A/N: Okay…soooo…I feel like I need to give an explanation for this story, seeing as it's just not the kind of one-shot I usually do. (Well, yeah, I know I do a lot of character deaths and other sad stuff in my one-shots, but that's besides the point.) Basically, the best explanation I have is that I heard the song Anthem of the Angels by Breaking Benjamin, and I just couldn't get Maximum Ride out of my head. Also, this story took a lot of hard work and creative thinking on how a depressed person would think ('cause Lord knows I don't need alcohol to get drunk or drugs to get high), so it needs a lot of love! So, remember, criticism and reviews are always welcome!
White walls surround us.
No light will touch your face again.
Rain taps the window,
As we sleep among the dead.
The only sound was the soft pitter-patter of the rain, occasionally broken by a faint crack of thunder.
It was unnatural to see Maximum, my Maximum, so quiet. There was a reason why she was Maximum Ride. She was a crazy Ride, and when you were around her, life was a crazy ride. But I never would've traded it for the world. A world she was born to save. A world that had been so determined to crush her.
And now, it finally had.
All she did was sit there in her dog crate, clutching the little body in her arms. All she did was sit there and clutch and stare. Stare down into those eyes that were now unable to do anything but stare back.
Max was an unnaturally strong person. To survive what we had been through and still manage to have the smile reach your eyes, you had to be. So, when Itex had captured us yet again, she hadn't batted an eye. When they'd broken our wings beyond repair, she'd spent too much time consoling the younger ones to let her own broken wings weigh her down. When Iggy and Nudge had been dragged off kicking and screaming…
The images of that day would forever be seared into my mind. God, it had only been three days ago. The two had been so frightened when they'd been dragged out of their cages, but that fear remained in their eyes. They fought, snarled viciously, spat in the whitecoats' faces. They didn't know why they were being separated, but they had to prove that they were the family of Maximum Ride. They would not be taken down easily.
But they were taken down. They vanished behind the swinging doors, and had never been seen alive by the flock again. They'd been expired. Not two hours after they had been pulled away, the whitecoats had returned with their lifeless bodies, using them to taunt us. Gazzy and Angel had started screaming and crying, burying their faces in their hands, too terrified and shocked to think clearly. Even I had had to look away, wanting to scream, feeling like I was about to throw up.
Max's voice still rang in my ears. "You bastards." I'd looked at her, surprised to hear her manage that vicious of a tone. Tears were falling down her face, but she was snarling like a lion. Her hands clutched the bars of her cage so tightly that her knuckles were white. "I'll kill you all. Rest assured, you sons of bitches, I will kill. You. All."
And the next day, the whitecoats had returned. Slowly, mockingly, they'd approached the cage that Gazzy and Angel had been sharing. Terror welled up in their eyes, but they both somehow managed to convert it to glares. Gazzy threw himself in front of Angel, covering her, determined to protect his baby sister. A whitecoat opened his cage and barely had a second to think before Gazzy had propelled himself at him.
The fight was a powerful one, but a quick one. "Don't worry, little boy," one whitecoat had told Gazzy, leaning in closely. Gazzy, unable to fight because his arms were pinned to his sides by an Eraser, spat in his face. The whitecoat slapped him across the face, but he was still grinning madly. "Your little sister isn't the one we want today."
Angel had been reaching her arms out of her cage, screaming for her brother. The whitecoat actually had the nerve to tousle her hair. She was too scared to bite him. She only fell backwards, cringing away from the hand. "Don't you worry your pretty little head off. You'll see him again soon enough."
But not in the way she would like.
When Max had seen Gazzy's dead body, she'd lunged for the monsters, screaming like an animal. Damned cage or no damned cage, she was determined to kill them, and she actually put enough power into her lunge that she knocked her cage over. She was no longer able to form words, but the rage in her shriek told all. She still had her mind set on killing them.
Max was so much like a lion. She was proud, powerful, and not one to be messed with. It was hard to hurt her, but once you did, there would be hell to pay. After all, wounded lions didn't mind lashing out.
