot, kicked and dodged, feeling hollow, anger driving him as he beat the freak out of the guys while Star and Kate just watched.

With a last surge of adrenaline he crushed the windpipe of the final Eraser, and then it was over.

Everything was eerily quiet without the sounds of battle.

“Starfish,” Fang called to Holden. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” the kid said, wincing as the cells in his arm multiplied, the deep gash closing before their eyes.

Fang nodded. His side felt bruised, he had a possible cracked wing bone, his arms ached, and a gash on his forehead dripped blood into his eyes. It had felt so satisfying, sweating through his fury. Hurting someone. But now that it was over, Fang still had to deal with this.

Betrayal.

17

FANG STOOD FACE-TO-FACE with Star and Kate, fists clenched, breathing hard. His muscles stood out on his arms. He felt his agitation vibrating to his fingertips.

Kate looked uneasy and shifted into a more defensive stance. She looked scared. Of him.

Star, on the other hand, looked unrepentant. She looked him straight on, her blue eyes cold and determined. If he was going to attack, she was ready.

Holden looked up at Fang, waiting for his cue. His eyes were wide with anticipation, but he remained loyal. He had Fang’s back.

Was he going to attack? For one of the very few times in his life, Fang had no idea what to do. Should he scream, walk away, or finish them completely? The unasked question hung in the air between them, the tension building. Fang’s face twitched. He was furious, but mostly he just felt disappointed.

Only one other situation made him this stressed, this confused… this freaking emotional. He looked around. Where was she?

Where was Maya?

And Ari?

“Fang!” Holden grabbed his sleeve. “Up there!” He pointed at the sky.

Fang looked up and felt his heart stop.

Maya and Ari. Five hundred feet up.

Battling to the death.

18

THEY HEARD HER scream pierce the air even from the ground, saw the bright arc of blood splash across the sky. And then she was falling.

Fang felt dazed as he watched her floating down, a long sigh stretching out between them, arms and legs reaching lazily upward, feather-light, body pulling down.

Go, Fang’s instincts shrieked at him, but time had stopped. He was frozen to the spot, and so was she.

Suspended. A picture snapped, a painting hung against the endless wall of sky. Still life of a tragedy, Fang thought. He felt a bright wave of distress, his heart thundering out of his chest, but he couldn’t connect the feeling to the image in front of him.

Her wings were silhouetted against the brilliant flame of sunlight. Fang knew the exact color of those wings, their span, their texture against his cheek. Hawk’s wings, to match her sharp instincts, her hard looks.

She looked soft now—softer than the air and the clouds around her. Tender. Cradled in blue.

Fang was holding his breath.

He could see her face now, her mouth open in a perfect O, caught in mid-sentence, drawing in.

To tell him everything that had never been said. That she’d still be there for him, like she always had. That he shouldn’t have left her and the flock.

That she loved him.

Fang felt his will seeping out of him, crushed beneath the weight of this knowledge. The fall would kill them both.

He blinked and she was moving again, her arms like a marionette’s, in unlikely poses, twisting. A delicate dance, a swaying to music he could not hear.

Down… and down.

Her features came sharply into focus and Fang saw the fear there, her mouth protesting in a silent scream, the ragged ripple of wing tearing behind her, ruined.

The blood in her hair, cut short. So it wouldn’t get tangled in the wind.

The sound caught up to Fang’s ears, the shriek vibrating louder and louder, closer and closer as the ground rushed upward and all the light fell away from her and she was plummeting, as dark and heavy as a stone.

Max—no, Maya—was falling to her death.

Fang surged upward. Racing gravity, he stretched out his arms toward Maya’s free-falling body. He just barely managed to catch her, then sagged as her deadweight dragged him down.

Hovering with Maya clutched in his arms, Fang felt his jaw tighten as he saw that her neck was covered in blood, which was streaming down her skin and onto her shirt. No, no, no, his brain protested with growing distress. Ari’s claws had sliced her up like deli meat.

“Fang,” Maya whispered.

“You’re okay,” Fang said, as much to convince himself as Maya. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

Scenes flashed in Fang’s mind: Maya laughing easily. Maya asking if he was okay, her eyes soft, concerned. Maya after her haircut—happy, confident, ready for a fresh start. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he had thought they could be each other’s fresh start. He ground his teeth into his lips to keep from screaming.

“Fang… I love you,” Maya said, starting to cry. Tears trickled over her lovely cheeks, down her jaw, into the mutilated mess of her neck.

The sound of wings filtered into his brain, but only vaguely, as if he were hearing it through a long tunnel.

“I know,” Fang whispered.

Then he felt the wind shift behind him, felt the hairs on his neck rising. Before he could move, before he could react, Ari appeared, and with a final, murderous lunge, smashed his elbow into Maya’s chest with crushing force.

“No!” Fang screamed as Ari soared away from them. Still struggling to hold Maya up, Fang couldn’t defend her, couldn’t fight back. He could only clutch at her and watch it happen.

Helpless.

Fang landed as gently as he could. He fell to his knees, arranging Maya’s head on his lap.

“Crap,” Ratchet said, awake again and limping over. “I saw Ari take a swipe at her, but I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“Get me something to stop the bleeding,” Fang said tersely. Ratchet looked around, then grabbed Holden and yanked the boy’s shirt off. He tossed it to Fang, who pressed the cloth to Maya’s neck.

He was aware of Star and Kate, unsure what to do, huddling together off to the side. They clearly hadn’t been prepared for this. Fang would deal with them later.

Ratchet and Holden leaned silently over him. They knew, just as Fang knew, that it was too late.

“I’m sorry,” Maya cried helplessly. She coughed and sputtered, her breath growing shallow.

“Shh,” Fang said. “Don’t talk. Just focus on breathing. You’re going to get through this. We’re going to get through this,” he repeated.

Maya’s brown eyes struggled to focus on his. “Sorry I’m… not st-strong af… ter all.”

“Maya,” he said quietly. “You are strong. Stronger than anyone.”

“After Max,” she said, trying to smile. Blood began to seep from beneath Holden’s shirt and drip on the ground.

Fang shook his head. “Not after Max. Right next to her. Equal.”

“Thank you,” Maya whispered. Then her eyes seemed to focus on a spot just to one side of Fang’s face, and her head lolled.

Fang didn’t move.

He just sat there, staring at the dead girl. The dead Maya, the dead Max, the dead almost everything he cared about. He felt like a freight train was slamming into his chest, over and over again.

Ratchet and Holden tensed beside Fang as footsteps approached. Ratchet said, “Fang? Wolfboy’s back.”

Still Fang didn’t move from his place on the ground, didn’t stop cradling Maya’s body.

Ari’s voice, gruff and taunting, cut through the fog. “Fang—sorry, man. Had to happen. Don’t worry, though—she’s a clone, right? Dime a dozen.”

Finally Fang looked up, his eyes swimming. “We’ll finish this later,” he said through clenched teeth.

Ari grinned. “I’m counting on it,” he said, turning. “C’mon, you weaklings, get up,” he shouted at the injured Erasers. Many large bodies heaved themselves noisily toward the trucks.

“Coward!” Ratchet hurled the dented, bloodied tire iron through the air.

Ari stepped swiftly to the left, and the metal clanged against a truck. His laughter, grating and harsh, filled the empty desert battlefield. Then the engines roared and the entire convoy spun around and faded away in a cloud of dust.

When they were gone, Fang passed his fingers over Maya’s face, closing her eyes and brushing away some blood. He forced himself to lay Maya’s already cooling body on the ground. As Fang looked down at her, he wanted to tear his own heart out.

Ari would die for this.

19

AS SOON AS I walked into biology class, the nauseating smell of formaldehyde hit me smack in the face. Hello, buttload of horrible memories! Clearly today was going to be even more nightmare-y than school usually was.

“Hello, Max. Glad you could join us,” Dr. Williams said.

Frowning, I nodded and plopped down beside Dylan as jealous girls nearby prayed for my death. So I got sidetracked by the schmanciness of the bathrooms on the way here. Sue me.

The smelly chemicals were already getting to me (read: making me want to run away screaming), and I could tell they were also bothering Iggy, who was sitting a couple tables over. His face was drawn and even paler than usual.

Dr. Williams passed out packets of paper. “Today we’ll be doing our first hands-on lab assignment,” he said. “For some of you, this will be your first dissection. It’s a very simple one, but if anyone feels sick, the trash can is right here. Please try to make it.”

Dissection.

Oh, God.

I glanced down at my packet and my stomach dropped. Chicken Dissection Lab.

Of course. This was my life, after all—if something could conceivably get worse, then by golly, it would get worse. We couldn’t just dissect a frog, or an earthworm, or whatever. We had to dissect something with wings.

The other students chattered around me, their reactions ranging from excited to grossed out. Iggy, Dylan, and I were the only silent ones.

Dr. Williams began handing out plastic bags containing rubbery chicken carcasses. I fought back a wave of panic and nausea as I skimmed my info packet. Phrases like Count the number of primary feathers and Remove the heart and Examine the air sacs popped out at me.

Please, if there’s any justice at all in this screwed-up world, please don’t make me have a mental breakdown and start hyperventilating in front of my entire biology class.

Dr. Williams placed a plastic bag on our table, two feet from my nose. Dylan and I both stared at it, unwilling to touch it.

“Okay, folks,” Dr. Williams said merrily. “Get your goggles, your gloves, and your trays. The packet explains everything, but come to me if you have questions. Happy dissecting!”

20

I PUT ON my clear, dorktastic goggles automatically while Dylan fetched the dissecting tray. It was equipped with a scalpel, a small pair of scissors, three pokey, suspicious-looking tools, and a pair of tweezers.

“So,” I said, mentally smacking myself upside the head when my voice shook. “Ready to cut this thing open?”

“We can leave, if you want,” Dylan replied softly. “I don’t want to do this any more than you do.”

I clenched my teeth and pulled my shoulders back, shaking my head. “No. Normal people do dissection labs. And we’re normal people, remember?”

He nodded, his aquamarine eyes fixed on me.

I regretted my decision almost as soon as we set the chicken on the tray. It splayed out pathetically, headless and mostly featherless, with puckered pink skin. I felt the chill of goose bumps on my own flesh and shivered.

The chicken’s wings were small and had tiny tufts of down still stuck to them.

White down.

Like Angel’s.

“Step one,” Dylan read aloud. His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Place chicken on its back. Grasp both legs and push down and away from the pelvis.”

In another time, I might have snickered immaturely at the word “pelvis.” But at that moment, all I could do was numbly follow the instructions, while trying to block smells and memories.

It was bred for this, I reminded myself, holding the scalpel. Inside a claustrophobic metal cage, it had been fed scraps. It had been genetically manipulated for a satisfactory amount of plumpness and complacency. It had been bred with a smaller brain, too; it was too stupid to see how trapped it was. To see that this is how it would end up, amid the glint of scalpels, the snick of blades sliding into flesh.

I was stuck in an in-between place, not sure whether I was in biology class or back at the School. Student voices and whitecoat voices bounced around in my mind.

Then Dr. Williams’s face materialized all up in my grill. “Max, Dylan, how’s it going so far?”

I nodded, trying to slow my breathing—I hadn’t realized I’d been hyperventilating. “I’m okay… really.” I looked up at his face, at the four wrinkles on his forehead, his almost calculating hazel eyes.

It was all somewhat… familiar.

Alarm bells went off in my head, wailing, Danger danger danger! My alarm bells were not to be taken lightly.

Was it possible that Dr. Williams was a whitecoat?

“Actually, I feel a bit sick,” I said brusquely. “Come on, Dylan. Iggy!”

Iggy twitched on his stool and turned in the direction of my voice.

“C’mon, Ig,” I repeated, ignoring Dylan’s curious glance. “Time to go.”

“Max, the boys seem fine,” Dr. Williams said. Concerned or threatening, concerned or threatening? It was a question I had to ask myself way too often.

“No, I feel sick, too,” Dylan said. Good boy.

Iggy wove through the maze of lab tables. “Gonna barf,” he informed Dr. Williams. “Gotta go.”

I strode toward the door, itching to hightail it out of there.

“Oh, no, you don’t, Maximum,” said Dr. Williams in a steely voice.

And here we go. I sighed.

I leaned forward onto the balls of my feet, ready to spring into action. Dylan moved ever so slightly, placing himself a bit in front of me and in a good fight position. I felt Iggy tense up. Tapping his forearm twice, I breathed, “Little over six feet. Bit of a belly. Dead center.” Nobody but Iggy—and maybe Dylan—would be able to hear me. Ig inclined his chin the tiniest bit. He understood.

Dr. Williams shuffled past the cardboard box of chicken bags to his desk, where he brought out some Post-its and started scribbling. I watched him the entire time. If he charged, I’d drag Iggy and Dylan to the left, roll over the empty lab table, and shoot out the door. If he yanked a gun out of his geeky teacher pants, we’d dive behind the table, chuck some scalpels for good luck, and then shoot out the door.

