Up, down, up, down, up, down. Wings working like pistols I flew ahead of the others. Why? Fang kept shooting me glances that made me feel like my insides were custard and I couldn't concentrate. As if that wasn't bad enough, he decided to fly so close to me that his dark wings touched mine on every downstroke, making it hard for me to breathe.
Now, I know what you're thinking. This is me. Maximum Ride. The Maximum Ride. The Maximum Ride who had saved the world, how many times now? Kicked Eraser, Fly Boy and M-Geek butt from here to Neverland but still can't handle one, dark, deadly, gorgeous 16 year old boy.
Wait did I just call Fang gorgeous? I shook my head and focused on flying straight. I seemed to loose concentration wherever Fang was involved, which, let's face it, wasn't a good idea while your flying.
Now, you're probably wondering where I've dragged my flock off to this time. True? Well, truthfully, I don't know. The Voice, as usual, was reluctant to give away too much information. Wait, not too much information, practically any information. How was I meant to save the world with as little information as, "Fly with the wind. Your destiny will find you. Or, more probably, you'll find it.'' Now, me, only being a 16 year old girl with as much knowledge about philosophers and the drabble they go on with, just flew with the wind. So where does that leave me? Somewhere in Washington. Great! Maybe there's one Itex branch left that I need to clean up or something . . .
Ow! What was that? Another little bullet hits me in answer to my question. Then another. And another. And another. I did a three-sixty to see where my attacker was, and found no one.
Oh. Not bullets. It's rain. I'm so paranoid I imagine the rain to be some new . . . invention out to get me. Or my flock. Another sharp little crystal of rain hits me and I decide it's time to land. Up here, so far up that we're all little specks to little human's weak eyes, the rains pretty much hail. Can you say ouch?
"Yo Max," Fang calls from behind me, making my heart jump like it's on something illegal. "Let's head down."
Five minutes later and we were all sitting in some small, horrible, coffee shop. We were all fidgeting like crazy and jumping whenever someone looked at us. Why, you're all probably wondering, do we put our selves through this? The answer is simple. It's warm in here, unlike out there, in the cold wet rain. Wanna know a plus? While the rest of the flock are all smooshed together on a couch, Fang and I are even more smooshed together or an armchair, so much that I was pretty much sitting in his lap. Not that I minded. And I got the feeling that he didn't either, seeming how his arms were around me, pulling me closer.
"Where are we, anyway?" Nudge asked, looking expectantly at me.
"Angel?" I asked her.
"Hmm, oh, according to the waitress' thoughts over there, we're in some place called Seattle," she said innocently. She was the only one, apart from Fang, who knew that I didn't know that, a) what we were doing here, b) why we were here, and, c) what we were meant to do.
"Oh. My. God," Nudge said slowly. "Look at her."
We all turned and saw a small, drop dead gorgeous, pixie girl sitting alone at a booth.
"She is soooo pretty. Oh, gosh, look at her shoes! Max I want shoes like that! Can we go get some shoes? Please! I'll be good for my whole life, if you get me those shoes!" Nudge shouted, bouncing around on the couch.
I look down and see sparkly silver high heels. The heels are about three inches tall and look like tooth picks, they're that skinny. Perfect for mutant kids who can't go a week without getting into some form of trouble, or fighting for their lives. I take a deep breath to calm myself.
"Not really suitable for our life style, honey."
"Man! Would someone tell me what this chick looks like?" Iggy demanded.
"A goddess," Fang breathed, still staring at her. I felt jealousy bubble up inside me but quickly pushed it aside.
"Describe her, damn it!"
So, now, I had to listen to Fang marvel about this randoms looks. Great. Just a great way to make my day perfect, just when I was feeling happy and, I'll admit it, somewhat safe in Fang's strong arms. Only a tiny bit safe, though. I'm smart enough to know I'll never, truly, be safe.
"What's wrong, Angel?" Gazzy asked.
I whipped my head around to Angel, still a bit jumpy in a space this small. She was wearing a confused look.
"She's, well, she's going through all the different ways to greet people from all over the world, in every language, then introduce yourself. It's very hard to . . . keep up with her thoughts."