But then they'd come for Angel…
And now Max only clutched the little girl's body in her arms.
I hated seeing Max like that. I remembered the reasons why I fell for her: that devilish and overconfident smile; the fire that had always been blazing in her eyes; the spirit so distinguishable, so inalienable in every move she made. Those things were what made her who she was. I knew beyond a doubt that I would never see any of those things again…
I would never see my Maximum again.
Days go on forever,
But I have not left your side.
We can chase the dark together;
If you go, then so will I.
"Max?"
There were no windows in the room we were in. Only silence and empty cages. I had no idea how many days had gone by, but Max still stayed quiet. She hadn't said a single word since her wild screaming when Angel's body had been pried from her arms. No matter how many times I tried to get her to say something - anything - she remained silent. She refused to even look at me.
All she did was sit there and stare.
The whitecoats hadn't come for us yet, and I had to wonder why. If the four youngest members of the flock were so expendable, what made the two of us so different? If they really cared about our progress (which I think they'd given up on after Max's thousandth nonverbal "go to hell" in the form of an exploding School), they would've at least kept Angel alive. But Angel was dead…and Max and I were still alive. Why?
Max was the only living being I'd seen after they'd taken Angel's body away, and I wasn't sure she even qualified as "living" anymore. She was dead inside…she was a corpse. A breathing corpse. How did that old saying go? "Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse…"
"Max, please."
Please don't break. You're not that fragile, it's impossible for you to break. You were always one to make the impossible possible…but not like this. Oh, god, Max, please come back. As long as you stay strong, so can I. You're all I've ever needed to stay strong. But if you break…You can't leave me as the last one standing. You just can't. Oh, god, I'm begging you…please…There were so many words I chose to leave unspoken.
Max always prided herself on how she never needed anyone or anything. She could watch her own back, could take on an entire pack of Erasers by herself, could do everything on her own. None of us had really believed it, not even her, but…with how much she did on her own, it was still surprising to see just how much she needed us. Without the others, she was nothing. Even though I was still here for her, even though I always would be, she was nothing.
And without her, I was nothing.
Nothing. What a desolate word.
"Max," I tried again, but by now I knew that it was futile. Giving a shuddering sigh, I reached out of my cage and into hers. I stroked her hair tenderly, hoping to provoke some sort of reaction. At this point, I didn't even care if she grabbed my arm and broke my wrist. I just wanted to see those beautiful, hazel eyes again, instead of those blank, greenish-brown marbles. I wanted to see at least a small spark of life.
But I received nothing. Max only sat there and let me pet her hair. She didn't even glance at me.
My heart grew cold as I thought of how Max used to wake me up when we were younger. Bouncing the flocking hell out of my bed, grinning that lopsided grin that was only saved for her more nutcase-ish moments, laughing beautifully and crazily, kicking me in that unpleasant spot when I gave no reaction…Now that I thought about it, those had been some of her more lively moments. She'd wasted them on trying to wake me up.
Now, I'd give my life just to wake her up.
Swallowing thickly, I rested my forehead against the bars of my cage. "Please, Max," I whispered, "don't do this. Don't leave me." I can't live without you. That's why I've never been able to leave your side, through thick and thin, better and worse, sickness and health. I'm not ready to go yet. Please, stay with me…or, don't leave without me.
Still receiving no reply, I licked my parched lips. Gently, I grabbed her and pulled her close to me, hugging her as best as I could through the bars.
"Don't."
Don't go yet. I'm not ready to…god, please, don't leave without me…
Though I only ever spoke the bare minimum, Max always seemed to know what I meant. One word from me spoke thousands to her. She was so much more insightful than she ever truly knew, and that meant the world to me. I never needed to swing the door wide open for her to come in. All she'd ever needed was the welcome mat. That was why it was killing me that she refused to respond.
Or, maybe she wasn't refusing to. Maybe she just wasn't able to. That idea scared me so much more, but it made so much more sense.