“So what’s the story, Doctor?” I asked Dr. Williams, crossing my arms. Everyone in the classroom was staring at us now. “Wait, I know—your plan is to make my life miserable? Or possibly destroy us?”

Dr. Williams smiled thinly. “What do you mean, Max? I just don’t want you to get in trouble for walking out of class.” He held out three hall passes.

Well, that was… unexpected. I narrowed my eyes at him, but he didn’t falter.

“Let’s go, boys.” I shrugged and took the passes, and we walked out of the classroom.

My alarm bells never stopped ringing.

21

“MAX’S LIFE IS in danger.”

Dylan’s breath quickened. Okay, now Dr. Williams had his attention.

“But you can keep her safe, Dylan. All you have to do is cooperate with us.”

After they’d fled the disastrous dissection lab, Dylan had realized that he’d left one of his textbooks behind, so he had gone back to get it.

Big mistake.

The other students were already gone, leaving only the biology teacher behind. Now Dylan was alone in the lab with him and the chicken carcasses, and it looked like he was, as Max would say, in deep, deep sneakers.

Dylan leaned against the table and frowned at the teacher. “What do you want?” he said in a hostile voice he hoped sounded as tough as Max’s. He fingered a scalpel that one of the other kids had left behind, but it didn’t make him feel any more secure.

Dr. Williams smiled, making wrinkles appear around his mouth. “I’m not your enemy, Dylan. I have vital information for you, straight from Dr. Gunther-Hagen himself.”

“That’s impossible,” Dylan said, his muscles tensing even more at the mention of the brilliant, diabolical man who had engineered his creation. The man who’d given him his life, and introduced him to Max. “Dr. Gunther-Hagen is dead.”

“Oh, no, he’s very much alive,” promised Dr. Williams. “I’ve seen him myself.”

Dylan stared at Dr. Williams but didn’t respond. He had seen how Max looked at the biology teacher—with suspicion, distrust, and revulsion—and he didn’t trust this man for an instant.

“And Dr. Gunther-Hagen has a special project for you,” Dr. Williams continued. “A… mission, if you will.”

“What sort of mission?” Dylan asked doubtfully.

“A mission it is vital you keep secret from Max if you value her safety.” Dylan opened his mouth to protest, but Dr. Williams quickly cut him off. “It involves Fang.”

Dylan shifted uncomfortably at the sound of the unwelcome name, feeling more and more boxed in among the stacks of laminated papers, bins of educational videos, dissection tools, and models of the various stages of mitosis.

“Fang is a far bigger threat than you realize—a bigger threat than any of us realized.” Dr. Williams moved closer, seeming to delight in Dylan’s discomfort. He watched him gravely. “I’m sharing this information with you because we know you are good, Dylan, that you can be trusted. We can trust you, can’t we, Dylan?”

Dylan frowned. He did not like the turn this conversation was taking. Not at all. But at the mention of a secret, especially one about Fang, Dylan couldn’t help leaning closer. His breath quickened.

“Fang’s DNA, as it turns out, is different…. Dangerous. Dangerous in a way that bad people might use for their own selfish means. You wouldn’t want to help the bad people, would you, Dylan?”

Dylan crossed his arms over his chest. “You can’t expect me to buy this without an explanation.”

As if to emphasize the delicacy of the information, in a hushed voice Dr. Williams described tests, experiments, and discoveries that boggled the mind. Dylan had certainly seen, felt, and heard about a lot of strange twists and turns of science in his few short years on the planet—not the least of which was being genetically enhanced to be able to heal wounds with his own saliva—but his mind was whirring a mile a minute at this strange, fascinating information he was learning about Fang’s DNA. It could be the key to the most important medical discovery in human history….

But he wasn’t even sure he believed it. And he definitely resented Dr. Williams’s condescending tone.

“So you see, Dylan, it’s very important that we contain the threat. That’s where you come in. We need you to capture Fang, to bring him to us. You’re stronger than Fang, Dylan,” the doctor said, touching his arm. It was a compliment, but Dylan flinched. “Superior,” the teacher continued. “You were designed for this. And you’d be doing a great service to the world, of course,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

Dylan’s eyes drifted to one of the chickens, still splayed open on the dissection table, its wings pinned open. They wanted to run more tests. On Fang. Dylan thought back to what Max had said about tests in her early life—about dog kennels and needles and whitecoats and drugs. He shook his head. Regardless of his history with Max’s ex, and regardless of any threat Fang’s DNA might pose, Dylan didn’t hate him that much.

“No,” Dylan said, already heading out of this room that was full of lies and bribes and the smell of formaldehyde. He didn’t need to hear any more. “Find someone else to be your headhunter. You can tell Gunther-Hagen to stick his mission up his—”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Dr. Williams interrupted before Dylan had reached the door. “One more little tidbit, Dylan,” Dr. Williams called after him, holding up one finger. “If you don’t accept this mission, well, we’ll have to kill Max.”

22

ANGEL’S EYES FLEW open and she gasped for air, scrabbling at the sides of her cage in terror. She took a slow, deep breath.

It was just a dream.

Angel slumped against the plastic wall of the dog crate, feeling icky and shaky and sore all over. In the time she’d been held captive, she had been electrified, operated on, beaten, scorched, and worked to exhaustion. But this nightmare was worse than any of it.

It hadn’t been real… had it?

Every time she closed her eyes, images from the dream plastered the inside of her brain: Max, her neck covered in blood, dropping like a rock out of the sky… her brown eyes dulling with death as her skin grew pale… But Max wasn’t dead, of course. Dead Max was the biggest oxymoron in history. Right?

Angel felt a rising panic. Her dreams, her visions, were almost never wrong. Except when she thought Fang would die. That hadn’t happened… yet.

She bit her lip, staring at the roof of her cage through half-lidded eyes, trying to make a connection. And then, like an image appearing through the fog, Fang materialized.

Joy, pure and powerful, surged inside her—until Angel realized that Fang wasn’t there. She was seeing him in another dreamlike vision. He was standing in a sea of red dust and blue sky, covered in blood and dirt and grime, but he didn’t look like Fang, exactly. He looked ferocious and crazed, a mad dog about to attack. Unhinged.

“She’s dead,” Fang said, and Angel drew in a sharp breath, her whole body trembling. She hadn’t dared to think it could really be true.

Fang’s face twisted as he tried to control his anguish. He took a step toward two girls Angel recognized from Fang’s gang: Star and Kate.

“Maya died because of you,” he snarled.

Realization hit Angel like a ton of C4 bricks. Maya. Max II. Relief, and then horrible guilt, surged through her: Max was alive. It was Maya who was dead.

“We didn’t know,” Kate said, weeping, mascara running down her smooth brown cheeks. Kate was superstrong, Angel remembered, but she didn’t look strong now. “Ari wasn’t supposed to—” Her voice caught as she cried, but Fang’s jaw was tensed, his features hard and calculating, his hands balled into fists.

Angel watched in dread. She knew that look. When crossed, Fang was deadly. Get out of there, she thought at the girls.

Star put an arm around her friend, and her usually harsh features softened. “We’re sorry, Fang, but Maya… wasn’t our fault. She was our friend.”

Fang’s laugh was harsh, his sneer horrifying. “Liar!” he shouted, towering over her. “Like I was your friend? You hated her,” he spat, his eyes flashing.

Star shifted uncomfortably and tucked a stray piece of blond hair behind her ear, her elflike face tightening. “I never wanted her dead,” she said quietly.

“Please, Fang,” Kate hedged, sensing he was about to snap. “We were afraid. There’s just too much danger following you. Jeb didn’t tell us they’d try to kill—”

“How do you know Jeb?” Fang asked, his voice low and murderous. A vein pulsed in his temple as he absorbed the flare of shock at hearing Jeb Batchelder’s name. Jeb, the man who’d once taken care of the flock like a father, but who’d turned out to be just another traitor. “How is he involved in this?”

“He said he’d keep us safe,” Star shot back, her blue eyes accusing. “Which is more than you could do.”

Fang’s growl was fierce and guttural as he lunged for Star’s throat like a wounded animal taking a last stand.

“Fang, don’t!” Holden pleaded, his voice cracking.

Ratchet had grabbed Fang’s arms. “Chill, man. Just chill. They’re not worth it.”

“You should know better than anyone that survival comes first,” Star said smugly, but she cowered as Fang surged against Ratchet’s grasp, gnashing his teeth.

Angel knew that Ratchet couldn’t hold Fang back if he really wanted to kill Star and Kate. As angry as he was, he was choosing to spare them.

“Traitors!” Fang shrieked after the girls as they took off down the desert road. “Go on, run. Get out of my sight! If I ever see your faces again I’ll tear you apart with my bare hands.”

Then the vision ended, leaving Angel with the image of Fang’s furious eyes, an ocean of hurt behind them. She blinked rapidly as the desert scene melted away, leaving her with a dull ache in her chest.

Max was alive, at least, but everything else seemed to be falling apart. Angel hunched into the emptiness of her dog crate, the thick smell of chemicals surrounding her and pain throbbing in every part of her body. She missed the flock so much.

If only Fang or Max were here with her.

23

“THAT IS MESSED up,” Ratchet said angrily, standing over Fang. “You’re not kicking us to the curb now, when we still gotta get back at that fanged freak. No way, man.”

Fang nodded, staring into the smoldering embers of their campfire. He was aching all over, and his shirt was still covered in Maya’s blood. “Sorry.”

“Is this about Star and Kate?” Ratchet demanded. “You think we’re like them? That I’d snitch? You know I don’t roll like that.” Even with his aggressive front, Fang could hear the real hurt in Ratchet’s voice. “Look at these battle scars.” Ratchet pulled up his sleeve, and his dark skin gleamed in the firelight. His arm was covered in slashes and bruises. “For you.”

“It’s not that,” Fang said. “I just can’t… do this. Besides Star and Kate, Maya’s dead, and… Look, there’s nothing left. Fang’s gang was a stupid fantasy. I’m just better on my own.”

A fleeting thought of the flock made his chest tighten.

“No man is an island,” Holden said with an awkward laugh, but Fang didn’t react.

“Shut up, Starfish,” Ratchet said halfheartedly, kicking an empty can into the darkness in frustration.

Holden brushed his sandy hair out of his face and pulled absentmindedly at the chunk of new skin on his earlobe, which had already grown back after one of the Erasers had bitten it off. After a minute, he said in a small voice, “Where are we supposed to go now?”

Fang sighed. “Go home.”

“We don’t have homes to go back to!” Ratchet exploded. “My guys saw me go off with you. You think they’ll take me back? What’ve I got? Nothing.”

“I can’t go back, either,” Holden said softly. “My parents don’t want me around. They’re… they’re scared of me.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you.” Fang pinched the bridge of his nose. He was exhausted. Maybe more exhausted than he’d ever been. He was tired of making plans, of solving problems. He didn’t know how Max had stood it for so long. “You’ll figure it out.”

“So that’s it.” Ratchet’s voice was cold. “After all we’ve been through, you’re just saying, ‘So long, it’s been fun’?”

“Sorry,” said Fang. “But it actually hasn’t been that fun.” And then he stood up and limped away into the desert night.

24

COOL FINGERS PRESSED against Angel’s forehead. Someone was taking the bandages off her eyes.

She didn’t even struggle; she just lay there limply. There was no point fighting it anymore.

“Hey, sweetie,” the someone said, and Angel gasped—she knew that voice. She’d heard that voice so many times.

Jeb.

Jeb here, in the School, taking off the bandages from the operation.

“You.” Angel cringed away from his hands, fury coursing through her. “Don’t touch me!” she spat. “You deserted us. Again. I’m here because of you.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Jeb said. “I’m so sorry, Angel. I can’t explain to you how sorry I am. You have to let me explain—”

“No,” Angel growled, and felt his hands twitch; he was startled. “I don’t care. You don’t get to explain after this.” She touched her tender face.

“Sweetheart…”

“Don’t call me that ever again,” she cried. “I said I don’t care—I don’t care about any of it. About your excuses. About you. About the rest of the human race.” She was seething, and her voice was harsh and icy even to her own ears. “All people do is hurt one another,” she continued bitterly. “So let them all die. Let the doomsday, or whatever they’re calling it now, happen. I don’t care.”

Jeb brushed her dirty hair away from her face, her curls damp with sweat, but Angel clawed at his fingers. “Angel, please listen to me. I’ll make everything okay again, no one will hurt you—”

“I said shut up!” she shrieked. Her small body was shaking. “You just couldn’t stop at Iggy, could you, Jeb?”

“What do you mean?” Jeb asked. He sounded on the verge of horror.

