Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure (20 page)

That was when he realized he couldn’t go through with it.

Dylan loved Max more than anything.

Even more than the survival of the earth.

69

JUST WHEN I thought Dylan was going to crush the life out of Fang forever, the word “us” changed everything.

You’re better than this, Dylan
, I had screamed at him.
They’re the ones making you do this—not you. You don’t want to kill Fang. Let him go. Do it for you. And me. Do it for
us
!

When I was sure that Fang was on his last breath, when I was sure my heart was one second away from irreversibly shattering, Dylan suddenly released Fang’s throat and shot away from us, his powerful wings beating so fast they were a blur.

I dropped to the ground with Fang’s unconscious body in my arms, still weeping.

“Is Fang…” Nudge asked, her voice trembling.

I could only look at her solemnly as I heaved us both up
and staggered toward the house. I didn’t know how to answer her yet, and I couldn’t voice the fears snaking through my thoughts.

“Let’s just get him inside,” I said shakily.

With the flock close on my heels, I laid Fang on the couch, wondering if I would ever have furniture that wasn’t bloodstained. Nudge hurried over with a blanket and carefully covered Fang. I looked at my flock, being so strong, and my throat threatened to close.

I sat down next to Fang and held his cold hand in mine, trying to warm it. I stroked his dark, bloodied hair. The blood vessels in his eyelids and cheeks had burst, and there were tiny red lines streaking over his pale face. The face I’d grown up with, the face I loved. His neck was all blotchy, covered in dark purple, hand-shaped bruises—it looked like Dylan was still choking him.

“He’s supposed to be immortal, anyway, right?” Iggy said from next to me. He was trying to sound tough, but I heard the fear in his voice, and saw how tightly he was pressing his lips together. “
Right
, Max?”

I shook my head. Iggy hadn’t quite understood Jeb’s shorthand scientific gobbledygook, but I couldn’t explain it to him now. I couldn’t speak. All I could think about was what Angel had said long ago:
Fang will be the first to die.

I pressed an ear to Fang’s chest, holding my breath. His heartbeat was weak and erratic, but it was there.

“He’s alive,” I said with a sigh, sweet relief flooding through me. Behind me, Gazzy cheered, and I heard small,
hiccupping sobs coming from Angel. “He’s okay, he’s okay—he’s just knocked out,” I continued, my voice hard and determined. “He’s going to be
fine
.” I concentrated on Fang, trying to will his strength back into him.

“Do you think he needs blood or x-rays or—” Iggy started to say, and then he suddenly froze, a strange expression on his face.

Everything changes now
, I heard my Voice say in my head.
Be ready. You’ve won this battle, but the real threat has been unleashed. The war has only just begun.

I watched Gazzy’s face grow even paler and saw the despair in Nudge’s eyes, and I realized that the Voice wasn’t just in my own head this time. Every member of my little flock had heard the same thing.

Be ready
, the Voice repeated.
The 99% Plan is in effect.

70

I DIDN’T EVEN have time to launch into a full-fledged freak-out over the Voice’s message before my thoughts were drowned out by a distinctive chopping sound that was quickly getting louder and louder.

“Is that a helicopter?” Nudge asked, peering out a window. “There’s a helicopter now?”

The chopper was super close—almost right on our roof, it sounded like. I hated leaving Fang for even a second, but I hurried over to the window. Outside, the treetops were bent almost double and dead leaves were flying everywhere. The house windows were starting to shake when the whirring sound of the blades slowed and stopped.

“I seriously can’t deal with this right now,” I muttered. For the first time, I really didn’t know if we were up to any
new challenge. My flock was bloody and beaten up, Fang was still out cold, and Dylan was gone. If this was some new threat, I didn’t have a Plan B. Or a Plan A, for that matter.

I needed a break. But leaders don’t get breaks.

“Okay,” I said, straightening my shoulders even though inside I was screaming. I pushed a strand of blood-soaked hair out of my eyes. “I’m going to go see what’s up. If I’m not back in ten, I’m either dead or asleep on my feet. Stay with Fang—keep him safe. Do
not
come after me.”

With that, I walked woodenly back outside. It was fully light out. I stepped over the fallen Erasers and past Jeb, who was still lying next to the porch, unconscious. I didn’t have enough energy to feel anything toward the man who had created me, the man who had betrayed me in the worst way imaginable—more than once. I’d been awake since about three
AM
, and most of those hours had been spent locked in fatal combat. I was too exhausted to feel anything but despair.

The chopper had landed on a piece of flat ground right next to the house. I squinted but couldn’t see through the tinted windows, so I stopped and waited to see what fresh disaster was about to emerge.

The chopper’s small door opened.

I braced myself.

My mother, Valencia Martinez, stepped out.

That did it. My knees gave out, and I crumpled in an ungraceful pile on the trampled grass.

71

“MAX!” MY MOM cried, and her voice washed over me like a warm breeze. She sprinted toward me, her arms open, her face twisted with concern.

“It is really you?” I asked, blearily looking up at her as she lifted me from the ground. She nodded and smiled her warm, familiar smile.

After a quick embrace she pulled back and gently placed both of her hands on my shoulders, her worried eyes appraising my blood-spattered clothes and dirty face.

“Let me look at you,” she said. “What happened to you?”

“Jeb,” I said bleakly. “Jeb happened. And Ari. And his Erasers. And Dylan… He attacked Fang—they were
all
trying to kill Fang, and…” I couldn’t stop the sobs that overtook me then.

“Oh, honey,” she said, hugging me tight. “I’m so sorry. I tried to get here sooner….”

