Chapter 60

It was like I'd been slapped.

"What – what are you talking about?" I managed to stammer, my whole body tensing. "A test – what's that supposed to mean?"

Laura continued to sneer at us as she began striding over towards me. I stepped backwards, the flock right behind me as I slowly unfurled my wings, ready to make a quick escape if needed.

"Oh, come on, Maximum. You're a smart girl, aren't you? I'm sure you can figure it out." Laura laughed, grabbing me by the arm and pulling my face close to hers. My first instinct was to twist her arm away from me with my free hand and shove her to the ground.

"Get away from me!" I yelled at her. "Leave me and my flock alone!"

But instead, all Laura did was smile creepily at me as she picked herself up off the ground. "You've grown even stronger, Maximum. Truly impressive. I'm sure Jeb-"

"Leave Jeb out of this!" Nudge bellowed from behind me. "When he finds out what you're doing-"

"Enough out of you," Laura hissed, waving a few Erasers forward.

"Everyone! Up and away!" I hollered. Nudge didn't hesitate a single second – even before I'd finished, she'd launched herself into the air, with the Gasman a few wing strokes behind her. Iggy and Fang followed them closely.

"How rude of you to leave without finishing our conversation, Maximum," Laura said, peering at me with a false sad expression on her face.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Oh, trust me. This conversation is over." Even though I had a billion things I wanted to know about. Like how the Erasers kept finding us, and what on earth this crazy lady had meant when she said this was all part of a test. But I wasn't going to stick around and risk our lives to find out.

"We are not done here!" Laura screeched as I backed away from her and leapt into the air, beating my wings hard.

"Max, what about us?" Daisy and Jaz screamed at the same time. Crap. They were still with the Erasers down below.

I looked over at them, which was a mistake – because in the moment that it took to distract me, an Eraser had grabbed my foot and pulled me downwards, shoving me to the ground. I howled in pain as my face hit the hard dirt and the Eraser pushed his boot-covered foot into my back.

"Max!" I heard the Gasman scream.

And then I heard a very different scream – a scream that didn't come from one of my flock members or from Jaz or Daisy. It was the scream of a full-grown woman yelling "Put me down! I said put me down!"

I managed to turn my head just enough to see Fang and Iggy hoisting Ex-Girl Scout Lady Laura into the sky. And man, she did not look happy about that – she was kicking and flailing her legs wildly, and I watched as one of her hiking boots flew off her foot and went sailing down to the ground and smacked an Eraser right in the head. Gazzy cackled wildly at that.

"Let Max go," Fang said darkly.

"And what if I don't?" Laura boasted. "You'll drop me from here? We both know you'll never do that."

"No, but I wouldn't hesitate on dropping you over the lake," Fang went on, incredibly calmly.

Laura's face paled. She looked down at me and all the Erasers surrounding me and managed to choke out, "Let Maximum go."

The Erasers looked like they were seriously disappointed with her order, but the one with his boot on top of me slowly removed it. I leaped up and darted away from them before they could change their minds, unfurling my wings to their full wingspan. I leapt into the air, stroking my wings hard to stay aloft.

I zipped over to where Fang and Iggy were holding our evil ex troop leader. "Oh, and one more thing. Leave my family alone. Or you'll really regret it."

Laura rolled her eyes at me. "Maximum, you don't understand. This is all part of a greater plan. A plan greater than any of you realize. And I can't just call off-"

"You know, I hear the lake is the perfect temperature for swimming this time of year," Iggy cut in nonchalantly.

Laura's face paled. "Fine. Fine. I'll do what you want. Just put me down!"

"Forget your greater plan," Iggy retorted, rolling his eyes. "I still think we should stick with our plan of dropping her in the lake."

I shot Iggy a look, which was lost on him. But I mean, it wasn't like I was totally against that idea.

"Okay, let her go," I said slowly, turning in mid-air to glare at Laura. "And you'd better not go back on your word."

"Letting go!" Iggy agreed happily, letting his grip loosen on her arm.

"Not like that!" I yelled. But it was too late - despite how strong Fang was, he couldn't hold Laura. She slipped out of his grasp and she went plummeting down towards the ground, shrieking. Just in time for the Erasers to catch her. She grimaced as they set her down and she got to her feet, brushing her clothes off.

"Did she go splat?" Iggy asked, a little too much excitement in his voice.