“What do you think I mean?” asked Angel, her voice rising with hysteria. She felt clumsily for the sides of her cage. “I’m blind.”

25

FANG LEANED AGAINST the cold, rough tombstone.

It was twilight, and the sky above the graveyard was a pale indigo. The trees rustled with a slight breeze, but no birds sang, no crickets chirped. Fang was completely alone.

Blood trickled slowly from the wound on his wing, where the bone had cracked and punctured the skin as he’d flown up to catch Maya. At the time, he hadn’t even noticed the pain. It was pulsing dully now, and he was letting it bleed.

Pain from somewhere other than his heart was a welcome change.

He deserved the pain, Fang told himself. Everything was his fault.

If he had paid more attention in that battle with the henchgoons, if he had kept tabs on Maya the entire time, she wouldn’t have fought Ari in the air. She wouldn’t have died in Fang’s arms. She would still be alive today, warm and happy and Maxish and not Maxish, having his back when things got too real.

Fang stared up at the moon, only barely visible in the murky dusk. Things had gotten too real.

First Angel. Then Maya. Both innocent, both dead.

All his fault.

He was a murderer.

He let his head drop into his hands, and shut his eyes tight. At least Ratchet and Holden were okay now—without Fang and the danger that came with him, they’d be all right. Fang could not be trusted as a leader; that much was horribly obvious. How could he save the world if he couldn’t even protect the few people he loved?

Swallowing, Fang looked up, around the graveyard. Tombstone after tombstone, death after death, epitaph after epitaph, summing up a life, or a worldview, in a few words. What would his gravestone say, he wondered, assuming he wasn’t left to rot in the open air?

FANG: GREW UP IN A DOG CRATE. FELL IN LOVE. SCREWED IT UP. FAILED AT LIFE.

Wait a second. Something caught his eye.

Fang scrambled to his feet and crossed to the tombstone that read JULIE EVANS, 1955–2010 in two strides. He knelt before it, reaching out and tracing the epitaph.

YOU HAVEN’T FAILED UNTIL YOU QUIT TRYING.

A sign from the universe? Fang’s brain being so pathetic that it was making up coincidences?

Either way, he couldn’t quit yet. Fang had a role in this—whatever it was—and now that he’d lost two people, he wouldn’t lose any more.

Fang touched the engraved words one more time, then kicked off from the grass and soared into the darkening sky.

26

FANG STARED AT his warped, distorted reflection.

He was standing in Millennium Park, Chicago, in front of the huge stainless-steel sculpture nicknamed “The Bean.” Around his reflection curved the city skyline, clear blue sky and tall majestic buildings. This place was one of the many stops he’d made in the past few days. He was newly motivated, as if the words on the gravestone had injected him with pure determination.

Fang was trying to understand the 99% Plan.

His wing was still messed up, so he’d taken buses and trains—had even hitchhiked—all over the country, from South Florida, thick with gray fog, to the smooth golden plains of Oklahoma. He had seen the vivid colors of the Arizona sunset. He had watched small waves lap the shores of Lake Erie.

Every place he had visited had held rumors and evidence. All over America, people were stirring restlessly in anticipation. You could feel the energy in the air, building to the breaking point. It was like the calm before the storm.

But this was not a storm of revolution, like so many others in history. This was a darker, more violent storm—twisted, raging. It was a storm of desolation.

There had been dozens of demonstrations, some of which turned into senseless riots. Celebrities were updating their Twitter profiles en masse, writing things like “Earth is mine, 1 more for 99.” Slack-jawed Plan members were milling around outside hospital maternity wards wearing sheets scrawled with such slogans as LESS IS MORE. END REPRODUCTION NOW. The brutal stoning of a homeless amputee (“the Plan does not allow for the weak”) was just one example of the escalating violence.

There were large meetings in every city, held in universities and government buildings, in which “rational” lectures were led by smiling, serenely confident “experts,” discussing the benefits of “selection.” All of which, to Fang’s utter disgust, the news outlets covered with a mix of excited panic and restrained approval.

They wouldn’t be so approving, Fang thought, if they really understood the extent of the 99% Plan. Because through eavesdropping—and, okay, a couple of bribes—Fang had confirmed what he’d feared: These people, the remnants of the Doomsday Group and the By-Half Plan, wanted to reduce the earth to only the enhanced.

That is, to exterminate the human race.

Fang shook his head in revulsion, still unable to comprehend it. The same crazies from the past had somehow become even crazier. That was no surprise.

But the American people were actually going along with it.

Fang’s fists clenched as he thought of all of the places he’d seen, the millions of people struggling through their individual lives, their loves….

All that beauty.

All that history.

And all these people, so eager to destroy it.

Book Two

AND SO

IT BEGINS

27

ANGEL HEARD JEB’S breath catch in horror.

“They didn’t,” he said hollowly. “Not you, too. Not your eyes.”

“You’re just upset because you wrecked your perfect little specimen,” Angel spat, shoving away his hands and retreating farther into her dog crate. She still ached all over.

Jeb clutched the door of the cage, shuddering so hard that he rattled the metal grid. “Oh, Angel…”

“Save it.”

“It’s like Ari all over again,” he said brokenly. “So many failures… so many mistakes. You can’t imagine the remorse I feel, Angel….”

It’s your own fault, Angel thought, but she was almost surprised to hear tears in his voice. She couldn’t remember Jeb ever crying, no matter what happened.

“I was such a bad father to him,” continued Jeb dejectedly.

Angel bristled. Ari had been a disaster, that was for sure, but he was dead. Angel was the one who was here; she was the one whose eyes had been ruined. His apology had been meaningless, but this little heart-to-heart about Ari was straight-up insulting.

And he wouldn’t shut up. “After Ari died, I just… I had to try again. I had to give myself another chance at being a father, at caring for a son. That’s why I worked so closely with Dr. Gunther-Hagen.”

Wait, what? Angel sat up straight inside her crate, her attention snapping back to Jeb. She forgot her anger for a moment. “You were creating another Ari?”

“I swore this time I wouldn’t fail. I would be a good father….” Jeb’s voice caught in his throat. “And he would be a good son. I would retire from my work with the School and care for him with all my heart.”

And despite everything, Angel couldn’t help but feel the tiniest twinge of pity. Here Jeb was, a fully grown man, sobbing over his dead son.

“You have to understand, Angel,” Jeb pleaded. “I had only the best in mind. Just one new Ari. Then it would end.”

“But it didn’t end,” Angel whispered, thinking of the flying mutants they’d battled for months.

“Well, of course there were many less-than-perfect attempts,” Jeb conceded. “But Dr. Gunther-Hagen is an incredibly brilliant geneticist. With his help, I made Ari bigger and better than ever before, seamless and strong. Finally, I had my son back.” Jeb wasn’t crying anymore. He sounded almost triumphant.

Triumphant, and something else.

Angel felt the dread building in her stomach.

“The not-Aris were useful, too,” Jeb said. “Not as sons, but as warriors, designed for one mission, and one mission only.”

“Mission?”

When he spoke, Angel could hear the cold serenity in his tone. “To eliminate Fang.”

28

“WHAT?” ANGEL FELT her skull prickle all over and her hands go numb. The air around her felt like it was vibrating, and she rested her head against the plastic wall of the dog crate, breathing deeply.

With darkness consuming her vision, she couldn’t see Jeb’s face, but she could picture it clearly: the laugh lines around his mouth, a bit of stubble on his jawline, and his eyes—intelligent eyes that she had once known so well, that she had trusted, that even Max had trusted. The eyes that seemed well meaning, even when he was screwing everything up.

She must’ve misunderstood him.

“Wait—what?” she said again, shaking her head to clear it. “Eliminate Fang… as in, kill Fang?”

“That’s what the 99% Plan is all about,” Jeb said simply.

He sounded calm. Creepily, eerily calm. The calm that comes with absolute certainty. It was terrifying.

“Isn’t 99% about sparing the mutants?” Angel tried to keep her voice as calm as Jeb’s, though her body was shaking all over. “How can that mean killing Fang?”

“It’s about the good of the planet versus the good of the people, Angel,” he explained in an indulgent tone, as if they were talking about why she needed to share with others or conserve water. “You know I love Fang like another son.” It was true—she had thought he did. Angel instantly regretted pitying him earlier.

“Then how could you do this?” Angel asked, her voice rising. “I’ll forgive you, Jeb,” she said suddenly. She touched her eyelids again, choking back tears. “I’ll forgive you, and everything that happened with Ari won’t matter anymore. You can turn it all around. Just don’t do this.” She was gripping the bars of her cage, pleading with him.

Jeb was silent for so long that Angel held her breath, a twinge of hope swelling in her.

Then he sighed heavily. “No. He’s too dangerous now. If he remains alive, his life will become a living hell.”

“But why?” Angel demanded.

“Hans will see to it. Remember back in Dr. Gunther-Hagen’s lab, when Fang almost died?”

She nodded. It was one of her worst memories, even worse than the ones from when she was really little, in the School.

“As a result of those tests, Hans has recently discovered something truly extraordinary about Fang’s DNA.”

“What kind of discovery?” Angel asked bleakly. Jeb had no answers, no explanations—only more vague justifications. She felt empty.

“Something amazing,” Jeb replied with such bright enthusiasm that Angel wanted to hit him. They were talking about the reason for Fang’s death. “Something that would change the world.”

Suddenly, the soft padding sound of footsteps reached Angel’s ears. Someone was coming toward them.

“Yes, Angel, something that would change the world,” a cool female voice said. “And now we need to find out if you, sweetie, have the same… defect.”

Angel felt like she was going to throw up.

She knew that voice.

Dr. Martinez, Max’s mom, was at the School.

29

“REMEMBER, FIRST IMPRESSIONS are key,” Total told me sagely.

I stared. “Total, there is no first impression. I’ve been living with the guy for like three months, for Pete’s sake.”

He flapped his little black wings and sniffed. “Well, excuse me for trying to help with your—might I remind you—first-ever date with Dylan.”

Rolling my eyes, I attempted to get a brush through my ratty hair for the umpteenth time. “It’s not even a date.” I sighed. “Dylan and I are chaperoning Nudge and Sloan.”

“I bet Nudge would accept my advice graciously.”

“Perfect! So go talk to Nudge, then!”

Total whined. “But unlike you, she already knows the ins and outs of being a normal teenager. You’re the dysfunctional one here.”

I scowled. “Fine. Give me advice.”

“Ask nicely.”

“Total.”

“Sheesh, no need to get all snippy,” he said, pouting as effectively as a Scottish terrier can pout. “Just remember: No one likes a self-absorbed person. Always direct the conversation back to your date.”

“I already know everything about my… about Dylan,” I said. I sighed again and wound my hair into a lopsided bun, then tried to jam in a couple of the chopstick-y things that Nudge uses for her hair. Welcome to the glamorous life of Maximum Ride, ladies and gentlemen.

“Also, personal hygiene is a must,” Total continued.

We both looked at my messy hair, my stained jeans, my beat-up sneakers.

“I’ll get Nudge to choose an outfit for you,” he muttered.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, trying not to panic. Do I need to repeat how awful I am at this—this normal girl stuff? No. I don’t believe I do.

But Sloan was a fifteen-year-old boy. I don’t care how nice the guy might be, that’s a walking hormonal disaster waiting to happen, in my book. There was no way I was just going to sit there and let him whisk Nudge away by herself, so to keep it from being horribly awkward, Dylan and I were double-whatevering with them.

Kill me now.

“So what movie are you crazy kids seeing, anyway?” Total asked fondly.

“Blood City III: The Massacre.” I’d read the summary of it online, and frankly, it sounded like the directors had just decided to film my life.

“Perfect!” Total crowed, wagging his tail. “A horror movie! You can cling to Dylan during all the scary parts.”

Flabbergasted, I gaped at him. “First of all, sexist pig much?” I said. “I don’t buy into the whole damsel-in-distress thing, especially when I’ve saved Dylan’s feathery butt more times than he can count. Second of all, no. Just… no.”

Total ignored me and hopped up onto the counter and opened the medicine cabinet with his nose, taking out a little white box and pushing it toward me.

“What’s that?” I asked warily.

Total winked. “Breath mints.”

30

“NOOOO!” ON THE screen, a woman’s eyes bugged almost out of her head, and I tried not to scream.

Tried not to scream in exasperation, I mean. The serial killer was right in front of her, wide open! Clearly, instead of weeping like a moron, she should be lunging forward and administering a swift uppercut to his chin. Then this entire pointless ordeal would be over with, and I could go home.

Okay. I’ll stop whining. It wasn’t that bad, sitting there in the movie theater next to Dylan. We were in the row directly behind Nudge and Sloan—partly so we wouldn’t get separated, partly so I could knock Sloan unconscious if he tried anything—and, to be completely honest, I was feeling pretty relaxed.

In a completely nervous, freaked-out way, of course.