A glance at the girl told me she was politely staring out the window into the rain. Suddenly she whipped her head around and stared at something behind me. Now, me, being my paranoid self, jumped out of Fang's lap, got into a fighting crouch and stared behind me all within, five seconds? Maybe six. Very embarrassing, trust me, when you find nothings there apart from a horrible painting of a lake. The flock, seeing my reaction, acted like mutant freaks who are constantly trying to be assassinated react – they resumed fighting stances, scanned the perimeter for attackers and looked for possible escape roots. Yeah. We're soooo totally laid back and normal looking now.
Now, with all eyes on us, we felt really uncomfortable. Trust me; I hate to draw attention to myself. Hate it with a passion. When gross wolf men have chased you all around the flipping country, you'll know why. Attention = Bad in Maximum Ride's book. More attention you have, the more likely it is the enemy – who ever it is at that time, trust me, it changes weekly – to see you.
Max, my buddy-o-pal, the Voice said. Max, it's time to leave.
You got it buddy, I thought, already moving towards the door. Gazzy, still looking around, took Iggy's hand. Silently, we all walked out into rain, leaving the short, black haired, pixie goddess in the shop without a second thought about her.
"Let's take off, guys," I said, assuming my leader voice, the voice that says "don't mess with me, it'll get you nowhere.''
Ah, relief, sweet, sweet relief it is to have those muscles that have been clenching your wings tight against your back relax. Soon, we were all high, high, high in the air, soaring, coasting and banking, leaving all our troubles behind.
Yeah, right. Like that'd ever happen.
"Max, we never got any food down there so I was wondering if we could get something to eat at the next town,'' Gazzy said innocently.
"Yeah!" Nudge agreed enthusiastically. Seriously, I know we eat a lot but those two like bottomless pits. Never full.
"Okay, look, here's the drill. We'll find some place to get some tucker then we go find some place to catch some Z's.''
Maximum, land in a couple of kilometres. This is where you need to be. Save the world, Max and prepare yourself for the extraordinary. This little town has as many secrets as you do. This town has the answers to many, many, many questions you have. This may be one of the best rides of your life, the Voice said. And then guess what? It actually chuckled and I'm pretty sure, like 85% sure that I heard it chuckle with real humour. Like it thought it was funny the way it could drop something like 'save the world' on me again and dismiss it as easily with a good natured laugh. As if.
"What did it say this time?" Fang asked me quietly. "Anything to do with what's going on?"
"The usual save the world. And something about this town having as many secrets as me. Gibberish, as usual," I told him.
Okay, when the voice said this town was the right one, I nearly dropped out of the sky. This couldn't be the reason I flew across the country! It was a small Indian reservation. Tiny! And this, supposedly, had as many secrets as me? What, did it grow up in a dog crate, too? Or did it keep people in dog crates? That thought drew me up short. That could be the reason why I'm here. I'm meant to save the world so maybe this is another one of those quests to destroy evil scientists' labs that make mutant children in the name of science. Well, it was meant to have the answers. Huh. Beats me.
"Down below, guys," I shouted over the wind.
We all tucked in our wings and dive-bombed towards a cliff one by one. Landing on the rocky ledge, I set off towards this town with my flock behind me. Fang, surprising me, came up and took my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. It felt like someone had injected me with sorbet where he touched my hand, making me hyper alert. Well, more hyper alert.
Concentrate, Max, the Voice said, this is not the time. You have a job to do and I expect you to do it well.
It really wasn't that long to walk to the tiny town. Haha, tiny town. Funny. Oh well. I wasn't too worried about the whole 'save the world' thing right now. I was more with the whole 'lets find a take-away shop and inhale some burgers' kind of thing. Sorry, but the world can wait for ten minutes.
Amazingly, even though this was Tinseyville, they had a take out shop. Once the flock and I had eaten our full, which, was about enough to feed a family for a week, maybe more, we decided to check this place out. You know, maybe some high tech lab was somewhere about? Just a thought.
Anyway, we didn't find squat. Zilch. Nothing. What now? I asked my wise Voice.
Go with the flow, Max.
Hmm, I swear, that is its favourite and most said saying. Getting really old now, Voice. Just to let you know.