She's already gone, I thought in devastation. She can't hear me anymore. She can't hear me begging her to stay, because she's already gone. She already left without me. Was there any chance, any chance at all in heaven and hell and all that lied between, that I'd ever be able to catch back up?
Trembling, I held her corpse as tightly against me as I could. I could hear her breathing, could feel her heartbeat, but none of that meant a thing. Max was still alive, but Maximum Ride had long since died. For some reason, I thought of my mother, that young, teenage face on one of the papers we'd stolen from the Institute of Higher Living. She had thought she'd buried her baby, when in reality had done nothing more than bury someone else's murdered child.
Was I ready to give that grave the true body?
Strangely, I wondered what name it displayed, what my mother had named me.
"Max, listen to me. I'm never going to leave you."
Her head turned ever so slightly towards me. I could see her hazel eyes moving, finally removing themselves from their post on the floor. And, finally, she looked at me. I could see something in her eyes, but I didn't dare hope. It was nothing more than a ghost of what once was.
She remained silent, and looked away again.
There is nothing left of you;
I can see it in your eyes.
Sing the anthem of the angels,
And say the last goodbye.
For the millionth time in my life, I was damning my fast metabolism. I had grown used to hunger, because I was never free from it save for those rare days that we could swipe a feast out of a dumpster, or when we were curled up in the security of Valencia Martinez's home. Starvation, though…that was something I had never been associated with. Even before we had escape from the School four years ago, we had always at least receiving one meal a day, no matter how small.
But I hadn't so much as seen a crumb since we had been captured, which I guessed was about a week ago. That might seem like hell for normal humans (except for those dumbass anorexics), but it was a hundred times worse for bird-kids like me. Before we had been captured, I had been six feet, three inches tall and weighed only a hundred and thirty pounds. So, as you can imagine, I was skinny as hell in the first place.
Now, I was already just skin and bones.
I had been trying to keep a strong face, just in case a whitecoat or Eraser decided to wander in and toy around with us, but it was getting harder and harder by the hour. Already, I was curled up in a ball with my face buried in my knees, clutching my stomach. I felt like I could throw up, and I knew that my stomach was already at the stage where it was trying to eat itself.
Max had to have been in the same amount of pain, but she didn't show it. She only sat there, like she always did.
Struggling to push back the dry heaves, I uncurled my body and collapsed against the back wall of bars. My stomach had stopped growling several days ago and had started roaring like a lion. I remembered thinking how I wasn't ready to leave yet. I still wasn't to tell the truth, but it was looking like I didn't have a choice in the matter. The whitecoats weren't going to drag me off and expire me like they had the others…they were going to let me die a slow, painful, pitiful death.
The swinging doors suddenly opened, for the first time since they'd taken Angel's body away. Immediately, I tried to steel myself, to make myself look tough…but I succeeded in nothing more than feebly gazing at the intruder.
She was a young woman with full, brown hair; warm, green eyes; and a soft, pretty, and girlish face. I recognized her as the intern that had been present every time another member of the flock had been taken away. I remembered the stricken, horrified expression on her face, and how she had practically had to be pushed from the room. She's a newbie, I had thought, but she'll learn. Then, she'll be nothing more than another damn whitecoat.
She glanced around as if to make sure no one was watching. Then, quickly, she made her way over to my cage. I tried to glare, but couldn't. My stomach screamed for food.
Suddenly, I realized the intern was trembling. Tears had welled up in her eyes. She was reaching clumsily through her pockets, and finally she pulled out two apples. I stared at her in bewilderment as she reached her hands, each holding one apple, into my cage. Her head was bowed. She wouldn't look me in the eye.
"Just take them," she murmured. She was speaking too quickly, too quietly. She was scared, but she also seemed…guilty. "It…it was all I managed to swipe from the cafeteria. I'm so sorry I couldn't get more." Somehow, she seemed to be apologizing for something more than just the lack of food. This was either the one good whitecoat in a million, or she was a damn good actress.