Because as soon as the words AND NOW… YOUR FEATURE PRESENTATION had flickered across the screen, Dylan had tentatively reached out and taken my hand.

And I hadn’t stopped him.

So that was the situation: dark theater, warm hands, terrible blood-drenched movie, and so much tension between me and Dylan that it felt like my brain was about to short-circuit.

Basically, I wasn’t sure whether to just go with it and have fun (like a human) or panic and get the heck out of this pitch-black enclosed space (like a bird kid). So far, the human way was winning, but the jury was still out.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, the stupid bug-eyed lady got stabbed, and wailed dramatically. I turned to the side and made a face at Dylan.

“Well, you can’t blame her,” he whispered, and his eyes flashed like blue coins in the dim half-light. “She hasn’t exactly been trained for fights to the death.”

“Oh, come on! She still totally just sat there and let herself get stabbed,” I protested. “In my humble opinion, she deserved it.”

He snickered quietly. “You may be the only person who’s rooting for the serial killer.”

We smiled at each other, and that was when my usual harshness came slamming back into me with a jolt, making me bite my lip and focus on the movie again. No time for blushing and admiring; make sure Nudge is doing okay! Check for escape routes!

Sometimes my survival skills really get in the way of things.

I stayed completely still through the rest of the movie, even when Dylan’s thumb began tracing fiery circles on my palm, even when my heart started pounding so loudly I thought people six rows away could probably hear it. Get it together, I told myself. Be calm. Be Zen. You are Buddha.

Except I highly doubt that Buddha would be experiencing the same tingles down his spine that I was. And because of Dylan! Someone, anyone, just put me in a straitjacket and be done with it.

Finally, the screen went black and the end credits started rolling. I shot to my feet, dropping Dylan’s hand like a hot potato. “Okay, well, that was fun! Let’s head home now!”

“No way,” Nudge said, frowning. “It’s only nine o’clock.”

“Yeah,” said Sloan. He nudged Nudge—no pun intended—and gave her a little smirk. “Let’s you and me go back to my place.”

I choked, not sure whether to be horrified or revolted or amused. For one thing, if this guy thought there was even a slim chance that I’d let him get his hands all over my Nudge, he was sorely mistaken. For another thing, gross. For a third thing, what “place”? Didn’t this kid have parents? I mean, true, we didn’t, but we weren’t exactly the norm.

“No, I think we’ll be going home now,” I growled, grabbing Dylan’s wrist and practically pushing him out into the aisle. “C’mon, Nudge.”

Nudge sulked, but she followed obediently, with a glowering Sloan right behind her. He probably hated me, which I cared absolutely zero about. He wouldn’t be the first one.

As soon as we stepped out of the theater and into the cool night air, I let out a sigh of relief. No matter how many amazingly attractive guys held my hand, no matter how many dates I went on, I would always, always prefer to be out in open space, with room for flying.

Unless, of course, that space was filled with three hulking figures.

“We’ve been waiting for you guys,” said Ari.

31

FOR A FEW moments, I couldn’t even speak. All I could do was stare dumbly at the person who’d died in my arms. Twice.

Ari.

And he wasn’t alone. Two big, snarling Erasers flanked him, looking oddly similar to their ringleader.

“How are you… alive?” I asked shakily. Sloan visibly tensed at my words, and I remembered that, while undoubtedly a sleazy moron, he was still a relatively innocent human. If this turned into a fight, it would be bad.

“I’m not a zombie,” Ari said in his gruff voice. “Just a better version of myself.”

I tensed, my hands twitching. The previous versions hadn’t been particularly pleasant.

Ari chuckled. “Don’t look so nervous, Max. I didn’t come on this friendly little visit to see you, anyway.” He looked pointedly at Dylan. “ ’Sup, Dyl.”

“Do I know you?” Dylan cocked his head, confused and understandably wary. “Max? Who is this?”

This weird man-wolf-child? I didn’t really know how to answer that. Ari and I had been mortal enemies—his first death had been caused by me accidentally breaking his neck in a New York subway tunnel—and then we’d been kind of friends. And then he’d died. What was I supposed to make of this new Ari?

When in doubt, play it safe. I narrowed my eyes. “Yes, Ari, tell us. Who are you this time? Good? Evil? Still deciding?”

“Relaaax, sis. We’re buds. My third coming is in peace. Actually, I already did you a favor.” His wolfy grin just sent more adrenaline hurtling through me.

“What kind of favor?”

Ari crossed his arms proudly. “I killed your clone.”

“Clone?” Sloan said shrilly, but we all ignored him.

My stomach clenched. “You what?” I snarled, but I knew it was true even before Ari elaborated.

“ ’Fraid so,” he said, smirking. “A scratch, a smash, wham, bam, Max II is dead—just like you always wanted.”

I swallowed. Admittedly, I’d flirted with the idea, but not for real.

“Anyway, on to business,” Ari said lightly before I could respond. He looked again at Dylan, who, taking a cue from me, had assumed a hostile stance. “Jeb wanted me to tell you not to worry about Dr. G.-H. and your little mission.”

“Jeb?” Dylan asked, clearly confused.

“Jeb!” I exclaimed, my voice rising. “What does Jeb have to do with—”

“We’ve got the situation covered,” Ari said with finality, his eyes boring into Dylan’s. I scowled. His smile was playful, but in his eyes there was a definite threat.

“What does he mean, Dylan?” I demanded impatiently.

Dylan shook his head, but he adjusted his stance almost imperceptibly. He seemed to be deciding whether or not to spring.

“Someone had better tell me what’s going on,” I snapped, ready to fight both of them. “Now.”

“What I mean is that I’ll be defanging your buddy Fang.” Ari finally looked at me, smiling cheerfully.

Nudge gasped.

“What?” I exclaimed, heat rising to my cheeks even as my blood ran cold.

“And I just stopped by to make sure I wouldn’t have to add Dylan to the list while I’m at it,” Ari continued calmly. “Maxy here can tell you I’m a bit hard to keep down.” He flashed a conspiratorial grin. “So cease and desist, bud. Cease and desist.”

We all regarded one another suspiciously, and I tensed with growing fury and confusion. Ari wanted to kill Fang? And he was warning Dylan about it, even though Dylan hated Fang? And somehow Jeb was involved?

“Who’s this Fang guy, and what do you mean, ‘defang’?” Sloan asked nervously, a little slow on the uptake. “Like, you’re gonna knock his teeth out?”

Ari turned toward him and cracked his knuckles.

“Naw, kid,” he said. “I mean like I’m gonna tear his heart out through his chest.”

“That’s it,” I snapped, but as I lunged forward, Ari and his posse unfurled their wings, as if choreographed, and kicked off from the ground, hard.

I began to shrug off my jacket to do the same, but Dylan reached out and put his hand on my shoulder.

“You can’t take him right now,” Dylan murmured in my ear. “Too many people around.”

I eyed Sloan, who was stammering “Wh-what the…” next to a horrified Nudge, along with a small group of onlookers who were pointing and taking pictures.

I ground my teeth, but nodded and took a deep breath, unclenching my fists. Fang could take care of himself, I reminded myself. He’d be fine.

“Nice chatting with you guys,” called Ari from above. “Remember what I said, Dylan. Cease and desist.”

And with that, he rose into the darkness and was gone.

32

I WAS JUST rolling into my third hour of sleeplessness when the door to my room creaked open.

I was on guard instantly, bolting upright and wrapping one hand around my bedside lamp. Sound extreme? Not when you’ve been ambushed in your sleep as many times as I have.

“Who’s there?” I whispered. “Nudge?” She had been utterly devastated over stupid Sloan, crying for at least forty minutes after he had called her a freak and hightailed it out of the parking lot. I wouldn’t be surprised if she wanted yet more comforting. Even if I wasn’t necessarily the best comforter in the world.

“No, it’s me.” Very recognizable voice. Completely unexplainable, what he was doing here, but recognizable.

I put the lamp down and flicked it on. Standing in the doorway was Dylan, looking tired and rumpled and sheepish.

“What the heck are you doing in my room?” I asked, incredulous. “It’s past midnight. I’m sleeping.” Well, trying to.

We hadn’t talked after Ari’s little visit. I’d been too freaked out by his news about Fang, and too preoccupied with Nudge’s tears, and then I’d stalked off to my room to try to make sense of things. No luck there.

Dylan shuffled awkwardly. “I… was wondering… if there was any way I could… stay in here tonight.” He mumbled the last words, but I still got them.

I made a sound reminiscent of a dying cat. “What?”

“I hate being alone at night,” he muttered while I gaped. “I know it’s stupid and lame, but I mean—I’m not like you. I haven’t been alive for fifteen years.”

The truth of that statement hit me harder than it should have. It was just so easy to forget that Dylan had been created only two years ago when he looked my age.

“A lot’s been happening lately,” he went on in a rush. “Usually I’d just deal with it, but it’s a lot to absorb, and I was lying there in bed thinking about all the screwed-up things that Ari guy said, and… I don’t know.” Yeah, sounded a bit like my evening.

He looked up at me hopefully. “So can I stay in here? Just for tonight? On the floor or something.”

I hesitated a second more, then sighed heavily and gave a tiny nod.

Relief crossed his male-model face. He came in, dragging his quilt behind him like a little kid, and closed the door quietly. “Thanks.” He looked embarrassed to be needing something, to be this vulnerable. I could have eviscerated him just then, but I hadn’t.

Because I am a freaking princess about other people’s feelings.

“No prob,” I said. “Pull up a patch of floor.”

He shook the quilt out and lay down with a lithe grace, his smooth muscles rippling. I swallowed, trying not to think of how those arms had brushed against mine in the theater. He tucked his wings behind him as he lay on his side—none of us were back sleepers, for obvious reasons. With one hand he reached back and pulled the quilt over him.

He looked big and strong and vulnerable and really, really… appealing.

I flicked off the light and threw my pillow down to him. It landed on his face.

“Thanks,” he said again, pulling the pillow off and bunching it up under his head. “This is just for tonight.”

“Better be,” I muttered, then drifted back to the thoughts that had been eating away at me. Everything that Ari had said had been growing larger in the quiet of the night.

“Dylan?” I said after a few minutes.

“Hmm?”

“What did Ari mean, about ‘cease and desist’? Why would he come looking for you if you’d never even met him before?”

Dylan didn’t answer for such a long time that I thought he’d fallen asleep. Finally, he sighed. “I don’t understand any of it. I never understand why anyone involves me in anything.”

I rolled my eyes. I had little patience for self-pity, and if I’d had another pillow, I would’ve chucked that at him, too.

“He said not to worry about Dr. Gunther-Hagen,” I pressed, my voice sounding small and shrill in my ears. “Maybe he meant you shouldn’t worry about being my perfect other half, like Hansy said. Maybe he meant you should stop pursuing me.”

“Maybe,” he said quietly, and my heart thundered in my chest. I was glad I couldn’t see his face in the darkness. “But I can’t, Max. You know I can’t.”

We were quiet again, each of us listening to the other’s breathing. Finally, Dylan exhaled, long and slow. “Good night, Max.”

I stared at the ceiling, willing my thoughts away from his body, his breath. “Good night, Dylan.”

33

FANG

DYLAN

Knows me better than anyone (both a positive and a negative).

Practically just met me (less blackmail material).

Can completely trust him (probably).

Seems trustworthy (so far).

Helps me stay tough.

Helps me admit I can’t always be tough.

Doesn’t care about social skills. Like me.

A freaking social butterfly. Complements my antisocial behavior.

Has eyes that seem to see inside me. Not good.

Has eyes that make me forget myself. Not good.

Is capable of bringing the meaning of “irritating” to whole new levels.

Is capable of… pretty much the same thing.

Almost like a brother (ack).

Not like a brother. At all. In any way.

Closed off.

Makes darn sure that I know every single emotion going through his head.

I don’t know how to act around him anymore.

Easy to be around.

Never told me he loved me. (Writing it in a letter right before he deserted me doesn’t count. Coward.)

Loves me. And told me so. Right to my face. Gulp.

Intense. Powerful. Moves in a way that makes me ache to touch him.

Strong. Beautiful. Looks at me in a way that makes me ache to… scratch that.

Still having dreams about the way he kissed me.

Ditto.

Don’t know where he is right now. Because he

freaking left

.

Is right here with me. Now. Always.

IT WAS A pretty complete list. The kind of list one makes when one cannot fall asleep because one’s thoughts keep swirling through one’s brain like a bunch of sparrows on crack. I put down my notebook, rolled over, and gazed at the floor.

Dylan had rolled over onto his other side and was facing the opposite wall, his quilt balled up at his feet. He was a turbulent sleeper. Unlike Fang, who was quiet and self-contained. I started to add that to the list, but then thought, Who cares?

I frowned at Dylan’s sprawled limbs. He couldn’t possibly be comfortable. He was probably cold.