Okay, so we walked around a little more. And some more. Then we walked some more. Then, when Angel started to ask if we could go to the beach, I happily agreed. That was going with the flow, right?
So, now, here I was sitting on a beach. Not the perfect Californian white sands, crystal clear waters beach. Noooo. This beach had stormy waters and instead of the sand it had rocks. Fabulous.
"Hey," someone called. I looked up to see a big, buff Indian guy coming towards me, wearing only some trackie-dacks. Yummy, since he had the best six pack I'd ever seen. Man, and I thought Fang was muscled!
"What?"
"What are you doing here?" he said.
I sized him up. I could take him easily, no matter if he was buff. I was a test-tube baby, with wings and more strength that dinky human guy could ever dream of. "Going to the beach," I answered and looked away from him bluntly.
"Yeah, but your sister, she went in the water, like, four minutes ago. She still hasn't come up," he said, scanning the sea.
Oh. Right. Of course he would be worried if mind controlling, water breathing, fish friend, Angel had gone under and not came back up. Duh Max!
"Right. Don't worry about it, she's fine," I said lamely when I couldn't come up with some kick-ass lies. Great time to run dry, I thought to myself.
He looked at me, appalled. "But – but – but," he spluttered and before I could sigh and think of something to say that would cover up my bad, he was off. Off like a rocket. Man, we were fast but he could easily match us. Wholly cow.
"Dude, wait," Iggy said when the guy reached him in the water. "She's really okay." It was a bit too late, though. He was already off, diving into the water like some type of Olympic Swimmer.
Just then, though, Angel decided to come back up. She swam until it was shallow enough for her to stand waist high in water and then skipped easily through the water and up the beach to me.
"Max! Some really cool fish were talking to me and teaching me all about this stuff –" she was saying happily when I cut her off, noticing the guy behind her, catching flies in his mouth.
"Angel! You know you really didn't talk to fish! See, this is exactly like the time you said there were fairies in the garden," I said to her, but really, I was thinking, Shut up! There's a guy behind you! Really hard. I think she heard though because understanding dawned and her face and she said, really quietly, "I knew you wouldn't believe me." That's my girl. Playing along, the perfect picture of a 7 year old who thinks she talks to fish and sees fairies.
Suddenly, though, the guy whipped around and looked into the forest, just as Iggy, who was dripping wet said, "Hey, what's howlin'?"
I listened hard. Sure enough, there was howling. But what was howling at this time of day?
Wolves, Max, the Voice supplied helpfully.
How do you know? I thought back. Wolves? Well, my education was sparse at best but I really thought wolves were, like, night creatures and howled to the moon. Like on the movies. Pretty pathetic, but most of my top-notch education comes from the TV, the laptop, or, you guessed it, movies.
"Crap," the random Indian said and then he was off like a bullet. He raced down the beach and was in the trees in a matter of seconds. Jeesh, talk about over reaction. To what though? Wolves? Maybe they attack around here . . .
"Yo," Ig said. "I hear, like, battle."
"Battle?" we all were staring at Iggy now. You could see the concentration written all over his pale face. Battle, battle. I thought. Wait! Battle! That guys going to get himself killed. Wolves were fighting in the forest and he headed straight there like it was where he most wanted to be. Talk about crazy.
"Oh no, that guy's gonna get himself ripped to shreds."
"Sure sounds like it," Iggy said grimly.
Max! You need to go help them! The Voice said.
Help who? I asked suspiciously. Since when were we the ones who ran around helping every Tom, Dick and Harry? Like, were meant to save the world not every single man who finds himself in a bit of a pickle. I wasn't bloody Superman people!
This is part of why you're here, Max, hurry! No time to go through a rebellious stage, you need to act, and quickly. Did I imagine it or did the Voice sound panicky? And I was not going through a rebellious stage! You'll never find out this towns secrets unless you see them.
"No time to question my judgement guys, but we need to go help that guy, now," I said, cutting off whatever Iggy was saying.
"Voice?" Fang asked and I answered him by jumping straight into the air, snapping out my 15-foot wings. "C'mon guys," I said but they were already in the air, ready to follow me. Like always.
Where though?
Fly over the forest, Max. The same direction as to where the man went. The Voice said.