I'd learned to never trust a whitecoat, no matter how kind-looking, but I couldn't not take the apples. I gazed at her as steadily as I could, now holding the two fruits in my hands. "You're close enough for me to attack you," I warned quietly, not quite sure why I was saying this. "I could easily reach through these bars, snap your neck, and grab that key ring from your belt."
She nodded, seeming to have expected to hear this. "You won't," she said.
I narrowed my eyes. "And what makes you think that?"
Finally, her eyes rose to meet mine. "Because I'm the only person here who will provide you with food." After a second, she looked away and pulled two more apples out of her pockets, reaching them out towards Max. Max didn't even look at them. After a moment, the intern set them down inside her cage and drew away.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked, suspicious of the food. I knew that it could easily be filled with some kind of drug.
The intern just shook her head slightly. She was at a loss for words. She was just a newbie in this place, meaning she was unaccustomed to the horrors that dwelled within it. Unlike the rest of the whitecoats, maybe her moral compass wasn't leading her down the path of insanity. Maybe she was like Jeb…
I dared not hope.
"As soon as the others find out you're doing this - and they will find out - you'll probably be killed," I told her. Her eyes had returned to the floor. Once again, she was finding it impossible to look me in the eye.
"Probably," she murmured. Her hands were shaking. "But I deserve it." Her eyes were still glistening with the tears she was struggling to hold in. "I'm so sorry," she repeated, her hair falling into her face. "About your friends, I mean. I am so sorry…"
Then, she turned and hurried off. I watched her go, confused. Then, I looked down at one of the apples. Well, here goes nothing. I took a bite out of it. It was…good. It tasted like a perfectly normal apple. Before I knew it, I had finished both of the apples. It didn't come anywhere near satisfying my hunger, but it dulled it to a bearable state.
I waited a few hours to see if there would be any side effects. Finding none, I turned to Max and began to coax her into eating her own apples.
Cold light above us;
Hope fills the heart,
And fades away.
Skin white as winter,
As the sky returns to gray.
I was being bounced up and down relentlessly as Max jumped feverishly on my bed. She was cackling like a witch, very fitting for who she was. I was prepared for how this was going, and I rolled over to face away from her, making sure to cross my legs in an attempt to protect my soft spot from Max's wrath. "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" she was screaming vehemently, determined to get me out of bed in the worst mood possible.
The sunlight was awfully bright today. I could see the fleshy color of the backs of my eyelids.
Finally, I kicked out with my foot and knocked her off the bed. In the process, she grabbed my ankle, and I was yanked off with her. Damn the whitecoats for programming quick instincts into her brain.
Now flat on my chest on the floor, I kept my eyes squeezed shut, determined to feign sleep until the end. Max jumped on my back, wrapping her arms around me and yelling wildly in my ear, "WAKE UP!"
She jumped off and rolled me over. The sunlight assaulted my eyes through my eyelids. I pushed her away. I reached blindly for my blankets, and, upon feeling them, grabbed them and threw them over me. I trapped myself under them as a barrier against Max and the light. It did jack-didly-squat to either.
Finally, Max was pulled away, probably by Iggy. "Max, last time you did that, he busted a frying pan over my head. I'd prefer it if history didn't repeat itself." Thank god for Iggy.
Two small hands replaced Max, though, shaking me fervently. "Fang! Fang!" Angel's young voice called to me. "Come on, the sky's clear today! Let's go play!" I still did my best to remain unresponsive, and I could practically sense Angel's pouting face rising to the surface. "Faaaaang!" she whined.
Good lord, even when you couldn't see them, the Bambi eyes forced you to obey them. Finally, I uncovered my head and opened my eyes, ready to greet the sunlight.
Only it wasn't sunlight.
It was the cold, dead light bulb implanted into the ceiling far above my head. I felt my heart drop as I realized that it had all been a dream. No more jumping on my bed, no more cackling like a witch, no more Bambi eyes. Oh, no, never again, because Gazzy, Angel, Nudge, and Iggy were dead, and Max might as well have been. It would only be a matter of time before I followed.