“Hey… you cold down there?” I whispered, leaning over the edge of the bed.

He didn’t answer. Seeing as how he was asleep and all. I watched his breathing, slow and steady, the shadow of his abdominal muscles rising and falling under his bunched-up T-shirt. I tried to slow my own breath, but it thundered quick and ragged in my ears.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was out of bed with my own comforter. I felt sorry for him. Yeah, that was it. Really sorry for him. As anyone would.

The floor was freezing against my bare feet. I padded over to Dylan and carefully lay down next to him. He shifted, coughing, and I froze. After two long minutes, satisfied that he was still asleep, I curled myself into him, drawing my comforter over us both. I felt the warmth of his body against mine, his breath on the back of my neck, making the tiny hairs rise.

We fit like two puzzle pieces. Just like we were supposed to. The whole designed-to-be-my-perfect-other-half thing…

Gah.

But you know what? Just this once, I was going to shove away all my angst and confusion and fear and just focus on the present.

Which happened to be very warm. Maddeningly warm. My whole body felt tingly.

With that thought in mind, I pressed myself closer against Dylan’s sleeping form and closed my eyes, drifting into the sweetest sleep I’d had in a long, long time.

I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to wake up.

34

THE NEXT DAY at school was, predictably, a complete horror show.

Not for me (for once), but for Nudge, who’d been publicly spurned and ridiculed by Sloan, in front of all of the popular girls. In less than a minute, this new gossip was all over Facebook and Twitter.

About eight hours later I was rapping my knuckles against the door to Nudge’s room. As soon as we’d gotten home from school she had gone in there and locked the door behind her, and she didn’t come out for dinner. I couldn’t blame her—things had only gotten worse after Sloan’s scaredy-cat retreat.

God, I should’ve unleashed a can of whup-ass on him.

“Nudge? Come on, open the door. Let’s make popcorn.”

“Go away,” came Nudge’s weak voice. “Don’t wanna talk about it.”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” I said. Please, no—no more talking about it, I beg you. “I just want to make sure you’re okay. Open up, will you? We can make hot chocolate.”

After a few moments of silence, I heard her trudge across the room. The door opened.

Nudge’s face was stained with the tears she’d been holding in all day; rivers of mascara ran down her cheeks. Her big brown eyes were puffy and bloodshot.

I had no idea what to do. I’d already offered popcorn and hot chocolate. What else was there?

“It’s just getting worse and worse,” moaned Nudge. “First it was just stupid gossip. Now I’m an outcast. They all think I’m some kind of circus sideshow. As usual.”

“Come here,” I murmured, putting my arms around her. “I know it’s a drag to have everyone at school treat us like lepers”—to put it mildly—“but they’re just gullible, prejudiced jerks. Typical Avian-American prejudice.” I eased her head onto my shoulder, which I should have lined with paper towels first. “I’m really sorry Sloan was such a butthead,” I said soothingly. “But sweetie, he’s so unworthy. You deserve better than that. You deserve someone who’s going to love you, wings and all.”

I’d hardly ever seen such sadness on her face. “That’s easy for you to say. You have two guys who love you.” She looked up at me, and I didn’t know what to say to her. “I don’t have anyone.”

I swallowed nervously. Guiltily.

“That’s not true. You have us,” I blurted out, knowing full well how lame that was. The flock was awesome and all, but it just can’t be compared to the rapture of being loved, held, adored. In that… different way.

I quickly shook off the pleasurable shiver that shot down my spine as I remembered spending the night on the floor next to Dylan.

“Listen. Soon we’ll blow this Popsicle stand and move on, and then you’ll never have to deal with any of them ever again. Until we get rich and famous, and then you can have fun spurning them when they beg for your autograph.” I smiled, pulling her close, but Nudge wasn’t amused.

“I don’t want to move on,” she cried, pulling out of my arms. “Can’t you see that? I don’t want to ‘spurn’ them!” She made air quotes with her fingers, glaring at me. How had I become the enemy here, exactly? “I just want to—” Her voice broke, and she drew in a trembling breath. “I just want to be liked by them, Max!” And then Nudge burst into tears. Again. Crap.

“Oh, sweetie,” I said helplessly, uncomprehending. I had spent very little energy in my life trying to be liked by anyone. “Come here. Come sit down,” I said, taking her hand and tugging her toward the bed.

Then I saw that the entire thing was covered with crumpled-up pieces of paper. A pair of scissors was lying on top of a stack of teen magazines, all of which had been mangled and cut to pieces.

“Nudge? What’s this?”

Nudge blew her nose miserably and gestured at a pile of blocky, badly cutout shapes. “Those are for my scrapbook.”

I picked up one of the shapes. It was a photo of a pretty teenage model, smiling brightly at the camera, wearing some sort of sparkly outfit with furry boots. “Blech,” I said, and put the photo down. The next photo was another pretty model. So was the next one. And the next.

“What kind of scrapbook are you making, exactly?” I asked Nudge cautiously.

Her bottom lip quivered. “I want to be like them. Like those girls.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You want to be a model?”

“No.” She sighed dramatically, rolling her eyes. “I want to not be a freak.”

“Nudge, normal is way overrated….” I began. Déjà vu.

“Oh, yeah, it’s superlame to just want to have friends, to just want to be kissed, like everyone else.” She laughed bitterly. “You sound like the whitecoats. Being lab experiments doesn’t make us better, Max. We aren’t enhanced, we’re mutants.”

Wow. I had to remind myself that this was not the sweet Nudge I knew. This was a love-scorned girl who had just been through a day of despicable bullying. I was lucky she wasn’t actually breathing fire.

“And if we were normal, there wouldn’t be people trying to kill us,” she pointed out.

“Well, probably,” I admitted. “But I guarantee you people at school would still do mean things to nice kids for no reason. That’s just the way life works.”

Nudge shook her head. “No. You know what? There’s only one answer to all our problems.”

This didn’t sound good. “What is it?” I asked warily.

She snatched the scissors off the bed and looked so utterly reckless that it sent me into a panic.

“Nudge!” I gasped.

But Nudge turned from me and eyed a poster on the wall—a publicity poster of the whole flock, from our days as a flying sideshow—and then, lightning-quick, she let the scissors fly with as much skill and fury as she’d displayed battling Erasers. With a hollow thud, the blades struck the image of Nudge’s wing and embedded themselves deep in the wall.

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. My own wings twitched under my shirt.

Then she clutched one of her normal-girl photos to her chest, her eyes fierce with determination. “The only answer to all our problems is getting rid of our wings,” she said. “Removing them forever. I’m gonna do it someday, Max. I swear it.”

35

FANG OPENED HIS eyes blearily. Above him was nothing but the clear night sky, dotted with millions of tiny glittering stars. It was beautiful.

It was quiet and calm, and yet for some reason he’d woken up.

He sat up, quickly scanning his surroundings for anything threatening, anything that might have made some sort of noise.

Nothing.

He still found it weird, nowadays, to wake up alone. Until this past year, waking up had always meant being flung into the noise and chaos of the flock.

The flock. Fang had thought that it would get easier, being away from them, as time went on. He’d thought wrong. He’d thought that they’d be fine—even better off—without him, and that it would be easier for him to pursue whatever mission he had if he didn’t have to worry about them. Now he wasn’t sure.

And then there was the gang. Fang sighed and lay back down, making hardly a sound on the dew-dampened grass. Why had he ever thought that would work? Why had he tried? The gang had gotten Maya killed.

Fang swallowed and closed his eyes. Maya was dead. And though Ari kept demonstrating a freaky, jack-in-the-box ability to come back from the dead, Fang was pretty sure Maya was gone for good.

And the others—he’d really let them down. Fang frowned and pulled his jacket tighter around himself, turning onto his other side. He wasn’t used to letting people down. He was used to coming through for people. He’d thought being on his own meant that he could make all the decisions by himself, that he didn’t need to rely on Max to do all the thinking. The bad thing was that he had no one to discuss decisions with, no one to bounce ideas off of.

Admit it, you idiot—it’s more than that. You miss her, Fang thought.

He sighed and rolled onto his back, restless. He was exhausted, thinking about it all. But not exhausted enough to fall back to sleep.

She doesn’t need you, he reminded himself. She has the Winged Wonder by her side. Maybe being on your own is just too hard?

No, he couldn’t think tha—

Fang.

Fang jerked, startled, and peered into the dark trees and shrubs around him.

Fang, nobody’s there.

Oh, man. The voice—or rather Voice—wasn’t coming from around him.

It was coming from inside him.

Not again. He had to wonder—was this the same Voice Max got? Where did it come from? Why was it appearing in his brain now? Sure, all of them had heard the Voice at one time or another. But Fang definitely didn’t want this to become an everyday thing.

Okay, what is it? Fang thought. What do you want?

It’s time to go, Fang, the Voice replied. She does need you now, more than ever.

Who needs me? he asked, but he already knew the answer.

Go home to Max.

36

“IS SHE IN trouble? Are the others okay?” Fang demanded aloud, sitting up, alone in the darkness. What’s going on? he screamed inside his head.

But the Voice stayed silent, in that incredibly annoying way it had. It was gone. For how long, he didn’t know.

Go home to Max.

He had no idea if something was really wrong, but he couldn’t exactly ignore the Voice, either. When Max heard her Voice, she pretty much always listened to it. His Voice was saying that Max needed him more than ever.

He pretended he didn’t feel the way his heart was speeding up with excitement and anxiety, just thinking about going back.

No doubt his replacement would still be there, being all Dylan-rific and glaring at Fang with narrowed eyes. Well, too bad. What choice did Fang have? None. He would’ve liked to have just taken off right then, raced back to the flock. To Max. To see that she was all right. But Fang’s wing had been bothering him more and more, and he definitely wasn’t in flying shape yet.

So he’d be patient. He’d find the nearest town and then get on the Internet. He would do some research before he went racing back to the person he kept trying to leave.

Two hours later the sun was just beginning to rise, and Fang was seated at a computer in an Internet cafe. He sipped from a Styrofoam cup of coffee as the Google home page loaded.

Then he typed in two words: Maximum Ride.

37

INSTANTLY, RESULTS POPPED up on the screen—1,704,890 of them in 0.43 seconds. The very first one was an article titled “Winged Children Attend Private School!” Oh, great. Looked like more of that successful “keep a low profile” stuff was going on.

Fang clicked the link and began to read.

As it turned out, the article was a piece from the private school’s own online newspaper, the Newton News. It spewed out a bunch of glorified info about the flock, accompanied by a hilariously cheesy photo of them posed around the school’s marquee, beneath a banner welcoming “Maxine and Co.” Fang almost snorted—and then he saw that Dylan had his arm casually thrown around Max.

It was surprising how much that hurt. Especially on top of the news that Gazzy had blurted out in Paris—that Dylan had been “designed” for Max, and that they were eventually supposed to go out and create little Maxes and Dylans. The concept was still impossible to swallow. Still tasted like crap in his throat.

Fang logged off the computer and dumped his half-finished coffee in the trash. It may have been corny and lame, but the Newton News article had given him one thing: the exact location of the flock.

His Voice had told him to go to Max, even though it sure didn’t seem like she needed him, all safe in her cushy new digs, with her new boyfriend. Didn’t the Voice know how much it hurt Fang to see her? Didn’t it know how much he hurt her every time he left?

Maybe it did. Maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe something bigger than just the drama of Max and Fang was happening.

At any rate, he knew he had to listen to his Voice.

He had to go back to Max. Whether she wanted him there or not.

38

FANG DIDN’T WANT to admit to the little surge of exhilaration he was feeling at the idea of actually going back to the flock. Home. He had tried to put Max out of his head for so long, but for him, “home” would always mean wherever Max was.

It was still barely light. It galled him that he couldn’t fly, and instead actually had to hike out to where the main highway passed the town.

He shook his head, thinking of Ari and his cronies. He wouldn’t be surprised if the price on his own head was so high that it had infiltrated the backwoods of Middle America, too—Fang knew any driver on the road could be a threat, and it was incredibly stupid for him to hitchhike. But with his painful wing, what choice did he have? He was in the middle of No and Where, and he had no hope of catching a plane or a bus—or even of stealing a car—in this place. He had to get back to Max, so hitching it was.

After an hour and a half spent trudging along with his thumb in the air, Fang’s head snapped up at the sound of wheels far down the road. A yellow convertible was speeding down the highway, music blaring.

This time, the car pulled to a slow stop just ahead of him, and he jogged up to it. Three beefy-looking guys peered out of the convertible at him, and Fang felt a twinge of anxiety.

This is stupid, a voice inside him said, and he couldn’t tell if it was the Voice or just his own rational thought.

“Need a ride?” the driver asked gruffly over the metal music thundering out of the speakers.

Fang glanced down the road. Not a single other car in sight.

