Maximum Ride Forever (17 page)

ANGEL’S HEAD THROBBED. The visions were coming more and more frequently now, the flashes almost like electric shocks as they assaulted her consciousness.

She saw Nudge’s face underwater, her eyes wide open in terror. She heard Gazzy’s heart thundering, and then an explosion that drowned out everything else. She felt Iggy’s pain as his body was cracked like a whip.

Angel dug her fingernails into her palms. It didn’t have to be like this. She’d warned them. Why hadn’t they just come with her?

Because of Max.
Max was used to running everything, but Angel understood something Max never had about being a leader: She couldn’t do everything all by herself.

So when the flock had bailed, she hadn’t gone to Russia.
Not yet. Instead, she’d traveled all over the world, working her small, tired body to the bone, gathering survivors one by one for her cause, meeting people who would
listen
.

Now she was back in North America, about to cross what had once been the Canadian border. It was all coming together, just like she’d seen, and Angel had one final, awful task left.

It was the vision she couldn’t shake, the one that made her want to smash her head into one of the rusted-out boxcars of the train she was walking past.

Then Angel heard voices.

No, not voices.
Thoughts.

She concentrated to hear them more clearly, and what she picked up were two boys who were cold, desperate, and afraid. As Angel focused on them, she learned that their names were Matthew and Lucas—Matthew and Lucas Morrissey. Why did those names sound familiar?

It hit Angel like a splash of cold water. Matthew and Lucas Morrissey: They were exceptional microbiologists who had made breakthroughs in the field when they were still in high school. Angel had glimpsed part of a TV special about them, years ago. But lately she’d heard from several different sources about the interesting things the brothers were up to.

Angel gripped the metal handle and slid open the boxcar door.

Two older teenage boys stood shivering inside. One had a slight build; the other was taller, with broad shoulders.
But they definitely looked like brothers—their ebony faces had the same high cheekbones and the same wide, haunted eyes.

“One Light,” the bigger guy said in his best zombie voice.

The imitation was so bad, Angel actually giggled. “I wonder if the Remedy knows the boy geniuses who burned down his lab are pretending to be on his cleanup crew? Is that the best you can do,
Lucas
?”

Fear came into their eyes.

“Please,” begged Lucas. “We were recruited to make an antidote. We thought the lab was helping people, but they were just making more people sick.”

Angel already knew this. She looked at his brother, who was maybe two years younger. He had one gangly arm hidden behind his back.

We’re dead if she tells anyone
, Angel heard him think.
If I swing fast enough…

“Before you try to split my skull open with that crowbar, Matthew,” Angel said, her face darkening, “I know why you ran. I know about Olivia.”

Lucas’s eyes flashed with anger and pain as he stepped in front of his little brother. “Don’t you speak her name.”

Poor Olivia
, Angel thought sadly. “It’s okay. I know you thought you were saving her, giving her a vaccine.” Instead, the virus had taken her in two days.

“H-how do you know that?” Matthew stammered.

Angel heard Lucas’s mind whirring, imagining ways to
escape. She felt sorry for them even as they were thinking of smothering her. These guys had been on the run for a long, long time.

“Yeah, how do you know us?” Lucas asked uneasily. “Who are you?”

Are you a Horseman?
was what he was asking.

“I’m someone who will show you the truth.” Closing her eyes, Angel pushed her way into their minds, using her power to direct the information this time, instead of withdrawing it. She made them
see
.

“You can save the sick,” Lucas said in wonder.

Angel shook her head. “I’m not a healer, just a messenger. Do you want a chance to start over?” Lucas and Matthew both nodded, their brown eyes looking a bit more hopeful now. “Then I’m the one who will lead you.”

She gave everyone she met the same instructions.

“Go to Russia. Get there any way you can. Find Himmel. Bring your weapons.”

JUST A LITTLE farther
, Fang thought.

He sat cross-legged on a salt-crusted boulder that jutted out over the ocean and shoved handfuls of raw salmon into his mouth. The fish was so cold it made his hands ache, but Fang didn’t care—it tasted better than anything he could remember eating.

After traveling all the way up the west coast of the United States and Canada, Fang had arrived in the Gulf of Alaska last night. Once he finished his early-morning breakfast, he would head inland. He wished he could stay along the water—so did his stomach—but he knew that route would take extra time.

Time was something Fang just didn’t have.

He
had
to get to Russia, and if he wanted to make it to
the Bering Strait anytime soon, he’d have to cut diagonally up through the middle of the state. He figured he could clear it in a couple of hours, cross over to Russia, and then join the flock by the end of the week—assuming Angel had convinced the rest of them to meet there.

The encounter with Star should have shaken him up, but the truth was, he felt calmer than he had in years.

