I narrowed my eyes. And who’s going to stop me? You know we need to find Dylan. We don’t abandon our own.
“Fang!” Angel shouted in response, her eyes never leaving mine.
Well. She’s not the only one with a firm chin around here. Without hesitation I turned on my heel and jumped off the edge. But before I could even unfurl my wings, I saw a flash of black out of the corner of my eye, and felt the breath knocked out of me as Fang’s body slammed into mine.
Together, we crashed back to the rocky ground, tumbling dangerously close to the edge. I kicked Fang’s shin, and pebbles skittered over the cliff. Fang wrapped his arms around mine, but I do not react well to being pinned. Bucking and writhing, I desperately tried to throw him off. Suddenly all that mattered was breaking free to go after Dylan.
“Max, calm down!” Fang snapped, and I pulled a fist free and punched him hard. “Whoa! What’s wrong with you?”
By now the others had come out to see what the commotion was.
“We. Need. To. Find. Dylan,” I ground out through clenched teeth. “Get off me!”
Cautiously Fang let me go, then jumped back out of my kicking range. He knows me so well.
“Max, we can’t go right now. It’s a toxic stew out there,” the Gasman explained. He should know. He’d earned his name when he was little, thanks to the toxic stew of odors he always produced. “I’m talking melt-your-face-off.”
“I can get through it. Dylan’s out there,” I spat. “Doesn’t anyone care about him?”
Gazzy chewed his lip and glanced away, and Nudge looked concerned. Of course they cared. Mr. Perfect had caused some strife in our flock at first, but he was one of us now, and even Fang looked grim as the reality of the situation set in.
“He’s not stupid,” Fang said. “He’s probably found high ground until the storm passes and the lava hardens. If he’s not back in the morning, we’ll go look.”
“I have to find him now!” It came out as a hysterical plea, which was such a shock that I stopped struggling. I’m not usually a sniveling weenie, but this was one of the most powerful calls to action I’d ever felt: I had to find Dylan.
Not we. I.
Fang blinked and sat back on his heels, looking at me strangely. “Tomorrow,” he repeated, and stood to go back to his barricade.
Slowly, acceptance replaced my unreasonable urge. Finally I nodded and tried to swallow my fear. As I stood up, sopping wet and filthy with ash, I asked myself a question—the question I had seen mirrored in Fang’s dark, brooding eyes:
Would I have reacted the same way for him, or for any of my flock?
Or does Dylan make me feel… something more?
4
WE SET OUT the next morning toward the lake where Dylan had gone for water. By then, the heat was unbelievable. It seeped up through the uneven mounds of already-hardening lava under our feet, and the ash cloud above us held it in like a blanket. Of course, heat rises, so flying was out of the question. The least-boiling place was on the ground. We were being slow-cooked like bird-kid stew, and I was the bitter onion, so mad at Dylan I could spit.
Most of us were doing okay regulating our body temperature—mutant genes, et cetera, et cetera—but poor Akila was looking a little rough. Her tongue hung out of the side of her mouth, but there was none of her signature drool, and she was panting super loud.
“Are you all right, my darling?” Total asked, trotting alongside her. Akila whined, and he jumped to lick her face a few times. That was just about the most real, doglike thing I’d ever seen Total do, and I’ll be honest, it kind of freaked me out.
“Once Dylan stops being an idiot and shows up with the water jugs, everything will be fine,” I said loudly. Despite our inborn sense of direction, I had no idea where we were—all landmarks were gone. Even the forest of tree stumps had disappeared under the rivers of gray deposits.
Finally we stumbled on the lake, but it wasn’t the blue thermal pool we remembered. A thick gray film covered the surface, broken only by the hundreds or thousands of silvery dead fish bobbing through it. The cloud of black flies hovering over them was even thicker than the ash.
“Well, might as well eat ’em before they rot.” Gazzy grabbed a silvery floater, brushed off the ash as best he could, and bit into the side. Then he looked up in surprise, his face as dirty and gray as the water. “Hey! It’s cooked!”
