TWO
"When I offered them life in exchange for Fang and Angel's, what do you think they chose?"
The tile floor was cold against my burning skin as the electric shocks burst through me again. Silas Scythe stood in front of me wielding his deadly remote control, mashing the trigger button over and over. The pain was the unforgettable kind. The unforgivable kind. The unsurvivable kind. But here I was, surviving it.
In the next moment, I'd broken free. Every inch of me roared with pain, but I lunged for his throat anyway, gripping it mercilessly with my hand, crushing his fragile windpipe beneath my thumbs with ease. Blood spurted from his mouth. His breaths became gurgly and whistled with each inhale. His lips turned blue and his eyes flooded with red as the vessels popped.
I blinked and found it was no longer Scythe beneath me—it was Anne. In the next instant, it was Jeb. Then Angel. Then finally, Fang.
I snapped out of my shocked state then, leaping back from the body, shaking blood from my hands and gaping with terror at his body.
When he opened his mouth, it was not his voice that came out—it was the Eraser's from Marion Rodgers' apartment all those years ago, repeating the bone-chilling words I'd heard in my nightmares ever since.
"I still hold out hope I'll see you in hell, Maximum Ride."
I woke up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and a very warm and alive Fang wrapped around me.
I didn't startle awake like I used to, nor did I find myself drenching the bedsheets with terrified night sweats. These dreams were routine these days; they'd simply joined the repertoire of the other night terrors that had plagued me for my entire life. Perks of being a mutant birdkid. Zero out five stars. Would not recommend.
I didn't need Fang to pull me back together after these anymore, so when he tried to tug me back as I forced myself out of bed, I waved him off. By the sounds of things, the rest of the flock was still out foe the count. Fang never slept in—and I mean never slept in—but we hadn't exactly gone to bed early, if you know what I mean.
That's all you're getting, you pervs.
"Go back to sleep," I whispered. I bent down to kiss him on the cheek and smiled when his eyes fluttered shut again.
"Wh'time's it?" he mumbled.
"Seven. Nobody's awake."
"C'mere," he muttered back, and my heart gushed like a twelve-year-old girl fawning over a boy band poster. It was hard to believe I got to see this side of Fang now, or really that this side of Fang even existed. And because of me, no less.
As much as I wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed with him, my restless legs and racing mind felt otherwise. That's me: jam-packed with unwarranted nervous energy.
"Feeling antsy. Gonna stretch my legs."
His eyes popped open again, more alert now.
"What happened?"
"Nothing," I lied. "Go back to sleep. I'm fine."
His eyebrows narrowed. I glowered back at him. We stared each other down for another split second before he relaxed and shut his eyes again.
"Don't do anything stupid," he mumbled, but his voice was clear and no-nonsense this time.
It was something he'd started saying routinely to me after Vector. He hadn't forgiven me for the recklessness I'd showed. Between getting drunk, busting into their headquarters alone, and then taking off unannounced to go die alone, his faith in my mental health and overall sanity had waned. I couldn't blame him. I felt the same way, to be honest.
I slipped my feet into my moccasins and trekked into the kitchen, trying to shake some warmth into myself as I did so. Hot coffee awaited me in the pot. I'd taken up drinking it three years ago after the insomnia began. It was the only thing that kept me on my feet during the day after tossing and turning all night.
Coffee this early usually meant one thing: Iggy. He was up early most days, just like Fang and I; something about our years on the run had made it impossible for us to sleep in. I poured myself a thermosful and stepped into the November morning.
The plot of land we lived on was nothing short of incredible. We didn't live directly on the Grand Canyon or anything—not even a physician's salary could've bought Abuela Martinez a slice of a National Park—but we were close enough to get a perfect view of it from the trees at the edge of our yard.
The morning was bright and the patches of grass around our home were wet from the already melted overnight frost. I found my way to Iggy's favorite tree, a giant ponderosa pine about a quarter mile from our front door, and stretched my wings before dropping with moderate grace next to him on a thick branch at the top.
Iggy, who all but had echolocation these days, had presumably known I was coming from the minute the front door slammed behind me.
"Morning," he said warmly. He was much too awake, per usual. He had his own thermos of coffee, which was likely full of enough to caffeinate a large horse. I grunted by way of response and he chuckled with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows. "Late night?"
I groaned. "Please don't. This got old years ago."
"Maybe to you it did. I'm planning on ragging on you for the rest of our lives over it, personally. Fang," he said in an overly breathy impersonation of me, "you absolute stallion, you—!"