"Down below," Iggy said.
"You heard him guys, look for a place to land," I instructed my flock. Darn all this bloody forest! Not a place to land in sight!
"Down here, guys," Angel said and dropped down into a clump of trees. There was no way we'd be able to land there! I'd rip my wings off trying. I'd prefer to keep my wings. Yes you heard right. I still want my wings; I love flying and'll never, ever, give it up. Not for anything. Not even for a normal, boring, homework riddled life. Nup, the mutant winged bird kid life's for me!
Actually, now that it was my turn to land, I could see a possible landing place. Maybe, if I was Angel sized. I sighed and dived down, mimicking what Iggy and Fang had done before me, pulling in my wings close and landing on a big tree branch, almost jarring my legs with the impact.
Down below us was some type of bloodbath. Sure enough, there were wolves. Wolves the size of freaking horses! Good god. What were they? Like, did someone inject the local wolves, with, like, steroids or what?
Anyways, along with the wolves, there were M-Geeks. The latest things set loose on the world with one aim: capture moi. Oh and the flock. So, you'll probably understand why I was overjoyed to see them. Note the heavy sarcasm, people.
The wolves seemed to be holding out all right though.
As if my thoughts had jinxed them, one of the wolves got hurt by an M-Geek which proceeded to continue beating it to death. That was the last thing I saw before I jumped down from my branch and landed in front of the M-Geek. It looked at me and in that split second where it was stunned I had punched it and swung around and kicked it with an old favourite of mine: the roundhouse kick. It doubled over and I whacked it on the back of its neck, hard, and it crumpled to the ground.
I saw the rest of the flock launch into battle, too. With a little extra enthusiasm then our normal death battles. Like they missed it. Ha!
I, lets just say 'dealt', with another three M-Geeks. Wiping my hands on my old tattered poorly bashed around jeans, I saw Fang dealing with another M-Geek and the wolves fighting, too. Gee, there style was different. Like, they were working together, all co-ordinated or whatever. Not how I imagined wolves to fight like.
They aren't your normal wolves, Maximum. The Voice said, making me jump. Right. What else could they be?
By now, though, all the M-Geeks were eating some dirt. Like they should be. Teach them for coming after my flock and me.
"Report!" I yelled.
"I think I sprained my ankle," Angel said. "But I'm okay."
"Good," from Gazzy.
"Black eye, but I'm fine." Iggy.
I got a choked, "I'm fine," from Nudge and saw her massaging her throat. Hmm, I'd have to figure out what happened later.
I looked to Fang and he just nodded, eyeing the wolves warily. "Max," he said. "Your Voice got anything to say?"
"Hmm, these aren't wolves, or so I'm told."
Four startled faces looked at me. Yes, I said only four. Angel just had a knowing look written on her face that immediately got me suspicious.
"What do you know that I don't know, Angel?" I asked her.
"Well, they're men. They're werewolves," she said slowly.
Everyone, even the wolves, froze in shock. I was the first to react, assuming they were another batch of god cursed Erasers. I swung around and kicked one grey wolf in the side before bring my fist up and punching it under its jaw. It gave a startled yip and jumped back. Before anything else could happen, and, I'm sorry to say, I could attack it anymore, several wolves jumped forwards and immediately had me on the ground, eating dirt like the M-Geeks.
How embarrassing.
"Don't Fang," I heard Angel shout but that was after one wolf was sent flying from me. I heard an "oof'' and snarling. I struggled to get up but, dang, that wolf – werewolf, whatever – was strong. And heavy.
"Stop," Angel said in a voice I had never heard before and everyone stopped. Even me. I had no control what so ever over moving anymore. She was controlling me!
"Move away from each other." The wolves walked to one side of the clearing, and us, the flock, to another. She was scarring me now. Like, enough's enough, Angel. You've stopped the fighting; let me get up, so give me back my will.
"Sam and Jacob, change back into a human," she instructed, still in that strange, echoing sound of voice. Dang, mutants keep upping on the power scale, here, people.
Whoa! Two very naked men were now in front of me. "Don't attack," she said and then dropping the scary I-can-make-you-do-whatever-I-want-you-to-do voice said, "Now, where were we?"