One by one we grabbed a cooked fish right out of the still-warm water, brushed off the ash, and ate our fill. One downside of our avian genes was a lightning-fast metabolism that meant we were nearly always hungry.
A little farther on, we saw it: Our precious stockpile of water was untouched, the jugs covered with ash but intact. We weren’t going to die of thirst—at least not yet.
Luck loves Maximum Ride, I thought, cupping my hands so Akila could drink. But then my heart plummeted. If the jugs hadn’t been moved, it could only mean one thing:
Dylan hadn’t even made it this far.
For hours we stayed close to the shore where the ash was less dense, and took turns flying through the debris to search the cliffs. But the volcano was still pumping black smoke, and the air was getting harder to breathe.
I was bent over after one of these missions, hacking up some blood and wondering if my fast-healing ability included my guts, when I spotted a charred gray knob poking out of the rubble.
“Another cave bone,” I sighed. “Looks kind of femur-y.” That’s how we had known the island’s underwater tunnels had collapsed after the apocalyptic meteor: The corpses had started washing up on shore. We were still finding them, almost three months later. I didn’t know if any of the bones had belonged to my mother or my half sister. How would I be able to tell?
“Not necessarily.” Fang’s lips pressed together.
I held it up: Though charred, it was totally a human femur.
Gazzy shook his head. “It’s burned. We don’t know how old it is. The lava would’ve done that if it had been a cave corpse or someone more recently, like…”
Yesterday.
I was having trouble swallowing, trouble breathing.
“Let’s go back to the cave,” Nudge said gently. “We can try another path—”
I whirled around. “Angel, try to tap into Dylan’s thoughts. He’s got to be somewhere. He’s just hiding. Or looking for us. I’m sure he’s nearby.”
Angel looked away.
“Ig? Can’t you smell him or something?”
Iggy leaned heavily against a rock. Flakes of ash fell from his white-blond hair when he shook his head. Though his eyes were unseeing, they were full of pity.
“It’s not him,” I insisted, kicking ash back over the bones.
“It’s like Dylan’s cognitive connection just stopped,” Angel said finally. “Like with your mom and Ella—”
“We never found their bodies.” My jaw tightened. “We don’t know what happened to them. Just like we don’t know what happened… here.”
It was getting harder to say his name.
“Everything is dead, Max.” Angel’s tone was firm. “Everything except us.”
“No.” I wanted to shake her.
“Guys.”
I looked down the beach. At first I couldn’t make out what Fang was holding, it was so black and warped. Then he turned it over, and I saw a tiny flash of color.
That spot of bright green—a shade Dylan loved, that none of us had seen since the last of the trees had died—was enough to buckle my knees, and enough to force out the awful, wounded sob that had been building in my chest all day.
Because that burned-to-cinders object Fang cradled in his hand was one of Dylan’s size-twelve sneakers.
5
I WATCHED THE shadow of our V moving across the water hundreds of feet below—one dog in a harness, one bird kid short on the right side—and clutched the charred sneaker tighter to my chest as my wings carried me. We couldn’t give Dylan a twelve-gun salute, or even a funeral. At least we could give him on
e last flight.
I banked left, and the flock fell into line behind me, following like an extension of my own body. Ahead of us, sunlight peeked through the eerie rainbow of color that had illuminated the sky since D-day. Below us, the water still churned with the rough waves left over from the tsunami, and a chain of volcanoes rose from the depths of the ocean. Their combined cloud of ash was racing to cover everything, from the pink cliffs of the islands to the white feathers of Angel’s wings.
I’d thought flying would make me feel better, like it always had. Wind rustling my hair and muting my thoughts as I soared into the open. No sounds, no obstacles—just the ocean before us and sky all around. Freedom.
Growing up in a cage makes you really appreciate open spaces.
But it had been a while since I’d seen the world this way, and taken stock of all we’d lost. Cities. People. The grief felt like a cold, hard knot in the center of me, pulling me down, down into all that gray water.