"I wish!" Gazzy sounded disappointed.

"We're going to be okay, right, Max?" Nudge angled closer to me as we hovered in the air, watching a few of the Erasers retreat. "Because she said we would leave us alone but what if she doesn't and…" I started to tune Nudge out, watching. Evil Laura was leading them into the woods, and I wondered where exactly she was going. She turned to look at me, that cruel smile on her face one more time, as if to say, This isn't over. I shuddered. We weren't safe here.

"And I really think we shouldn't stay at camp any longer because she knows where we are and even if she's going to leave us alone right now, the School could still track us and-"

"Nudge." I held my hand up to pause the Nudge Channel. "One step ahead of you. Let's get our gear and go."

"Can we come with you?" Daisy asked as I came in for a landing, my feet skidding on the dirt.

I bit my lip. Not that leaving her and Jaz behind was the best idea ever, especially with all those Erasers still lurking in the woods, but at least they seemed to leave the two girls alone. And there was no way we could do the several-hour flight back with all the extra weight.

"I'm sorry," I said slowly. "But you guys will be safe here, okay?" I mean, I was pretty sure the Boy Scout leader guy who would no doubt be completely in charge of this field trip now wasn't evil too. Pretty sure, but then again, you could never be too sure.

"No!" Jaz stomped her foot. "I want to come with you!"

"Well, you can't!" I yelled at her, and she shrunk back. I bit my lip again.

"Max is right," Fang told her, and her eyebrows furrowed. "We need to go now. You guys need to stay here."

Jaz pouted, but Daisy put her hand on Jaz's shoulder and gave her a small smile. "Come on, Jaz. We'll see them on Monday at school, right, Max?"

I nodded nervously. "Uh. Yeah. See you Monday." If Jeb didn't pull us out of school immediately and move us out into The Middle of Nowhere, USA, of course.

Jaz still looked like she wasn't going to give in, but finally she sighed. "Yeah," she murmured. Then before I could figure out what was going on, she threw her arms around me in a hug. "Be safe, okay, Max? Everyone else, too."

I froze up, having no idea how to respond. But Jaz kept clinging to me, so I awkwardly patted her back and said, "Duh." Yep, that's me, the eloquent Maximum Ride.

Jaz drew back from me and threw her arms around Fang. "See you on Monday, Fnick!"

I yanked her off Fang before she could try to give goodbye hugs to every other flock member. "Yeah, yeah, we get it, now let's go!"

Gazzy and Nudge had already slipped off to their respective tents and grabbed all of our backpacks. I slipped mine on and unfurled my wings.

Before long, the five of us were soaring high up in the sky, the campsite only a green blur below us as we rapidly left it behind.

"So," Fang said over the roar of the wind, looking at me.

"I don't like the way you said that," I replied, narrowing my eyes at him.

"What are we going to do?"

"We…" I trailed off, turning my head away from him, peering down at the tiny treetops miles below. "I think we have to tell Jeb. If they can track us down that easily, we're all in danger." I didn't want to think about what that meant right now – especially for the younger kids. If it meant leaving everything behind to keep them safe, though… "Jeb will know what to do. Right?"

Fang arched an eyebrow at me silently. I tried hard not to grimace – sometimes, he was impossible to read.

I glanced behind me – Nudge was chatting away about some birthday party she'd been invited to to Gazzy and Iggy, both of whom looked like they were desperately wishing for a pair of earplugs. But I was pretty sure they were out of earshot of our conversation, so I turned back to Fang and said, "Come on. You know we have to tell Jeb, right?"

"What if Jeb knows already?" Fang asked simply.

I came to a halt right in mid-air, forgetting to flap for a moment and dropping a few feet. "What do you mean, what if Jeb knows already?" I asked with a couple powerful strokes of my wings, soaring back up to look Fang in the eyes. "You really think he'd put us in danger like that?"

"No." Fang shook his head. "But there's no way everything that's happened over the past few months could have happened without him knowing. Think about it."

I was tempted to make some snarky comment like "Wow, Fang, that's the most you've said all day!" but his revelation stopped me. I thought back to the first day Jaz had come over, the day that Eraser had attacked us in the backyard. Jeb had definitely known about that. Even if I hadn't told him about the Erasers at Daisy's party, the Erasers that had attacked us on the Denver field trip, the Erasers that somehow seemed to follow us wherever we went – it was clear that someone at the School knew exactly where we were.