“You heading west?” he asked the driver, frowning.

“Yeah.”

Fang sighed. The next city was at least twenty miles. It was now or never.

“Then yeah, thanks,” he said, hopping into the backseat. Before he’d even sat down, the driver jammed the pedal to the floor. Fang surged backward into the seat, his wing throbbing.

“Hey, watch it!” Fang snapped irritably, but the driver just stared straight ahead with a tight-lipped grin.

The guy in the passenger seat and the guy beside Fang both stared at him intently, their muscles bulging in their tight T-shirts, their faces twisted into weird expressions.

They looked… hungry. Almost like—Fang’s mind balked at the possibility—Erasers?

Or was he just seeing things? It was hard to tell. He didn’t trust his own judgment anymore. After Star and Kate’s betrayal, everyone seemed suspect.

He stared into the pockmarked face next to him, at the thick neck running up to a crew cut.

No.

They didn’t have the right amount of feral wolfishness marring their features to be Erasers. These guys were definitely human. Ugly as all get-out, but human.

So why were they acting so funny? Maybe they were just ’roid heads, Fang thought—crazed on testosterone. He was just being paranoid, that was all.

It’s called careful, you moron, he imagined Max chiding him. Always trust your instincts. Paranoia is our way of life.

But Fang’s wing hurt, and he was tired, and at the moment there wasn’t a better option than these shady characters. Shady human characters, who he could surely take if it came down to it.

Barely five minutes later, the convertible skidded to a stop. “Wow! A scenic overlook!” the driver shouted with over-the-top enthusiasm. “Whattaya say, boys? Should we get a closer look?”

Fang’s eyes snapped open. Something was off.

These guys didn’t exactly seem like the postcard type.

39

THE THREE GUYS hopped out of the car and strode toward the signs warning pedestrians to keep back from the railing.

“Check out this wicked cliff, fellas,” the driver said to his two grinning buddies. They laughed as if he’d just told the most hilarious joke they’d ever heard. “Hey, kid,” he called to Fang, “why don’t you come over here? I think you’ll really wanna see this. You know, up close and personal.”

Fang, leaning against the convertible, shook his head. “Nah, I think I’m fine right here, thanks.”

He assumed a more defensive position and crossed his arms, but even that small gesture made him wince as his wing bone bent awkwardly. What was wrong with him?

The driver grinned. “How’s that wing, Fang? Must be giving you some real trouble if you’re stooping to hitchhiking. Really slumming it.”

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” Fang asked as casually as possible, but he eyed the trio warily. His instinct had been right. They knew who he was, and they were out to get him. But he could take these guys. If he could fight Erasers, he could definitely handle a few juiced-up punks.

“We’re not important, Fang,” the driver said soothingly, still looking starved with those hollow eyes. “We’re just part of the Plan. But everybody knows you.” He took several steps toward Fang. “You’ll be the first, after all.”

“Let me guess,” Fang said, his dark eyes narrowing. “The first to die.”

They charged him then, and relying on instinct rather than thinking, Fang snapped out his wings, his mind calculating rapidly. He’d do a quick up- and-away and jump behind them. He would knock their heads together, leave them sprawled on the asphalt, and beat it out of there.

But that’s not what happened at all.

Instead, with that careless wing snap, his injured wing bone ground against itself. Fang groaned in agony and involuntarily hunched over, scrunching his eyes shut as the pain vibrated through him.

And that’s all it took.

In the next second they were on him, wrenching his arms backward and digging their elbows into his neck. The driver was violently twisting his hurt wing behind him, and he saw black spots at the same time he felt his knees buckle.

Fang swore through clenched teeth as they started to drag him. He cursed these guys, cursed being alone, cursed the Voice for putting him in this position. This was a perfect storm of crap, all flying through the same fan, right at him.

The three of them worked together to pull Fang to the stone ledge beyond the safety barrier. He felt a singing panic in his veins as he neared the edge of the cliff. This was usually where he would show up to save someone, or someone would show up to save him.

But no one was coming—that was horribly clear. He was more alone than he’d ever been in his life.

The three of them heaved Fang up onto the ledge, kicking and swearing, realizing with growing horror exactly what would happen if he didn’t escape right now.

He gave another sudden jerk, surging against their grips with all of his strength, and… they let go.

Suddenly, he was free.

Free-falling, that is, hurled into empty space, toward the crashing waves of Lake Michigan, broken wing and all. Right off the edge of the cliff.

40

ANGEL SCREAMED FOR what felt like eons, until her own wordless howl hurt her head so much that she shut up. Her throat was raw, her eyes like sandpaper and still unseeing.

She’d had another horribly real nightmare—this time, Fang was the one who was dead. She’d seen him falling, falling…. Just like she’d seen Maya.

And now Maya was dead.

Angel winced, pressing fingers to her throbbing temples. She lived her own nightmare while she was awake, and she lived others’ nightmares when she slept. There was no escape. No escape, ever…

Fang.

Angel concentrated, but she couldn’t figure out the ending. She wanted to see, needed to see what happened next, even if it was as bad as she feared it was.

But she couldn’t.

In her vision, Fang was in a different place than last time. Instead of an empty red desert, the scene had been misty and chilly looking. Instead of the two girls from his gang, there had been three guys there, guys she didn’t recognize but instinctively hated. There had been a car. A sunshine-yellow convertible.

And there had been a cliff, dropping sharply and hopelessly down.

Angel felt tears prick her eyes as she relived the last part of the vision. What stuck with her most was the way they’d smiled, those three guys. They’d been beaming like lunatics as they hurled Fang over, leaning over the ledge to watch him fall.

Angel had waited impatiently for Fang to spread his wings and soar away—grinning triumphantly at the evil humans who’d thought they could hurt a bird kid by tossing him into the open air. Ha, ha, morons! Eat my wind!

But… he hadn’t.

Hadn’t smiled, hadn’t taunted them. Hadn’t spread his wings and soared away.

He’d just dropped, his body twisting and turning awkwardly in the air.

He’d looked broken.

Angel had screamed herself awake from the nightmare right before Fang hit the ground.

But maybe… A tiny part of her whispered, even as she tried to block it out.

Maybe it hadn’t been a nightmare after all. Maybe it had been a… vision.

No. No way. She squeezed her eyes shut. “It was a nightmare,” she said aloud. “It wasn’t real.”

Like now, she thought. Like the nightmare she was in the middle of living.

Right then a screeching, grating sound filled Angel’s ears, like fingernails on a chalkboard.

“Not real, not real,” she whispered, even as she shrank back into the shadows of her dog crate.

Moments later, the door to her crate swung open. She pulled herself against the back wall as tightly as she could, ready to come out kicking and punching and screaming.

She expected to feel human hands clenching her, but the sensation was cold, hard, and flat—terrifyingly mechanical. Two large metal paddles had reached in with an awful, gear-grinding sound. They practically filled the crate—there was no way to avoid them. Angel ducked high and low, but eventually the paddles closed in on her, clamping onto her body firmly, leaving her no room to writhe or wiggle free.

With more metallic grinding, the paddles began to retreat, dragging Angel out of the dog crate roughly. Then she found herself suspended in midair, held up by what must have been two warehouse cargo-moving forceps. She shouted and twisted this way and that as she moved through empty air. Then she was dumped unceremoniously on a hard surface. She felt the crisp sheets crinkle against her legs and almost wept with defeat.

An operating table.

Again.

She was too exhausted to struggle. What was the point? They would find a way to make her cooperate. She had no more tears left, so she lay dry-eyed as her arms and legs were clamped to the sides of the table.

“This is for your own good,” someone told her—a whitecoat whose voice she didn’t recognize. “We need to make sure there’s no way you can escape these tests.”

Angel’s heart clenched. More tests. What could they possibly do now? Hadn’t they already taken samples of skin, bone, blood, and feathers? How could they not know every square inch of her, down to the cellular level?

Another pair of cold metal forceps moved along her shoulder blades. They reached under her back, then forcibly unfurled her wings, pulling them out from beneath her. Her wings, too, were clamped to the operating table.

She tried to fight the nausea, but felt bile rising in her throat.

They’d never done this before. Never.

A whole new level of fear streaked through Angel’s body. She realized what was coming right before it actually happened.

Small snipping noises filtered into her brain, followed by a pinching sensation at her primary feathers.

“Done,” the whitecoat said. “Good little mutant.” He left the lab, his footsteps fading away as the door closed, leaving Angel clamped to the operating table. She remained silent the entire time, mute with shock and horror.

They’d clipped her wings.

41

EVERYTHING IS ABOUT to change, the Voice said. Prepare yourselves.

Every single member of the flock heard it.

Your task is to record what happens.

Nudge yelped and dropped the bottle of glue, leaving a glittery blue stain on her scrapbook.

“What—” she began, but was interrupted by the Voice.

Write, blog, take videos on a cell phone—it doesn’t matter. Just make sure you record everything, down to the last detail. Everything. You have to record it all—for the future.

A Voice in her head. Another huge clue that she was a freak. Nudge wanted to cry, wanted to scream at the Voice to leave her alone, to let her at least pretend to be kind of normal! Nudge clenched her jaw and determinedly went back to making her scrapbook of normal, wingless girls.

Nudge, this is about the future. In the future, you will be normal. In the future, you might even get sick of feeling average. But right now, the world needs you. The Voice sounded unusually gentle. This task is the most important thing you will ever do for humankind. So get up, grab your phone, and start keeping a log—for the future.

Nudge hesitated. This felt really urgent. She didn’t want any part of this. But she knew one thing: Max never went against the Voice. Nudge sighed, her shoulders slumping. There would be no normalcy today. “Okay,” Nudge said, defeated. “Okay.”

Don’t let Max out of your sight.

Iggy and the Gasman, in separate rooms, both sat up, listening. The Voice. They’d heard it only once or twice before. They were hearing it now. Like before, it seemed important, vital, that they do what it said.

You must protect Max at any cost—even your own lives, the Voice said. She must survive to lead. The calm is over. The storm is on the way, and the skies will break open with its force. Do you understand?

Not really, Gazzy thought, peering outside at the blameless blue sky. No menacing dark clouds, no swarms of locusts, no angry mobs. But he knew the Voice was right about one thing—he needed Max as a leader, and if her life was in danger, he was absolutely willing to protect her from weather or whitecoats or whatever else came along.

Gazzy stood up, ready to go find her, then hesitated. Don’t let Max out of your sight. Did the Voice really mean never ever let her out of his sight, no matter what? Surely Max would need bathroom breaks? What had the Voice said? Protect her with his own life! Well, of course, and that sounded like they would definitely need explosives before too long. But…

In the kitchen, Iggy was holding a mixer blade as cake batter dripped, unnoticed, onto his shirt. He had to protect Max? Even at the cost of his own life? He cocked his head, listening intently. He could hear nothing out of the ordinary—no vehicles or choppers on their way, no one shouting alarms. Total wasn’t even barking, not that he usually did. But for some reason the Voice needed his help. Right in the middle of this cake.

“Okay. She’ll survive without my help—she’s too stubborn to die,” Iggy muttered. “But I’ll protect her anyway.”

Good.

Harden your heart.

Why, hello there, Voice, I thought snidely. It’s nice to see you, too. How’s tricks?

There’s no time for jokes, Maximum. Time has run out. The end is here, Max. Now.

I stopped slashing wing holes in the back of a hoodie and frowned. The end? Like the apocalypse? No offense, but if I had a nickel for every time I’d heard that—

This is no time to be getting soft, to let your guard down, Max. You’re not as paranoid as you used to be. You’re not as strong.

Hey, I am just as paranoid as I ever was, I thought defensively. Our life here just happens to be on the calm and peaceful side of the spectrum. For once.

Listen very closely, Max. Your task, at the end, is to harden your heart.

Harden my heart? Like, further? Isn’t that what everyone has always complained about with me? Now it’s a good thing?

Lives will be lost. More than you can imagine. In order to survive, you must harden yourself against their suffering. Lose the softness. Become the fearless leader again.

I scowled at the implication that I’d ever been less than a “fearless leader,” but I had to admit, I was rattled—as much by the Voice, whose word I’d always taken as gospel, saying that the end was finally here as by the Voice, who had told me I had to save the world in the first place, telling me to put myself first. My mind recoiled at the confusion, and at the Voice’s hardness.

Its certainty.

I waited for the Voice to say something else, but it was silent—apparently my brain was only mine again. As messed up as that sounds.

Dread gnawing at my insides, I pondered my task: to harden my heart. Come what may.

42

EVERYTHING IS ABOUT to change. Dylan paused the video game he was playing. He looked around, but no one was near him. Prepare yourselves. Was this his… Voice? He knew Max, and possibly the other members of the flock, had heard it before, but this was totally new to him.

Um… what do you want? he thought. For a second, he was almost excited. It was like he was one of them—even more like Max—now that he had a Voice, too.