I pushed myself into a sitting position in my cage, and immediately hit my head on the top. Hissing in pain, I immediately slouched my back, reminding myself of the burning ache in it. After a moment, I looked over at Max. She still sat there and stared. It didn't even look like she had budged an inch.
I yawned, then noticed the dark rings under Max's eyes. That had been the first time I had slept since we had been captured, and I still felt exhausted. Max hadn't gotten an ounce of sleep, so I could only imagine how she felt. Well, then again, they said that the dead couldn't feel a thing. Feeling my heart ache, I scooted over to the edge of my cage, reached through the bars, and pulled Max to me again.
No more talking, no more begging. Just sitting. Just staring.
I closed my eyes, relaxing against the wall of bars. I remembered the first time we'd ever been like this. By the time we were seven years old, Max and I had already managed to get our cages pressed against each other. A little black girl called Subject Eight had been sharing my cage for quite a few years by then, and a little blonde boy called Subject Ten had just recently been dropped into Six's cage. I never slept much, even as a young boy, so I had been surprised when Subject Three had suddenly awoken, crying due to a nightmare.
When she had caught me staring, she had been embarrassed of her moment of weakness. She had immediately turned away, a stubborn one determined to look independent even then, but I had known she had still been scared. So, I had reached through the bars and hugged her.
I supposed that had been the first seed planted for my love for her.
If only she would show the same appreciation for it now.
I sighed deeply, trying to remember the good old days. "Good old days"…that made it sound as if my happier days had been years and years ago, when in fact had only been a couple weeks ago. (Well, I assumed only a couple weeks had passed. It was hard telling when you hadn't seen sunlight or moonlight since you'd been kidnapped.) No matter how hard I tried to imagine their happy, laughing faces, their dead, defeated ones refused to leave my vision.
I forced my eyes open, trying desperately to wash those images from my mind. Once they were there, though, they refused to go away.
I wondered if Max could feel me hurting…but, as I said before, the dead couldn't feel a thing. How foolish of me to think for even a second that my Maximum was still alive.
If only at least one of the others were still alive, Max never would have let herself fall to this. Each of the others needed someone to protect them. They gave Max something to fight for, something to live for. Me, though…she didn't need to live for me. She knew that I could fight for myself.
Even if I didn't need her to protect me…I still needed her. If only she had been able to understand that before she had died. If only I had bothered to tell her. Maybe she would have stayed long enough for me to prepare myself for what was inevitably in our near future. Maybe she wouldn't have left me behind. Maybe-
Suddenly, the swinging doors to our room opened.
Days go on forever,
But I have not left your side.
We can chase the dark together;
If you go, then so will I.
A whitecoat walked in. That was to be expected, but my eyes were flared with recognition. I stared at his kempt, clean-cut mousy hair; his vogue, thin-rimmed glasses; his crisp green eyes, so contemptuous and sadistic. It had been his voice that had ordered the Erasers to remove Iggy and Nudge from the room, his face that had leaned so close to Gazzy's to tell him that he was going to die, his hand that had ruffled Angel's hair. He had been the one to taunt us with our overwhelming defeat. He had been the one to mercilessly rub salt in an already agonized wound.
I kept my face hidden beneath my hair, doing nothing but holding Max.
"Aww, how sweet," the whitecoat said, his voice dripping with sickeningly sweet sugar. "Oh, look at our very own Romeo and Juliet, our star-crossed lovers. I guess it's true what they say: love conquers all." He grinned, his eyes flashing with cruelty. "Except fate. And, as Romeo and Juliet proved, poison and stab wounds. And I suppose love can't conquer Itex, either. Hmm, now that I think about it, how useful is love?
"That intern that's been feeding you two for the past week just had too much love in her heart. What an idiot she was. At least she was dealt with appropriately." Though I wasn't surprised, I actually felt a little sad to find out that that intern, who had actually turned out to be a sweet woman, was dead. Mostly, though, I felt sorry for her, for getting mixed up with Itex. If only she'd started up with a different company, she could've done so much good in the world. Too bad I hadn't even bothered to learn her name.