And maybe Jeb had known that fact this whole time.

I stared at Fang, who just nodded silently back at me as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.

"Max?" Nudge's worried voice came from behind me. "What's going on?" I glanced over my shoulder to see her, Gazzy, and Iggy hovering right behind us, nervously watching the whole conversation go down.

"We're not safe here," I said, just as Fang replied, "Jeb has the situation under control."

"Excuse me?" I narrowed my eyes at him. So much for being on the same wavelength. "That's your interpretation?"

"Jeb has been protecting us," Nudge piped up. "I mean, yeah, the Erasers keep finding us, but nothing too bad has happened, and besides if Fang's right and Jeb knows what's happening that means we're safe and-"

"Safe for how long?" I countered. "As soon as we get home, get packing. I'll tell Jeb…" I trailed off. What would I tell Jeb? "I'll tell him we're not safe here. That we all need to move somewhere else."

"But what about school?" A grubby hand grabbed my sleeve, and I looked down to see Gazzy, his eyes wide. It suddenly hit me – this kid was only five years old, and he'd been in more fights to the death than I could remember. How long could we keep living like this? He clung to my sweatshirt. "I don't want to leave!"

"Me either!" Nudge wailed, tears spilling out of her eyes and running down her cheeks. "I made so many friends! I don't want to leave them! I was supposed to go to Lilly's birthday party next week and there was going to be a bounce house and we were going to do each other's nails and – and-" She choked back tears. "I just want to be a normal kid!" She turned and grabbed onto Iggy's arm, crying into his sleeve. He sighed and awkwardly patted her hair.

I glanced over at him. As if he knew it was his turn to talk, he murmured, "I don't want to leave either. It's been nice, getting to do normal kid stuff." I opened my mouth to cut in, but he added, "But… I also don't want to be in danger."

Fang frowned. "It doesn't have to be like this."

"Oh, I'm sorry, but have you already forgotten how the Erasers were tracking us all the way into the woods? How we had to destroy their gear that they were using to keep an eye on us? And how they still found us and nearly killed us, literally less than an hour ago?" I gritted my teeth, turning around to face the rest of the flock.

Nudge was still blinking back tears, and my expression softened. I bit my lip, my eyes darting between her and Gazzy.

"Guys, trust me. I'd like to be a normal kid too. But here's the thing – we just can't be. Unfortunately, those twisted scientists at the School decided to play around with human and avian DNA, and here we are. I'm sorry. I know it sucks sometimes. I know you don't want to leave school and your friends and everything behind. But we have to. That's the only way we can be safe."

Nudge sniffled as she wiped back some of her tears, but for once she was silent, only nodding in response. Gazzy had let go of my sleeve and was now staring down at the ground far below, clearly unhappy.

Iggy was the first to break the silence. "So… we're telling Jeb about everything that's happened when we get home then?"

"Like he doesn't already know," Fang muttered. I shot him a look. Did he really think we were safe here? Maybe he just didn't want to leave Jaz behind. I tried hard not to roll my eyes at that thought.

"Can… can we talk to Jeb after school on Monday?" Gazzy piped up. He was trying hard to blink back tears from his big blue eyes. "I want to say bye to all my friends first."

"Me too," Nudge piped up. "Please, Max? Please? Just one more day at school. That's it."

I wanted to say no. After what happened with our Girl Scout troop leader, who turned out to be evil and in league with the School, and how the Erasers could seemingly track us down no matter where we were, I didn't want to stick around a second longer. But I also knew how important this was to the younger kids. Really, how important it had been to all of us. It had been our only chance to live semi-normal lives, after all, and now we were about to say goodbye to it all.

"Okay," I said finally. "One more day at school, and then we're out of here. Okay?"

Nudge sniffled loudly. "I wish we didn't have to leave," she cried, flying into my arms and squeezing me tight. "I wish we could just stay here and be normal kids. I wish…"

"I know, Nudge," I murmured, hugging her back. "I wish that too."

Hey everyone! I know I said I had this chapter pretty much already written back in October, but then Nanowrimo happened and then I started watching Vtubers and well... time pretty much slipped away from me, added onto the fact that I had to rewrite this chapter so many times bc I wasn't satisfied with how it was turning out. Anyway, thanks for reading and see you in the next chapter!