I felt a hand on my left shoulder and sensed Fang’s dark figure just outside my peripheral vision. “You okay?” I nodded and slowed down, realizing we’d been flying for probably half a day.
I’d just wanted to get ahead of the cloud, to lay Dylan to rest under a clear sky. But the ash was moving too fast.
I held the shoe out and the kids hovered in a circle. It was just a shoe, just a piece of half-melted rubber. I took a breath.
You have to do it. Do it for the flock.
“Good-bye, Dylan,” I whispered.
“Good-bye,” my flock echoed.
Then I opened my fingers. Just like that.
As I watched the sneaker plummet, I remembered Dylan falling from the roof when I’d taught him to fly, barely a year ago. The feeling of his body beside mine that night we took refuge in the desert. The tree house he had made just for me. His last words: “I’ll catch up.” Wasn’t he always trying to catch up with me? I drew a shaky breath.
No.
I dove hard, reaching toward the chunk of blackened rubber. But I was too late, and I watched the waves swallow up all that remained of Dylan.
I flipped and shot back into the sky, angry tears streaming down my face. He was just one more person who had fallen beyond my reach. Like my mom and Ella.
I’d refused to believe it. Even when Angel stopped hearing their thoughts from the underground caves, and even when the months had passed without any sign of life other than us, I couldn’t accept that we were all alone.
Their bodies could still be there, somewhere.
“Let’s turn back,” I shouted over my shoulder.
Fang looked alarmed. “You want to go back to the island?”
“It’s our home.” My words were thick, threatening another waterfall. Their home.
He flew up next to my ear. “Max, it’s a wasteland,” he said urgently. “And even if we could somehow breathe the air, we’ll never make it back before nightfall.”
“It doesn’t—”
“Them’s the rules, Max.” Angel’s voice in my head.
“I felt a pressure change a couple of miles back—I’m pretty sure we passed land to the west,” Iggy offered from my other side. Despite his blindness—or because of it—his other senses were sharper than razors. “It might be worth checking out.”
We’d passed other islands before, but most were tiny—no shelter, no fresh water. When we reached the one Iggy had felt, it was different. Bigger. We couldn’t even see where it ended. Actually, we couldn’t see much: Three active volcanoes just off the coast were spewing towers of lava and ash. It made us feel right at home. Not.
It was a big detour to get around them, but once we were closer to the huge island we saw square cliffs in the distance, spaced like jack-o’-lantern teeth. And near the water’s edge, a blur of something big and white and triangular.
Like sails billowing in the wind.
“Is that a ship?” My heart sped up.
Are there people here? Alive?
“No, it’s…” Nudge hesitated. “I think it’s the Sydney Opera House.”
I spun around to stare at her. “How do you know what that even looks like?”
“Because I know things,” she replied curtly. “More than you think I do.” And then, “Haven’t you ever seen Finding Nemo?”
I cackled. “That is not seriously what you’re basing—”
“Actually, I think I’d recognize the pinnacle of modern architecture,” Total said, “and that is not…”
I tuned him out, really studying the shoreline. I saw the skeletal remains of a bridge in the surrounding harbor, and the white blur started to look more like a building than a boat. But it didn’t make sense—Sydney, Australia, was a huge city.
I worked my wings harder, squinting through the ash to see inland. “That would mean those weird cliffs—” Angel nodded, following my thought.
They’re skyscrapers.
6
SYDNEY WAS NOT the booming metropolis we had heard of. In fact, it was pretty much uninhabitable.
Huge waves crashed through the city, flowing through angular valleys created by the buildings. Abandoned cars bobbed like bath toys in the current before they were tossed against the salt-crusted, crumbling skyscrapers. The foam sprayed three flights up.
There were no people anywhere. Dead or alive.
“Where do you think everyone went?” Nudge asked.
“Maybe they’re all at the opera,” I said dryly.
Nudge grinned. “I told you I knew what I was talking about.”