"Love is just like you and your pathetic flock, I guess, Maximum." Max closed her eyes, but showed no other signs of life. My already existing hatred for this man deepened. "It can survive a lot, a lot more than anyone could have ever expected," he continued savagely, his voice as suave and as talkative as ever. He sounded like a teacher giving a rehearsed speech. "It can even win the occasional battle…but, when it comes down to it, love is nothing. It's easier to crush than a bug." Slowly, his voice was becoming harsher and harsher.
"Just like you, Maximum. Oh, you were great there for a while, but what goes up must come down, hmm? Who knows, maybe if those other children had had a better leader, they would still be alive. But, fate condemned them just as it has condemned your love, and they were stuck with you. Poor kids. They must have realized just how doomed they were the second you became leader."
"Be quiet," I whispered, but made no other movement.
The whitecoat seemed not to hear me. "They sure were tough ones. They had heart. Fought till the very end, just like love, but in the end they were demolished, just. Like. Love," he continued with the voice of the devil himself.
"Be quiet," I said, louder this time, but still refused to move. I sensed the whitecoat looking at me with a sort of surprise.
"Well," he continued without skipping a beat, "looks like this one's a toughy, too. With all he's been through, he's still standing strong…or, maybe not so strong, and maybe not standing at all, but he's still there. Weak and pathetic and trapped in a cage, but he's still there." I sat there and let him attack me. I'd rather him vent every last shard of his cruelty on me than say another ill word to Max.
But then he turned on her again. "Wow, Max, your own second-in-command has been through everything you have and is so much tougher. Maybe he should've been leader. He would've been better. Anyone would have been a better leader than you, you derisory mongrel. I even bet-"
"Do you not get the flocking point?" I yelled, releasing Max and whirling to face the whitecoat. I glared at him as viciously as I could. "Shut. Up!"
The whitecoat seemed very taken aback. "My, my, my," he pushed on. It was like his mouth had a mind of his own. No matter how shocked or speechless or dumbfounded her was, he still had something to say. "Looks like tall, dark, and wingsome still has some balls left on him." He leaned close to my cage, close enough for me to reach out and grab him and throttle the life out of him. I would have, too, if I hadn't been so concerned about Erasers rushing in and dragging me away from Max. I'd promised her that I'd never leave her.
"I thought we had you neutered a long time ago," he seemed to ponder aloud.
"Sorry to disappoint you," I growled, my hands itching to wring out his neck, "but I promise you, the second I get out of this cage, I will sever yours from your body as slowly and painfully as if I had a rusty, dull knife." I should have left it there, seeing as there were reasons why I rarely spoke, but the dam had been broken. The words were gushing out, beyond my control. "
You call us nothing? Why don't you take a look in the mirror, you good-for-nothing bastard. As soon as you're dead - and trust me, you will die - they will replace you before you're even in your coffin. There are a million more of you sociopaths. I bet you can't say that there are a million more successful recombinants who've destroyed hundreds of Itex-sponsored corporations." I felt myself trembling with rage. "I bet you can't even says there are a million more successful recombinants. For god's sake, for being evil geniuses, you are some dumbasses."
Though this would've been a normal phrase for Nudge, this was a speech for me. The whitecoat seemed to understand this as he just knelt there and grinned at me. I was pretty sure that he was proud of himself for drawing out such a furious reaction from me.
"Well," he finally said, cocking his head to the side ever-so-slightly, "someone's certainly got a mouth on them. Though it's good for politics, unfortunately, that kind of thing is quite frowned upon here. For a second there, I thought you had the potential of outlasting all of the others, even Maximum here." He stood, still grinning horribly. "But you just annoyed me."
In other words, I was next to die. And soon.
"You're going to regret ever having messed with the flock!" I shouted after him. "I swear to god and the heaven's above, I'm going to kill you!"
"I'd like to see you try, you poor, poor, star-crossed lover," he replied calmly.
Without another word, the whitecoat left the room. He didn't even glance back.
There is nothing left of you;
I can see is in your eyes.
Sing the anthem of the angels,
And say the last goodbye.
