Maximum Ride Forever (14 page)

“NICE GOING, DOOFUS,” Iggy grumbled.

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

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

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

“I
said
I was sorry!”

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

They could both smell it well enough.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m glad someone has motivation.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Gross!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gazzy socked Iggy in the arm.

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

HORSEMAN STEPPED FROM the shadows and clamped a hand over the Gasman’s mouth before he could turn around.

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

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

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

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

Iggy shook his head. “I won’t leave—”

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

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

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

And then the blast drowned out everything.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, where is Iggy?

HORSEMAN SAW THE flash out of the corner of his eye—a figure disappearing into the trees like a pale ghost.

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

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

Well, usually. Right now, he felt like he was looking through a milky lens.

But however clouded his vision, Horseman still had Iggy in his sights, and he could cruise as long as he needed
to; his lungs were built to outlast Iggy’s twofold. It was only a matter of time.

“Iggy!” Horseman shouted again as he wove after him through the underbrush.

“Don’t call me that,” Iggy yelled over his shoulder. “Only my friends get to call me that.”

Iggy was distracted now, and Horseman was gaining on him with each breath. Closing in.

“You don’t want to be my friend?” Horseman asked with a smile as he darted forward.

Iggy laughed and veered up sharply, winding toward the clouds.

Horseman grasped at the air in frustration. He’d thought he had him.

He strained his neck to keep track of Iggy’s movements above, desperate not to lose him now. Though Iggy was blind, he was a magician in the air and seemed to possess a sixth sense that made him even better at navigation… and almost impossible to track.

Almost
, Horseman reminded himself.
Not impossible for you.

He had to keep Iggy talking, keep him interested enough to stay close.

“Or maybe you meant friends like the Gasman,” he taunted. “Did he call you Iggy?”

The movement above stopped.

“You killed him, didn’t you?” Iggy’s voice cracked
in despair. “Gazzy said he was right behind me, but he’s dead, isn’t he?”

Iggy’s accusing voice seemed to come from a hundred different directions, and Horseman squinted up through the maze of twining branches, trying to locate his prey.

“You’ve got me all wrong,” he said, his voice earnest, persuasive. “Just stop for a minute, and we can talk.”

I’ll tell you about the doctor and his plans
, Horseman thought.
I’ll tell you the truth.

It didn’t matter. He knew Iggy would never stop. There was only one way this could end.

Horseman glimpsed movement to his left—far from where he’d been searching. He turned his head to see the swoop of a light-colored wing standing out against the brown bark.

He took off like a bullet.

Following little more than the quiver of branches as they snapped back into place, Horseman plowed through leaves. He snagged his wings on burrs and dodged between whiplike vines. He followed the bird kid doggedly, recklessly, gaining distance, gaining speed.…

And when Iggy turned and dipped sharply, Horseman slammed face-first into a thick tree and, almost a hundred feet in the air, momentarily blacked out.

His limp body started to plummet toward the forest floor.

Luckily—or really, unluckily—he slammed to a stop
when his legs fell on either side of a stray branch. Horseman collapsed against the trunk, breathing heavily as waves of pain and nausea rolled through his body.

This mission has not gone as planned
, he thought.

He’d hoped to find Gazzy and Iggy alone, and hadn’t thought it would be too difficult in the middle of the Appalachian wilderness. But he
certainly
hadn’t expected to be trapped underground with a community of rebel girls armed to the teeth when a chemical bomb went off.

Horseman’s palms started to sweat as he thought about all the witnesses, and whom they might be reporting to. The news about the Gasman would satisfy the Remedy momentarily, but if he found out the other target was on the loose, there would be serious repercussions.

“
If you should fail
,” the doctor had said, “
it would be my pleasure to send the next Horseman along after you.
”

Horseman had to get to Iggy fast, before things spiraled out of his control.

What he needed was a new strategy.

HORSEMAN COULDN’T SEE. That was his biggest problem.

Well, he could
see
, but everything was slightly blurry, his depth perception was off, and he was pretty sure he was seeing double. He didn’t know if the chemical damage was temporary or permanent, but he had to figure out a way around it.

He’d thought he had Iggy—
twice
—when really, the
blind kid
had better spatial accuracy than he did.

Would no vision actually be better than faulty vision?

At this point, anything was worth a shot. Horseman stripped off his shirt, rolled it over his eyes, and tied the sleeves around his head. The world went completely dark.

Just like it was for Iggy.

Horseman felt instant relief in his eyes. The burning lessened, and the flow of tears subsided.

The rest of his body seemed less sure about his decision. His boots teetered on the branch, and his stomach dropped sharply as he felt the nothingness all around him. Never in his life had he felt so completely vulnerable.

For a moment he grasped wildly at the air, his arms flailing desperately. Then, feeling his fingers touch bark, Horseman hugged himself tight to the trunk of the tree, trying to stop hyperventilating.

Maybe he should’ve tried this little experiment closer to the ground.

It was a stupid idea. For all he knew, Iggy might actually have been programmed with additional senses, and if not, he’d had his whole life to develop them. Horseman didn’t have years; he just had right now.

And if he didn’t do this, he wasn’t going to have a tomorrow.

Horseman exhaled against the tree. He just had to trust his instincts—they hadn’t failed him yet.

Slowly, Horseman edged back out onto the branch, keeping a light touch on the bark to steady himself. He took a long, deep breath, trying to open up some kind of latent third eye.

This time, when he let go, Horseman realized he could still sense the trunk to his left—the solidness of it, the heft.

Now or never
, he thought, and he raised his heels, leaned forward, and took off.

He felt removed from his body and highly connected to it at once—almost like he was a pilot maneuvering a small plane instead of controlling his own muscles.

Horseman’s muscles were tense as he waited for the moment when he would smash into another tree, but it didn’t come. In one panicked moment, he felt branches rake lightly across his bare chest, but he quickly adjusted, and veered away from the tree in his path.

After that, his reflexes became faster each moment, and his other senses started to come alive.

The pores in his skin opened up to take in the information around him. Each time his wings flapped, he felt the air they moved bouncing off the objects around him, telling him how far away they were.

Horseman found it surprisingly easy to measure how high up he was flying. He smelled the tangy sap when he was low, near the exposed trunks. Near the treetops, the pine scent was more intense.

And his ears were attuned to every anomaly in the quiet forest. He heard the groan of trees as they swayed, and detected the distant sound of branches snapping.

Iggy.

Iggy had pulled far ahead of him, but Horseman knew he was faster, and he was no longer handicapped by sight. As he grew more confident and more comfortable, Horseman started to close in on his prey.

Below him and just ahead, he heard a slight whisper as something—maybe wings—brushed through the branches.

Horseman held his breath, folded his wings tight for speed, and shot through the forest. Seemingly striking at nothing, he punched his arm ahead of him and felt the crunch of bone.

Iggy screamed.