"I will punch you so hard, you'll see," I hissed.
He laughed. "Be my guest."
"Shouldn't that gross you out?"
He rolled his eyes. "Please. With the six of us? Nothing could possibly phase any of us anymore."
I bobbed my head, considering this. "Fair. Sleep at all?"
Iggy shrugged, not thinking much about it. "Some. You know how it is on Thanksgiving."
And I did. It was a day that typically brought up a lot of memories, from our very first Thanksgiving with Jeb, to our days alone at the E-house, to Anne, and then, finally, to our Thanksgiving in the forest that year. And everything that came after.
I slurped noisily at my coffee. "Any particularly fucked up dreams you'd like to share?"
One corner of Iggy's mouth quirked up.
"It's pretty gnarly."
"Try me."
He grimaced. "That day we were at Marion Rodgers' place. I remember the sound it made when that Eraser blew her head off." He wrinkled his nose. "And the smell. Dream about it from time to time. The weird visuals my brain comes up with make it even trippier."
"Gnarly indeed," I agreed.
"You?"
"Same ol', same ol'," I said, waving my hand vaguely in the air. I had no interest in delving into any of it—because what was the point? Iggy nodded in understanding.
The sun was pulling high enough in the sky to cast some warmth on us. I squinted at it and sighed.
"Feels like forever ago, doesn't it?" Iggy said.
"And somehow just like yesterday," I added with fake whimsicality. Iggy snorted.
We stared out at the canyon in silence for a little, both sipping our coffee, me admiring the gorgeous sights and Iggy obviously unable to see a thing. Well—he couldn't really see a thing. But three years ago the rest of his senses had become superheightened, giving him a unique perspective of the world around him. At any rate, I knew he enjoyed the subtle sounds of nature around us.
A couple of hawks graced us with their presence, and I watched in awe as they dove for prey along the canyon floor. It had been ages since I'd needed to fly that nimbly—mostly because it had been ages since we'd been in mid-flight combat. Man, was I washed up or what?
"Angel was quiet yesterday, huh?" Iggy said after a while.
"Yeah," I said, already knowing where this was going. "She was."
"She's always kind of quiet these days."
I didn't respond to this. Iggy's the most perceptive person I know, so he'd clearly picked up on my vibes yesterday. Plus, with his weirdly-enhanced hearing, he'd probably heard our conversation over dinner the night before.
"She'll be fine, Max," he said emphatically. "You know that."
"Only because she has to be."
He shrugged. "Isn't that why all of us keep it together?"
I scoffed. "How screwed up is that?"
"Oh, it's positively fucked," Iggy said casually with a shrug. "And so are we. All of us. But hey, at least we're together."
He reached his free hand up to wrap it around my shoulder and pull me close to him. I felt myself relax a little and breathed in his allspice-and-gunpowder scent.
When I sighed, he made a little sound of frustration and shoved me gently before wrapping his hand around my mouth, already knowing what I was going to say.
"It's not your fault. I'll keep telling you until you get it through that painfully thick skull of yours."
Then the sound of our fire alarm shattered the peacefulness of our moment, followed by a shriek from Nudge.
"Seriously, Gazzy? You burnt waffles again?"
I'd just finished putting the dishes away late that night when my cellphone dinged. It was a text from Dr. Martinez: I'm at the front door.
My brain stuttered and then stalled. Huh?
You might be thinking, Hey! Dr. Martinez. I know her. Max is totally cool with her. Why's she so freaked out to see her?
Well, dear reader, that's because the Martinezes live a two-hour drive away, meaning we typically visit them. Or, you know, we text or call each other. Because we have cell phones. Suffice it to say thatDr. Martinez being at my front door unannounced at ten at night on Black Friday was a little bit of an "oh shit" kind of situation.
I dropped my phone on the counter and opened the door so dramatically that I nearly tore it off its hinges. My face must've been panicked, because Dr. Martinez immediately got defensive.
"I'm fine," she said quickly, but her eyes suggested otherwise. The fear on her face was unfamiliar and unsettling. "Ella is fine."
The night was absolutely freezing outside, one of the bitter cold nights that the desert often saw in the winter, so I pulled her into the house. She was clenching something in one of her gloved hands.
"If everything was fine, you wouldn't be here."
"Ella and I are fine. But…"
"But what?" I pressed. It felt like decades had passed since something had been really wrong, and it seemed as though my heart had forgotten the feeling of soul-crushing panic and adrenaline.