I crouched in front of my cage's door, being as still as I possibly could. The whitecoats' visits had been becoming more and more frequent, so I knew that it would only be a matter of time before another one came along. When that time came, I wanted to be completely invisible…I wanted to freak them the flock out.
My days were numbered, if I had any left at all. They were dangling a deadline above my head. It felt horrible, knowing that you could count the time left in your life by minutes. An eternity ago, I had felt invincible, like I could never die.
My legs were burning like they were on fire, but I stayed perfectly still. Sheer agony was not a friend of mine, but it wasn't a stranger. When I was five years old, I'd been electrocuted until I lost consciousness every day for a month. When I was eight years old, I'd been forced to run ten hours straight. When I was ten years old, I had been forced to fight ten full-grown Erasers until they were dead or I was inches from it. Anyone who could survive that could stay crouched for any given amount of time.
I was prepared to do anything and everything today. It was time for my plan to come to fruition.
The whitecoats had noticed, much to their dissatisfaction, that I was still alive inside and out. They were growing tired of us, much like a cat does after playing with its prey. Soon, it would be time to get rid of us altogether, to finally move in for the kill. I knew that I was first on the list, because I hadn't given them as amusing of an outcome as Max had. They were going to keep her just a little while longer, just to toy with her for a few more days.
Then, finally, they'd allow poor, pathetic Max, hero of all mutants, to die. They'd expire her like she was nothing more than scum, just as they had the others.
I hadn't been able to do anything for Iggy, Gazzy, Nudge, and Angel. But now…now, I'd been given the time I needed. Escape plans were no quick things to conjure. Time used to be my enemy, I remembered. All our lives, the flock had always improvised. It had been fun, trying an idea just to see how it turned out, making things up as we went along. It was a way to test ourselves.
But I was sick of tests, and I needed this plan to work out a certain way. There could be no mistakes, or I would lose everything. Everything that was left of Max's pride and legacy depended on this. I couldn't let Max be remembered as a broken failure. I owed her that, at the very least.
I knew that, no matter what happened, I was going to die. But I wanted our secret world to know that I had chosen that I no longer wanted to live, rather than having death thrust upon me against my will. I wanted Itex to understand that, until the very end, Fang was still in control of Fang's life. I would rather give them a nonverbal "go to hell" in the form of suicide than let them kill me…
How did that old saying go? "Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse…"
Living fast…that was all we'd ever done. From the fourteen years of my life down to the six years of Angel's, we had never done anything else. We were constantly on the run. We never stayed in one place for more than a couple weeks, and every other day we had to fight for our lives. No time for relaxation. No time to stop and smell the roses. No time to really live.
Dying young…Nudge, Iggy, and Gazzy, screaming and kicking and fighting. They knew they were going, but they were going to go down in flames, go out with a bang, go out in a final blaze of glory. They were so much like shooting stars. And Angel, knowing she was physically weaker, fighting back in a much more subtle way. Stepping out of her cage in a graceful sweep as the door opened. Walking out of the room without needing to be restrained. Accepting her death with such grace, staring the whitecoats dead in the eye every step of the way. She was a young, blonde Socrates. And Max…somehow, it wasn't fitting that she was nothing more than a blown-out candle.
Beautiful corpses?
Corpses were never beautiful.
Finally, the door opened. "Oh, booooyyy," the whitecoat called in a singsong voice. It was the same whitecoat as before, the one who'd taken the others away. He and the two Erasers with him were coming for me, to kill me. I saw him freeze in place when he saw how empty my cage appeared to be. His eyes doubled in size, and he raced towards me. He pulled a key ring out of his pocket, ready to unlock my cage in an attempt to find out what the hell. It was going to be the biggest mistake he could ever make, and the reason why we were going to get away.
The cage door opened. I lunged at him, my body suddenly returning to the world of the living. I snarled at him as I tackled him to the ground, my face mere inches above his. "Told you so."
I decided I was ready…
It was time to catch up to my Maximum.
I keep holding onto you,
But I can't bring you back to life.