But his excitement quickly went cold.

You have a task ahead of you, Dylan. One that only you can perform. One that you must perform. Do you understand?

This sounded familiar. Dylan fought a wave of nausea as he remembered Dr. Williams describing the other task he had to perform—bringing Fang in for a life of torture. Now this weird Voice in his head was demanding something else of him that he supposedly couldn’t refuse….

What is it? Dylan thought with dread.

The answer wasn’t anything he would have predicted.

You must fully win Max’s heart. The survival of the world depends on it.

Dylan groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “Like I haven’t been trying!” he said aloud, exasperated. Is that all? Sure you don’t have any dragons I can slay instead?

A nice, solid, physical goal. That was what he needed. He was pretty confident about his physical abilities—flying skills, fighting technique, speed, strength.

But Max’s heart… Max was an enigma wrapped in a puzzle wrapped in a cipher. Or something. He’d been trying to win her over ever since he’d joined the flock. Every once in a while, it felt like he was making headway. Dylan’s face flushed as he remembered the few mind-blowing kisses they’d shared.

But then she would back off again, and he would be left wondering what he’d done wrong, and if he would ever, ever get it right.

Now the Voice, the not-to-be-ignored Voice, was saying he had to somehow step up his game and actually win Max’s heart. For the sake of the entire world. Dylan felt panicky. It wasn’t like winning Max’s heart was taking one for the team. It was the only thing he’d ever wanted.

But until now, he’d never been afraid of what would happen if he failed.

43

GOING ON A dream date is not exactly “hardening your heart,” Max, I thought to myself uneasily, remembering the Voice’s creepy warning. If being closed off were an Olympic sport, I’d have more gold medals than I could carry. But this whole heart-hardening gig simply was not happening.

Not now. Not tonight.

Because, despite my usual reaction to all things girly (eye roll, look of disgust, general feeling of nausea), tonight I was positively giddy and swooning. I couldn’t help it—I had seriously underestimated the effect a little romance can have on a girl.

Dream date.

Unlike the general population, my idea of a dream date would once have been simply defined as not eating roasted lizard or Dumpster scraps for dinner. But my first (second? Did the one at the movies count?) “date” with Dylan was certainly more than that.

Much, much more, in fact.

I stared up at the sight before me, jaw on the ground and eyes bugging. See, when Dylan came up to me after school and said “Follow me,” I thought, What the heck? I’ll just go ahead and follow the guy, let him show me whatever fascinating new discovery he’s made. I had expected him to demonstrate that he could fly backward or show me a cool rock formation he’d found—something like that.

Let me tell you: I was not expecting this.

“H-how did you…?” I stuttered. We were nestled within the branches of a huge fir tree, about thirty feet up. I felt the warmth of Dylan’s hand on my lower back, steadying me as I leaned backward and gaped up, still trying to take in all the amazing details of the house. My house.

“I’ve been building it ever since we got here,” Dylan said, smiling shyly at my speechless astonishment. “I went exploring the first day and found this tree, and I knew you liked tree houses….”

I grinned dopily at his perfect face, his soft, anxious eyes. I knew you liked tree houses. Dylan had taken the time to listen to what I liked, had been making notes about things that made me happy. The guy had actually been paying attention.

And this… this was more than a tree house. It was like the Swiss Family Robinson tree house, Oregon edition. It had a floor, walls, windows, a roof. All of it was beautifully constructed out of branches and planks, and sort of camouflaged with leafy twigs and vines. From the ground, it would blend with the rest of the tree canopy. But from up here, on this branch, it was stunning. I saw a doorway covered with a green cloth curtain.

“Come on,” Dylan said, taking my hand.

Together we leaped the fifteen feet from the branch to the balcony that ran around three sides of the tree house. Dylan held open the door curtain and the warm glow of candlelight flowed out into the deepening dusk. That’s right—candlelight. The whole shebang.

I swallowed and stepped inside. When Dylan dropped the curtain, it shut out the rest of the world. Dylan and I were alone, out here in the mountain woods, a five-minute flight away from Newton and the rest of the flock.

Dylan looked at my face intently, as if trying to read my expression. I felt the flush creeping up my cheeks, my heart getting all loud and poundy. The combination of the violet dusk and the yellow candlelight made his features even more unbelievably gorgeous.

I turned away from him and walked around the space, running my fingers over the gleaming wood, seeing the notched joints, the clever design. It wasn’t huge inside—maybe eight feet by eight feet. But it was cozy, and plenty big enough. For what? I wondered.

“I stole the supplies from woodworking class,” Dylan said, answering my unasked question. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” I murmured, with more ache in my voice than I’d intended. “It’s so th—”

I stopped and sniffed the air.

“So th…? So th what?”

“Do I smell… food?”

“You do indeed,” said Dylan. “Roast chicken, pasta, buttery garlic bread, and—”

“Chocolate cake?” I moaned. There was a short, square table in the middle of the room, set up with two pillows to sit on. To the left was a low shelf holding everything my hypersensitive-when-it-comes-to-sniffing-out-all-edible-things nose had caught, plus more.

Dylan’s face lit up with another grin, and he made a sweeping gesture for me to sit on one of the pillows. I sank down, starting to wonder if this was just an elaborate dream my traitorous subconscious had concocted. No one had ever done anything like this for me before. No one had ever gone to so much trouble for me. It was… unnerving. I looked up at Dylan and felt—what?

Gratitude. Gratitude and pure happiness. Right there, in that moment, he seemed too amazing to be real.

Dylan sat down on the other side of the table and passed me a plate—a real plate, not, like, a paper one—and a glass of sparkling cider. It was so prim and proper I almost—almost—wished I was wearing a dress or something.

“Eat dinner with me?” Dylan asked shyly. I could feel the heat of the candle between us as the reflection of its flame flickered gorgeously in his eyes.

“Heck yeah,” I said as normally as possible, ignoring the fact that my heart was rumbling even more than my stomach. “Pass the chicken.”

We spent the next few minutes in silence as we worked our way through the delicious dishes in a way that only calorie-starved mutants avoiding sticky emotions and heightened sexual tension could. I was on my last bite of my third piece of chocolate cake when Dylan leaned toward the window and stuck his head out into the night. He whistled, low and long, like a Native American signal or something.

Wha? I thought.

And then Iggy appeared in the doorway, carrying a silver platter and—get this—wearing a bow tie. I kid you not. Okay, the bow tie was worn over a ratty, laundry-deficient T-shirt, but still.

“Iggy?” I said, stating the obvious. I shifted awkwardly, eyeing the candlelight and suddenly relieved that I was still in my plain old jeans after all. I imagined the flock gathering later, singing “Maaax has a boyyy-friiiiend” in chorus. I guess our date wasn’t as private as I’d thought. I didn’t know how I felt about that.

“Thanks, man,” Dylan said, striding over and taking the platter. “You know you weren’t required to wear a bow tie….”

“Sometimes a man just has to suit up,” Iggy replied. He crossed his pale arms and puffed out his chest proudly. “This was one of those times.”

“And I appreciate it.” Dylan nodded, obscuring the mysterious new platter from my sight. “Thanks again. You remember the next part of the mission?”

“Mission Entertain Gazzy and Nudge So They Don’t Get Bored and Cause Major Property Damage or Worse is well under way. You and Max are good to go, dude.”

“Good to go where?” I demanded, but Iggy just wiggled his eyebrows at me.

With one last salute and a tweak of his bow tie, which he had gotten from God knows where, Iggy ducked through the door curtain and flew off into the dark night. Dylan came back to sit across the table from me. He set the platter between us and took off the lid, revealing neat piles of graham crackers, chocolate bars, and marshmallows.

“I’ve always wanted to try to make s’mores with a candle. Shall we?”

“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” I said, simultaneously reaching for a marshmallow and popping a graham cracker in my mouth.

“Well, I tried.” Dylan smiled. Then his expression grew slightly more serious. “I swear I’ll win your heart in the end, Max.”

I coughed out graham cracker crumbs. My cheeks flushed and I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. Suddenly I felt squirmy and smoldering and turbulent inside, like a million hot coals had been poured into my stomach.

But to be honest, it wasn’t such a bad feeling.

44

“I DON’T THINK the candle-marshmallow thing is working,” I said. “I’ve been holding mine over the flame for, like, a billion years now, and it’s barely browning.”

The air was soft and cool and smelled like rosemary and pine sap and smoke from the candles. Outside the tree house, it was a pitch-black night. Inside it was all cozy, golden light, flickering shadows on the walls. I practically had to stop myself from hyperventilating from the sheer romance of it all.

“We might be forced to eat raw s’mores,” Dylan agreed solemnly, but I saw the crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he looked at me.

That was when I realized just how close we were sitting.

“You know, some people really like raw s’mores,” I mumbled, licking my lips.

And then, before I could talk myself out of it, I dropped my marshmallow on the table, leaned forward, and kissed Dylan.

Right on the mouth. On purpose. Yes. You read it here first.

For a second he was startled, but then he responded, bringing his hands up to cup my face. His lips moved against mine slowly, gently, softly. It was a quiet kiss. A tentative kiss. An innocent, feathery, earth-shatteringly right kiss.

And I wanted more.

I edged closer to him and wrapped my arms around his neck, tangling my fingers in his dark blond hair. I tasted the chocolate from the s’mores on his tongue, and our mouths moved together almost like a duel, a graceful and elegant kata—

“Aaagh! My eyes!”

Dylan and I froze for an instant, and then sprang apart as if electrified.

“That was Nudge’s surprised squawk,” I said. My voice was hoarse and I cleared my throat, my mind reeling over what I’d just been doing, what I’d just been feeling. My face was hot, my hands were trembling, and my lips were all tingly.

“Nudge? Is something wrong?” Dylan said, instantly on the alert.

Slowly Nudge’s face edged around the green cloth curtain. “Um, sorry.” She coughed, looking at me in fascination. “Nothing’s wrong. I was just surprised. ’Cause I, uh, fell. Off a branch. Er… pretend I was never here.”

I stood up, mortified, but also angry. It had been hard enough to take the leap to kiss Dylan without having the entire world know about it. “Were you spying on me? On us?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“I’m not the only one!” she protested sheepishly. “It’s not what you think! Look, hold on.” Nudge ducked outside for a moment and called out, “Gazzy! Ig! Get in here—the jig is up!”

“ ‘The jig is up’?” I repeated. “Gazzy? Iggy?” Dylan came to stand next to me, his hand warm on my back. I suppressed the memory of what we had been doing a minute earlier, and crossed my arms over my chest.

“Way to be a traitor, Nudge,” I heard Gazzy say. Then both he and Iggy (who was still wearing his bow tie) entered the tree house behind Nudge.

The three of them stood there, fidgeting and looking anywhere but at me and Dylan.

I went for the classic interrogation technique: Hit the weakest link first. Nudge had never been good at lying to me. “Nudge,” I said, pointing, “explain what’s going on. I thought you guys were at home. Obviously.”

She squirmed.

“Nudge,” I pressed. Leader Max was back in business. Romancey Max had been squashed for the time being.

“Um,” she said, moving her hands out from behind her back. She was holding some sort of box-type thing, silver and black….

A video camera. A freaking video camera.

I gaped. I felt like my face had spontaneously burst into flames at the same time as my legs had melted into a puddle. “Were you filming us?”

Nudge nodded uncomfortably.

I strode forward to plant myself right in front of the three conniving little thugs, nearly hissing in rage. “Why on earth would you film that?”

“YouTube?” Iggy suggested totally unhelpfully, and I had to actually mentally count to ten to restrain myself.

“I’m s’posed to record everything,” Nudge mumbled.

“What? Why? What are you talking about?”

She didn’t answer. I rounded on Iggy and the Gasman. “And you! What were you two doing?”

“Sitting in the trees outside,” Gazzy replied in a small voice. Good to know I hadn’t completely lost my touch. “Making sure.”

“Making. Sure. Of. What.”

“Um… that you were safe?” he squeaked.

I made a half-shrieking, half-choking sound. “Since when can I not take care of myself? I was with Dylan, for Pete’s sake! We were”—I faltered slightly but kept on truckin’—“eating dinner! What were you three thinking?”

They all remained silent.

“I can’t believe you,” I spat. “Give me the video camera, Nudge.”

Nudge didn’t move.

“Nudge. Camera. Now.”

“I can’t!” she cried, putting it behind her back again. “It’s my job! I have to!”

That was when I really lost it. I snarled and, without thinking, shot out my foot in a sideways kick. Luckily, I didn’t kick Dylan, Iggy, Gazzy, or Nudge. Unluckily, I kicked the table.

Which had candles on it.

It all happened before I could even blink.

The tall tapers fell sideways, and hot wax ran across the table and onto the floor.

Instantly the wax ignited, sending trails of flame through the tree house.