Maybe it was because he finally had some information, some
clue
about what was going on that would help stop the massacres.

Maybe it was the belief that he’d see Max again—if she hadn’t been bullheaded, if she had listened to Angel. Not a sure bet. But he hoped.

Or maybe it was Alaska itself. From his rock perch, Fang saw a humpback whale breaching, and every time it twisted its massive body out of the water, his spirit felt a little lighter. Just knowing it was alive, that not everything everywhere had been destroyed. This place seemed so separate from the mess of the rest of the world. It was still so wild. So green.

Fang twisted to look behind him. Green. Not just near the water, but up in the hills, too, and at the tops of the surrounding mountains. Even this far north, spring had come.

The snow had all melted.

So he was going to die one day. So what? That could be years from now, and he had to live his life in the meantime.

Which meant finding the flock so they could get back
to doing what they’d always done: fighting for those who couldn’t defend themselves.

This time it just happened to be the whole human race.

He just had to get to Jeb. He and the flock had to stop the damage. Then maybe he could bring Max back here, where the world was still untouched. They could begin again.

Of course, Fang was enough of a cynic to know it was never that easy.

He had no idea if Jeb was the Remedy, or if he had help, and he knew Max was going to be unbelievably pissed at him. She’d look at him with that little smile, but her eyes would flash warnings of imminent violence. She might not take him back this time, not after the way he left her, the morning after—

But he had to try.

Licking his fingers, Fang tossed the fish bones aside. He inhaled the crisp, clean air, snapped open his wings, and took flight.

Little more than an hour later, he was soaring over a mirrored lake that reflected a towering white hunk of rock in the distance—what he assumed must be Mount McKinley. He’d made good time—he just needed to clear Denali, and then he’d take a little break.

But as he neared the mountain, the temperature dropped steadily, despite the greenness everywhere. The wind started to whirl, snow started to fall, and before he knew it, a ferocious blizzard closed in on him.

Fang lowered his head and clenched his teeth as ice particles stung his face. He tried to plow his way though, but the storm jerked him back and forth, tumbled him around and around, until he couldn’t see the mountain peak anymore, couldn’t see the lake or the trees, couldn’t even tell if he was flying toward his destination or away from it. All he saw was white. There was nothing around him that was recognizable.

Until there was.

There, on a now white-topped peak less than a hundred yards away, was something Fang was more than a little familiar with—something with fur, wings, and wolfish features.

Erasers.

With no warning, the wind released its grip, and Fang stopped in midair faster than if he’d hit a brick wall. Even in the extreme cold, he felt feverish, and his palms were slick with sweat. His peripheral vision fell away and it was like he was looking through a long tunnel.

At the end of that tunnel was the exact scene that Angel had put inside his head so many weeks ago. His death scene.

Only right here, right now, it wasn’t Fang that the Erasers were tearing apart.

It was Dylan.

FANG WAS STRUCK by a sudden realization: He didn’t have to die.

Angel had made it seem like his death was inevitable, but maybe she was wrong. He could change his fate and turn around, right now. He could fly away from this place where he was supposed to die.

He had a choice.

At first, Fang didn’t move. He hovered there, watching Dylan fight. Fang had never realized how strong Dylan was—each of his punches seemed to land with the force of a sledgehammer, and even against five Erasers, he was holding his own.

When Dylan spotted Fang, the look of shock on his face
was priceless. Despite the gory scene, Fang knew Dylan was having a “Fancy meeting you here” moment.

As Dylan’s head was turned, looking at Fang, a clawed hand sliced four parallel cuts across his cheek, but Dylan didn’t flinch. “Good to see you!” he shouted. “Now get out of here, Fang! This isn’t your fight!”

In that moment Fang realized what a coward he was being and shook himself into action. If Fate was coming to get him, he would look it in the face.

Besides, they were only Erasers. He’d taken them many times before.

Fang surged toward the fight, and two of the wolfmen broke away from Dylan to meet him in the air. Fang smiled menacingly—up here, he had the advantage. Sheer bulk made Erasers strong and dangerous, but they were clumsy fighters and even slower fliers.

“Ready to be reunited with your old pal, Ari?” Fang growled. The Erasers didn’t seem to hear him. And to his surprise, they zipped after him expertly and turned on a dime. They definitely didn’t have the awkward, grafted-on wings he’d seen in the past.

Their skill was a shock, too. With two against one, Fang was on the defensive from the start, blocking blows and spinning away from deadly jaws. Fang had fought dozens of Erasers in his lifetime, sometimes four or five at a time, but these weren’t like any he’d encountered before. They were stronger, faster, better.