“Seriously, though, Max. Shelter…”
I looked at Iggy’s pale, drawn face, and the circles underneath Angel’s eyes. I saw the salt caked on Nudge’s parched lips. I heard the sharpness in Gazzy’s cough and realized Akila had barely made a sound since we’d left. Despite their jokes, my flock was just about at its breaking point.
I felt the exhaustion settle into my own body. “What are you proposing?”
Fang nodded upward. “I say we break into a penthouse suite.”
Nudge squealed, clapping her hands, and it was settled.
If you want to know how seriously bad weather can get, try to fly through it, like, without a plane. The falling volcanic ash mixed with the ocean spray, forming a gritty mud that pelted us. All visible surfaces were coated in a concrete-like sludge, and the buildings looked like enormous crumbling gravestones.
And my little flock? We looked like gargoyles, dragging ourselves up the side of a tall skyscraper. Our wings grew heavier and heavier, coated with what soon felt like stucco, but we moved them up and down, up and down, and clung to the ledges for dear life. At the very top, Nudge’s deft fingers brushed against the metal lock and, easy-peasy, we were in.
It was an office, not the luxury apartment I’d been hoping for, but it was dry and surprisingly well preserved. The halls were still lined with glass-framed posters that said things like LET IT FLOW and ATTITUDE MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE.
I rolled my eyes and knocked that last one off the wall.
Angel curled up under a desk, folding her crusty wings beneath her. Forget mind-reading, that was her true talent: That kid could sleep anywhere.
Me? I was more interested in tracking down some chow. That lava-cooked, acidic fish was the last thing I’d eaten, and my stomach wrenched at the memory. Fang and Gazzy followed me on the search for a kitchenette, ever the eager consumers.
Just as I was shaking the box of aged, crumbled crackers into my mouth and thinking we’d made out pretty well considering, you know, the apocalypse, I heard a low, lingering growl.
“Jeez, Gasman.” I scrunched up my nose, bracing for the stench to hit, but Gazzy held up his hands: Not me.
Max, get out of there! Angel’s voice.
None of us ever question a warning. In a split second I had dropped the cracker box, signaled Gazzy and Fang, and rushed to the door. It was already too late; the doorway was full of snarling creatures trying to get through at the same time—to us.
“
What the heck are they?” Gazzy breathed, jumping onto the kitchenette table and assuming a fighting stance. Fang and I both leaped onto the counter, muscles tensed, adrenaline pumping.
“No idea,” I murmured. “Not Erasers. Not Flyboys. Not anything I’ve ever seen.”
They were—doglike, but huge, easily three times the size of a Great Dane, but with a bulldog’s heavily muscled build and a mastiff’s powerful, snapping jaws. Their long-fanged mouths were already slavering in anticipation of a bird-kid breakfast.
And we were trapped.
7
“YOU’VE GOT TO be freaking kidding me,” I snarled.
“Are those hyenas?” Gazzy asked.
“Or just ugly mutant steroid dogs?” Fang said.
The things were hideous, their furless pink skin wrinkled and speckled with flaky black spots. Their flat, massive heads were too big for their bodies—which, of course, meant bigger teeth, stronger jaws.
“Are they sort of hyena-ish?” I asked. “Either way, they look rabid, and they’re bad news.”
With our luck, it made perfect sense that these hellbeasts were the only other creatures that seemed to have survived the apocalypse, and that they somehow were thirty stories up a skyscraper, running loose in the hallways, ready to corner us.
Quickly I took stock. Small, windowless room? Check. Useless weapons, such as plastic cutlery? Check. Villains engineered specifically to destroy us… to be determined.
The first hellhound flattened its ears and bared its teeth, a low growl building in its throat. Even with me standing on the countertop, their heads came up nearly to my waist. And they were vicious. This was Cujo meets Marmaduke meets the Hound of the Baskervilles.
“How many?” Fang asked quickly. I barely heard him over the high-pitched whining, low growling, and eager, hungry barking.