Sing the anthem of the angels,
And say the last goodbye.
I jumped away from the dead whitecoat, meeting the Erasers head-on.
You're dead alive.
With the key ring now in my hand, I unlocked Max's cage and pulled her out.
You're dead alive.
We were running up the stairs for all we were worth. The alarms were blaring.
You're dead alive.
We were being chased. We ran through a Plexiglas door, out onto the rooftop.
You're dead alive.
I jammed the door with the bludgeoning baton I'd swiped off one of the unconscious Erasers. Still facing the door, I backed towards the edge of the building. I let go of Max's hand, my eyes searing as they watched the whitecoats slam into the blocked door. They glared at me through it, and I glared back.
"You can't escape!" one of the whitecoats yelled.
There is nothing left of you;
I can see it in your eyes.
Sing the anthem of the angels,
And say the last goodbye.
To everyone's surprise, I laughed. "Sure we can. How does that old saying go?" I asked, speaking more to myself than anyone else. "Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse. Corpses are never beautiful…but, hey, two outta three ain't bad."
Then, I unfurled my wings and stretched them as far as they would go. They were shattered, twisted, and contorted, but I felt no less powerful than when I was still a member of the invincible flock. It almost felt like I was still a member of that flock. I was almost convinced that on either side of me my family was gathered, wings spread defiantly, explosives held in two familiar sets of hands, minds full of plots on how we were going to nonverbally tell the whitecoats to "go to hell" this time. My Maximum at the lead, as she always was.
I smirked at the whitecoats, clenching my fists and holding my head high. I felt dangerous. God, it felt so good to feel like that again.
I must've looked dangerous, because the whitecoats fell into dead silence, staring at my wings as if in a trance. Finally, one shouted, "Your wings are broken! You'll plummet to your deaths! You can't fly!"
"The hell we can't."
The voice startled me. I looked to my right, where Max had been standing in silence the entire time. Her wings, as damaged and as proud as mine, were stretched, too. Max was glaring at them. The fire in her eyes had been rekindled, though now it was of a much different kind. She suddenly grinned at the whitecoats, that devilish, overconfident, beautiful grin.
There were no rebellious, bold, unbroken wings; no pale hands full of explosives; no creative ways to piss off Itex today…but Max's spirit was back.
My Maximum was back.
She knew that she'd never be able to defeat them, but she wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of knowing that they had been the ones to crush and destroy Maximum Ride. They'd taken things from us that we'd never be able to get back, but, with God as our witness, we were going to prove to them that there were just some things that they could never take away.
They tried to break us and broke our wings…
And with these broken wings, we'd show them we could fly.
Slowly, Max and I turned to face the edge of the building. It was a twelve story drop. Still smirking, I reached a hand out towards Max. Still grinning, she took it. We looked down at the ground, which seemed almost a million miles away. I supposed that I should've felt like a condemned man approaching the gallows, or a dying man writing the final letter to the one he loved, or at the very least acrophobic. But I didn't.
I felt free.
So incredibly, indescribably free.
"Max?" I asked quietly.
"Yeah, Fang?"
"I love you."
She was silent a moment as the full meaning of those words sank in. I had never told her this before, and though I didn't think she had ever doubted it, just saying it made it so much more real. "I love you, too," she finally said.
And with everything we'd ever needed to say finally said, we jumped off the side of the building.
I keep holding onto you,
But I can't bring you back to life.
The wind whipping at my hair, making it fly above me like a dark halo; my clothes fighting to pull away from me, desperate to reach for the sky; the air curving around me in a way it only could when I was airborne. It actually felt like I was flying again…and it felt like my family was flying with me.
I looked down at the ground. It no longer seemed so far away; contrarily, it was rushing up to meet me at an amazing speed. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I could've sworn I heard four children, all without a care in the world, laughing, calling my name. Fang! Fang! Come on, the sky's clear today! Let's go play!
It wouldn't be much longer now…
Faaaaang!
I never let go of Max's hand.
Sing the anthem of the angels,
And say the last goodbye.