Still, something about them seemed familiar. Maybe
it was the way they fought—it was almost like looking in a mirror. They anticipated Fang’s moves and knew all of his tricks. They threw everything back at him with double the force. Fang
knew
he was a fierce fighter, yet he couldn’t seem to land a single hit.

What was wrong with him?

“They’re Horsemen!” Dylan warned from the peak below. He was only fighting two attackers now; the third lay off to the side in a fetal position. At least Dylan was making headway.

“What are you talking about?” Fang shouted as he dodged a roundhouse kick.

“They’re… enhanced. Upgraded.”

Star’s words came back to Fang. “
Jeb promised me a way out
,” she’d said.
“An upgrade.”

Fang didn’t know anything about these so-called Horsemen. If they weren’t Erasers, he had no idea what he was up against.

They were a pack, but they didn’t seem to care about protecting each other. As Fang watched, the one who had the strongest grip on Dylan grabbed the second Horseman by the scruff of the neck. He smashed their heads together, and both Dylan and the unfortunate Horseman crumpled to the ground.

With Dylan out of the picture, the other Horseman joined the attack on Fang, and if fighting two was difficult, fighting three was almost impossible. Fang couldn’t dodge the blows anymore—there was always someone behind
him now, kicking him forward toward the other brutes or tearing into his legs.

One wrenched Fang’s arms backward while another grabbed the sides of his face and slammed his head down against its knee. Fang’s forehead split, and blood from the gash streamed into his eyes, temporarily blinding him.

Then a hairy fist connected with his jaw and spun his head to the side so hard he swore his brain shook inside his skull. It felt like he had hunks of gravel in his mouth, and when he spat a blood-streaked loogie into the face of the guy who’d hit him, Fang saw two of his teeth fly out with it.

He looked down at Dylan’s sprawled body, not knowing if he was alive or dead, and felt utter desperation.

This wasn’t like with the Cryenas. Fang was exhausted, and no part of him felt invincible. He felt every scratch and bite, every broken bone. Every part of him hurt.

“You know it’s useless to fight, Fang,” a voice called from below. “This is your fate. It’s always been your fate.”

He glanced down to see the man standing on the cliff.

Was he hallucinating, or was it…

JEB.

It was you all along
, Fang thought.
You destroyed everything.

This was the confrontation he’d been waiting for, and the sight of his nemesis sent a surge of adrenaline through him, giving his muscles an extra kick. He wrenched away from his attackers and raced toward the ground, concentrating the last of his speed and power on one goal: tearing out Jeb’s throat.

But he just wasn’t fast enough. He wasn’t powerful enough.

Fang was so close, only
inches
from that smiling mug, when the Horsemen caught him, slamming him to the ground at Jeb’s feet.

Fang roared in frustration as he wrestled against them. There were two on his back now, pinning his arms beneath him, and one kneeling in front of him, its fists raining down on Fang’s head.

“You can’t beat them,” Jeb said, calmly looking down on the bloody scene. “You’re a part of them, Fang. You’re what makes them strong.
Stronger.
”

“Stronger than what?” Fang slurred through swollen lips. Another punch landed with a
thwack
, and he felt like his eye sockets were caving in.

“They’re not quite invincible,” Jeb observed as the Horsemen pummeled Fang. “Not yet. But with the next generation, or the one after, we’ll get there—we’ll engineer the species that cannot die.”

Between blows, Fang squinted at the Horsemen, thinking about the familiarity he’d felt. Jeb had trained the flock in martial arts—that explained why they fought just like Fang. There was something else, though. The way they moved, appeared out of nowhere like shadows…

“You should be proud, Fang. You’re going to have a huge impact on the world for generations to come.”

Fang stopped struggling just for a second and looked up at Jeb with an expression of utter horror. Finally, he understood what Jeb was getting at.

When they had kidnapped Fang and run all those tests, when they’d taken his blood, it was to create something else. Something unspeakable.

They’d used his DNA.

“You bastard,” Fang spat. “You had no right.”

And in the midst of that brief distraction, Fang felt a sudden, excruciating rip, and one of the Horsemen tossed a strange object to the ground.

It landed next to him with a heavy sound of finality, and Fang stared at the dark, feathered mass for several seconds, unable to make the connection to his own throbbing pain.

Gritting his teeth, he gathered his energy and bucked the beast off his back. With an arm finally free, Fang was able to reach over his right shoulder. He touched wetness. A nub of jagged bone.

Nothing else.

Fang’s skin felt clammy and cold. He started to shake all over.

My wing
, he thought vaguely as he went into shock.
They took my wing.

Fang saw Angel’s face. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she was smiling at him. His heart broke in that moment—he knew what it meant.

“No,” he murmured. “Please.”

It’s almost over
, Angel soothed him.
Just let go.