Her answer came in the form of a grim face and today's New York Times, which she held out wordlessly.
Believe it or not, the first thing I noticed wasn't the concerningly clear black-and-white photograph of my profile from an Applebee's restaurant what felt like lifetimes ago. No—instead, it was the FBI's seal printed in the top corner. As in the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Wanted, it said in twenty-point Times New Roman.
The air seemed to thin considerably. Some sort of choking sound came from me. I read on.
Wanted in connection with suspected underground illegal activity concerning experimentation on humans and animals. The FBI is unable to further comment at this time. Please call the number below with any information.
Absurdly, the first thing that crossed my mind was to whip out the ol' cellphone. Hiya, federal government! It's me!
I hadn't noticed that I'd completely lost touch with reality until sound came rushing back.
"Max, breathe," Dr. Martinez was saying. Her hands were on my shoulders and she was looking at me with a level of concern that only escalated my anxiety further.
And here I was, thinking we were already at DEFCON 1!
Fang's deep, no-nonsense tone cut through the stagnant kitchen air. I hadn't heard his footsteps and startled at his voice.
"What's going on?"
I was still rooted to the spot, heart thundering, feeling ready to pass out.
Dr. Martinez looked at Fang and then back down at the paper in my hands. Fang closed the distance between us in two strides, grabbed it from me, and stared at it wordlessly.
His expression changed minutely from one of masked concern to inquisitive unhappiness. He skimmed the paper and looked up at Dr. Martinez before turning to me.
"Why now?"
"I have no idea," she said back. Her voice was thick with anxiety.
"Oh, my God," I managed to gasp out before she could respond. "Work."
What I meant, of course, was that everybody at work would recognize that this photo was of me. As in, like, Mackenzie Smith, who was listed as a Legitimate Person in this country. Previously, it'd been hard to hunt us down since we had no real identities.
Not anymore. A powerful mixture of stupidity, self-loathing, and hopelessness washed over me.
"This is the Times," Dr. Martinez added quickly. "You're up in rural Arizona. Nobody gets the Times. Especially in this day and age. I only get it for the crossword."
"Internet," I said helplessly. Because since I'm not an idiot, I knew the Times was a huge source of news even on the web, making her point that nobody gets a physical newspaper anymore totally moot.
"Who's looking on the internet for wanted FBI criminals? It's not like this is front-page news, Max." She pointed to the 6 in the corner. "They clearly don't think much will come of this if they're burying after the Entertainment section."
It was a weak argument. I looked at Fang, who cocked his head to the side only slightly.
"Maybe," he offered, but that was all. He looked totally unperturbed. I desperately needed to know what he was thinking.
Iggy and Gazzy loped into the kitchen before I had time to melt down further, bickering about something of infinitesimal significance. Gazzy stopped walking when he saw my face, and Iggy followed suit not a millisecond later.
"What?" Iggy, who could, at this point, probably taste the tension in the air, said uneasily.
Nothing, I wanted to say. To protect them. But did I even have the right to do that anymore? The Gasman was only months shy of how old I'd been when Angel was kidnapped from strawberry picking five years ago. I didn't want to lie to them, but at the same time, I couldn't bring myself to tell the truth.
So I opened my mouth dumbly and said, "I…"
"Max's photo made the newspaper as one of the FBI's most wanted," Fang said as if our entire lives hadn't just been uprooted on the goddamn spot. My blood sang with fear upon hearing it out loud despite Fang's calm, cool, and collected demeanor—it was a poor attempt at trying to keep me from freaking out.
Iggy and Gazzy, of all things, laughed.
"Man, that'd be a suckfest," Iggy said.
Gazzy snorted. "Can you imagine?"
Then he saw my face and abruptly stopped laughing.
Iggy stiffened before frowning and groaning loudly. "No. C'mon. Seriously?" When nobody said anything, he groaned again. "Seriously?"
Gazzy was pale in the face but managed a bitter chuckle. "Apparently."
"What's going on?" Nudge and Angel had just appeared at the base of the stairs, looking worried.
Nope. This was all too much. I couldn't process it, let alone handle it, so I did what I do best: I bailed the hell outta there.
"I'm leaving," I muttered to nobody—or maybe everybody, I wasn't sure. "I'll call you."
Just like that, I was in the air on my way somewhere, anywhere but here, before Dr. Martinez or Fang or anybody could object.
A/N: Thanks for the love! Going for shorter chapters on this one so I can post more frequently.
Hope I do you guys proud.