The fire zipped along seams in the wood at lightning speed.

Then it sparked at the spiky needles of the fir tree, which were poking in through one of the windows, and in the next instant the dried twigs and vines overhead caught.

“Crap,” I said in miserable awe, as suddenly we were caught in a living torch, the tree going up in flames all around us. Well, let’s just assume I said “crap.”

“Everybody out!” Dylan shouted, and the five of us jumped through the doorway, one after another, unfurling our wings and flapping until we were all hovering in the cold mountain air above the forest.

I looked at Dylan and felt utterly helpless as we both watched his beautiful creation go up in flames—the tree house he’d spent who knows how many hours to make, just for me.

A perfect gift for a perfect evening, and I’d destroyed it.

“I’m so sorry, Dylan,” I whispered miserably, my voice breaking. “It was beautiful. I didn’t mean to. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

He gave a little smile at that, the rise and fall of his wings in perfect timing with mine. “No,” he said softly. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

My heart surged and I started to smile, but just then the tree gave a terrific crack, as the fire hissed its way through the wood. And as I watched the thick plume of smoke billowing upward, I heard the echo of the Voice’s words in my head, and I couldn’t shake the icy feeling that the burning tree was some sort of horrible omen.

45

YOU’D THINK THAT would be enough excitement for one evening—the pinnacle of romance in my life, my unintended destruction of same—but no. I was awakened in the middle of the night by wailing alarms that made me bolt upright in my bed.

Don’t ask me how Iggy and the Gasman got the supplies to make the alarms, or when they rigged the entire house; I’ve been asking myself those same dang questions our whole lives together, and I still don’t know the answers. I jumped out of bed, wide-eyed and ready to rumble.

Out in the hall, Gazzy stumbled out of his bedroom. “Whuzzappenin’?” he mumbled. His blond hair was scruffy with bedhead. “We under attack?” He stifled a huge yawn.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” I replied tightly. “Head count! Iggy? Nudge? Total? And Dylan?” Note to self: Stop blushing at any mention of Dylan. Total giveaway.

“Yeah, yeah,” Iggy said irritably, making his way to us with unerring accuracy. Nudge was behind him, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Iggy pulled a small black remote from the pocket of his sweatpants and clicked a button. The alarms instantly went silent.

Dylan arrived just then, looking like a freaking pajama model. We glanced at each other briefly before I chickened out and looked away. You know your life is sad when possibly being under attack is more appealing than facing the guy you made out with just a few hours earlier.

Thankfully, that was when Total showed up to make the little midnight powwow complete, so I had a good distraction.

“I was right in the middle of a dream about my lovely lady,” Total growled, flopping down on the floor with his head on his paws. “This better be good. Is it the whitecoats? Erasers? Flyboys? Mr. Chu monster things? Land sharks? Mini-Godzillas?”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t know. Iggy, where were the alarms set up? What were they rigged for?”

“They’re around the perimeter,” Iggy said, shrugging. “Nothing small would set them off, like a squirrel. It’s something big.”

Nudge dropped down and crawled to a window, where she rose a tiny bit and peered out, squinting. “It’s too dark. I can’t see anything.”

“Okay, everyone—get ready for whatever it is,” I said grimly. “Let’s wait thirty seconds, and then we’ll hit the sky to do recon.”

“Fine,” said Iggy. “I’ll get some firearms.” He headed down the hall.

At the window, Nudge frowned and squinted harder, cupping her hands around her eyes to get a better view of the darkness outside.

I dropped and crawled over to her. “See something?”

“Yeah,” she murmured. “Seven o’clock.” She pointed carefully. “See that shadow? I think someone’s out there, walking toward the house.”

“Who is it?” Gazzy asked, also dropping down. “Is it Jeb?”

“No, it’s—” Nudge’s breath hitched in her throat. “That doesn’t make sense. Oh, my gosh. It couldn’t be.”

“What?” I asked, already mentally preparing a defense, an attack, a plan to escape. I pressed my face against the cool glass of the window, but even with my raptor vision, I couldn’t pinpoint what Nudge was seeing. “Couldn’t be what? Or who?”

Nudge drew back and faced us, looking utterly shocked.

“It’s Fang.”

46

THE WIND HAD been knocked out of me as surely as if Nudge had socked me in the gut.

“Fang?” I asked weakly, peering out the window again. “What do you mean, Fang? It can’t be. He’s walking.” The strangled sound of my voice vibrated in my ears.

“I saw his face when he passed through a beam of moonlight,” answered Nudge. “It’s either Fang or a perfect clone.”

A clone. Yeah, that was it. A clone like Ari, sent as a decoy by some whitecoat trying to sabotage us. It can’t be the real Fang, I told myself—Fang was gone. I let my breath out, relieved at the idea of fighting some potential threat rather than dealing with the possibilities of what Fang’s return would mean.

“Why is he limping?” Gazzy asked, squinting through the blinds.

“He’s limping?” I remained still for a split second longer, then rose and practically threw myself down the hallway with the flock on my heels.

Gazzy flung open the front door and flicked on the porch light. I sucked in my breath, and my heart nearly exploded.

The figure that blinked up at us from ten yards away was absolutely, unmistakably Fang.

I gasped at the state he was in. He looked as if he could barely stand. His face was grayish and drawn, his shoulders hunched. His clothes were filthy. One arm hung uselessly by his side, and one wing was caked with dried blood. He looked like the living dead.

“Fang!” Nudge shrieked, and, ignoring all the rules I’d taught her about the million possibilities of danger, bounded off the porch in a blur of pink nightgown. She reached him in one leap, ignoring his obvious injuries and jumping into his arms.

I stepped out onto the porch, scanning the area for threats, but there was obviously no point. It was the real Fang, all right. Nothing else could explain why I felt so tingly and weird all over.

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and I realized Dylan was standing right behind me. His fingers reached out to hold me at my waist, and I tried to subtly move away. But subtlety has never been my strong suit, and Dylan sighed loudly.

“Fang!” Iggy whooped. He and the Gasman followed Nudge off the porch, and the three guys exchanged those weird half-hug frat-boy things where they pat one another on the back. Even Total ran forward, putting his front paws against Fang’s leg, wagging his tail.

“Go on,” Dylan told me. “You know you want to.” His voice was bitter, so different from the gentle tone he’d used in the tree house. I could hear the implication in that tone and resented it, even as I felt myself moving from the doorway.

Fang detached himself from Nudge and looked up. Our eyes met, and just like that, my legs hurtled me forward and suddenly I was hugging him tightly. Fang’s uninjured arm went around my shoulders.

“You came back,” I whispered, hating the longing in my voice.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” he asked with a half smile that was infuriating and devastating and revealed nothing and everything at the same time.

A smile I had known all my life.

Fang felt… familiar. Warm—as warm as Dylan had felt, just a few short hours earlier in the tree house.

As I buried my face in Fang’s dirty, bloodied hair, I felt Dylan’s eyes boring into my back, and tried to swallow my guilt.

47

FOOD HAS ALWAYS been our number one solution for any awkward situation, so Iggy had the bright idea of whipping up a Welcome Back cake for Fang. This was undoubtedly to save us from the semi-uncomfortable silence that followed once I finally managed to peel myself from Fang’s grimy, sweaty body.

It may shock you to learn that Dylan decided to skip Fang’s Welcome Back party. Said he had homework. But I could feel his glowering energy radiating through the house while the rest of us were making fake conversation in the kitchen, pretending that the newest member of the flock didn’t exist.

I avoided trying to figure out the who, what, where, when, how, and why of Fang’s return by forcing Iggy to let me bake the cake—maybe a first—and then serving it up. Almost without thinking, I scraped the icing off Fang’s slice of cake before I put it in front of him (he’d never been a fan of icing) and plopped a quart of chocolate milk down for him to chug out of the carton, like he always used to do. Like he was still a little kid.

He looked up at me with a dull smirk. “Been taking home ec?”

My face turned red. Was he disgusted, like I didn’t know him anymore? Or did he think it was sweet, like I’d always known him, and always would?

I’d been pacing around the kitchen, avoiding eye contact with him, for forty-five minutes. Now I finally planted myself across the table from him and stared intently at his beaten face. His hair had grown shaggy and long, and he’d aged several years in a matter of months.

He’d become a man.

At first the thought made me a little sad. And then it kind of scared me. But then it actually… excited me, somehow.

And what have you become, Maximum Ride? I thought. Definitely not a woman. And definitely not a savior. Barely a leader, anymore. Basically, I was nothing.

“So… no offense, man, but why’re you here?” Iggy asked, his mouth fully loaded with cake, spraying us all with chocolate crumbs. “Shouldn’t you be with your gang?”

Fang shoved a hunk of cake into his mouth. He glanced at Iggy and shrugged. Fang was giving us the silent treatment, just like old times.

“I’m just looking for some answers, man,” pressed Iggy.

“The gang is done,” Fang answered shortly, taking a swig of the chocolate milk. A shadow passed over his face, and I remembered what Ari had said about Maya. “So, how’s Dylan doing?”

Dylan, the elephant in the room (well, in the living room). The rest of the flock stared at me expectantly. Iggy whistled, and Gazzy made kissing noises.

“Out!” I yelled at them. They scrambled away, taking the rest of the cake with them.

“Dylan’s fine,” I told him, as nonchalantly as possible. “Doing well on his flying and fighting techniques, adjusting in the community, you know…”

“Uh-huh.” Fang stared at me, his dark eyes focusing on me intently, a tight little smile on his lips. “You look… different, Max. Lighter, or happier, or something.”

Or something.

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” I snorted dismissively, but inside, my stomach leaped a little. Was he trying to say I looked good? Maybe even… pretty?

“I guess Dylan was just what the doctor ordered,” Fang went on, unlocking his eyes from mine abruptly and stabbing his fork into his cake.

“Yeah, right. The insane Dr. Gunther-Hagen, that is. I really trust the guy.” I coughed. “Anyway, thanks, but… you actually look a little like roadkill, and I’m pretty freaking worried. What happened?”

He gave me a penetrating stare that made me shiver—not unpleasantly—from my neck to my toes. “Basically, I came back from the dead, Max. And I’m ready to move on now. End of story.”

As if it wasn’t bad enough that my evening with Dylan in the tree house had pretty much filled my every thought up until about an hour ago, now that Fang was back I was having flashbacks of kisses with him.

The different memories kept swirling through my head like a swarm of tadpoles in a muddy pond, twisting into darker and darker masses of shapes until I couldn’t tell which way was up.

Or which intensely beautiful winged boy I was fantasizing about.

48

FANG AND DYLAN stood across from each other, both silent, arms crossed. Dylan shifted his weight, rubbed absently at his temple. It wasn’t like he was facing the mostly-ex-but-it-was-confusing boyfriend of the girl he loved or anything.

“You wanted to talk to me about something?” Dylan asked finally, cursing the anxiety he heard in his own voice and envying the expression on Fang’s face—that cool blankness that gave nothing away.

“Yeah,” Fang replied quietly, yet with so much hostility in the single word that Dylan was taken by surprise.

The time away from the flock had left Fang leaner, more angular. Add in the amount of still healing bruises and cuts on his face and the pissed-off scowl, and Fang looked downright menacing.

Not that Dylan couldn’t take him in a fight, if it came to that. He totally could. But still. An ideal situation, this wasn’t.

“So…?” Dylan said after another long minute of uncomfortable silence. “Talk.”

“I heard you’ve been sleeping in Max’s room,” Fang said, his dark eyes narrowing.

Ohhhh. So that’s what this is about, Dylan thought. Note to self: There is a reason Max calls Nudge “the Vortex of Friendly, Chattery, Bambi-Eyed Doom.” She sees, hears, and talks about all.

“Yeah, and?” Dylan said, feigning as much boredom as he could muster. He even picked at his fingernails.

“And”—Fang leaned forward—“that’s not necessary.”

Dylan put up his hands. “Look, you don’t need to get all alpha on me, man.” Regardless of his history with Fang, he wasn’t about to actually fight him there, in the middle of the house. Especially not after all the headway he’d made with Max. “I just like to sleep there. There’s nothing going on,” Dylan said, and instantly wished he hadn’t.

“Oh, nothing’s going on?” Fang barked out a laugh that made Dylan flush with humiliation. “No kidding, Casanova. You don’t need to tell me that much—Max has standards, after all.”

Dylan opened his mouth to protest, to tell this jerk exactly what kind of standards Max had, to blurt out every detail about the scene in the tree house—Max’s mouth, Max’s skin, Max’s soft feathers under his hands. But in that instant Dylan also saw what would follow—the hurt on Max’s face, the accusation—and stopped short.

“Look, maybe you think you’re protecting her or something,” Fang continued. “Who knows? But she’s safe here, with all of us around her. She doesn’t need you curled up at the foot of her bed like a lovesick dog.”