“It’s not your fault,” I said, still crying. I hugged her back with all I had, breathing in her warm, homey scent.

“I’m not so sure about that, Max,” she said quietly, her voice wracked with pain.

I pulled away, wiping my nose on my dirty sleeve, and stared at her blankly. I couldn’t process what she might have meant; I was too wrapped up in the joy of having her back.

Mom looked at me solemnly, seemingly prepared for the worst. “Where is Fang?” she asked. “Is he alive?”

I nodded, pointing toward the house, and she dashed off.

The next hour was a blur of my mom checking on Fang and then helping the rest of us get patched up as best we could. Gazzy and Nudge both needed stitches, and I was so glad that my mom was a trained medical professional. For animals, but still.

“Fang will be fine, I think,” she said, and I breathed another sigh of relief. “He has a concussion, so he needs to take it easy for a while. But he should wake up soon. Everything else looks worse than it actually is.”

I nodded. With Fang sorted out, I finally asked the other burning question that had been on my mind: “Mom, what happened to you? Where have you been all this time?”

Her eyes flicked to Angel and filled with something it took me a moment to recognize. “It’s… a long story,” she
replied hesitantly. It was shame she had in her eyes, I realized. Angel blinked, looking down, and said nothing.

My heart froze as I remembered what she’d told me:
Max, your mom was there. I saw her. Dr. Martinez. She’s one of them.
The expression on my mom’s face now told me Angel hadn’t been hallucinating.

“No,” I said, drawing in a sharp breath. “No, Mom, not you…” I felt like I was trying to swallow a whole ice cube.

“Please believe me when I tell you this, Max,” my mom said tentatively. “I was brainwashed. Jeb brainwashed me as effectively as the Doomsday Group did Ella and Iggy. You remember how quickly that cult spread, like a pandemic. I… I never thought I’d be a victim of that kind of thing, and it still seems impossible to me that it happened. I’m a doctor, a pragmatist, not some unhinged fanatic! It’s a mystery that I’m going to investigate for the rest of my life. But, honestly, Max, I don’t have time to deal with that just now. All I know is that I have to get you kids to safety right away—”

“Not so fast, Mom,” I interrupted, crossing my arms over my chest and shaking my head in disbelief. “If you were brainwashed, how do I know you’re not ‘under the influence’ anymore?”

She looked at me intently, her eyes pleading. “I know it’s hard to believe, Max. But after Jeb left, this… spell, or whatever it is… disappeared. Wore off. I don’t know. Jeb just knows me too well. He’s an incredibly smart and powerful man, and apparently he’s figured out how to use his
power to control me. I somehow fell into believing again in a man I once thought could change the world, stupidly following him into the darkness.”

For the first time, my mother seemed imperfect. And a hundred percent human.

“When Jeb left the lab,” she rushed on, “I suddenly saw the true horror in everything and everyone around me at the facility. I knew Jeb was insane at that point. But I also gained valuable information as… one of them. I knew 99% was beginning, so I left the lab and immediately notified Pierpont that we had to get to you and the flock. To implement the final steps we’d been working on together for so long.”

The rest of the flock was crowded around me, shocked into silence. My face was hard, giving nothing away as I listened. I didn’t like the sound of the words “final steps we’d been working on together for so long.” It seemed like this new development came with more secrets, more lies. The stuff my life was made of.

“I promise you this is the real me, Max.” Mom swallowed, looking at me levelly. “And I promise you, all of you, that I’m back now. I know what’s right, what’s true, and I’m on your side.”

None of us answered her or so much as breathed, but I could feel the eyes of each member of the flock on my face as they waited for my next move. Whatever I said, they would follow my lead.

“Angel, check her mind,” I said faintly, still trying to
harden my heart against the possible outcome. “See if she’s telling the truth.”

My mom closed her eyes, openly accepting the mind reading.
Please let that be a good sign
, I said to myself.

After what seemed like multiple eternities, Angel said, slowly, “She’s being honest. Dr. Martinez isn’t with the 99% Plan anymore. She’s a good guy.”

72

“NINO HAS A jet waiting for us, back near the city,” my mom said. “We can take the chopper there. With the 99% Plan taking effect and God knows how many scientists seeking Fang for his DNA, you won’t be safe here. You need a new beginning.”

Four pairs of eyes turned toward me, pleading. The flock waited for my decision.

“Yeah,” I said wearily. “Getting out of here sounds good.”

The flock responded with the biggest smiles I’d seen in weeks.

But as we raced through the house gathering our things, Total weaving between my legs, barking orders about packing techniques, two thoughts wouldn’t leave my mind:
Where is Dylan?
And:
What about Jeb?

I didn’t know why Dylan had done what he’d done or where he’d disappeared to, so there was nothing I could do about the first question, regardless of how confused and devastated it made me feel. But Jeb
was
here, out in the Oregon air, unconscious, with broken ribs that
I’d
caused. If we left him, he would freeze during the night.

I was helping Angel and Nudge carry their bags to the chopper when I finally made my decision. I flagged down my mom, who was turning off the lights and shutting the front door. “Wait—we need to bring Jeb,” I blurted before I could change my mind.

“
What?
” Angel hissed, recoiling in surprise.

Iggy was indignant. “Max, he wanted to
kill
Fang, we can’t just—”

“We
can’t
just leave him out there to die,” I cut him off. “He saved our lives once, and we owe him this. No matter what he’s done.”

Sometimes being a leader isn’t about winning. Sometimes it’s about doing what’s right, instead of what’s powerful.

“We’ll keep him under lock and key,” my mom agreed, giving me a look that said
I’m proud of you.
“He’s a sick man, but not an evil one.”

She immediately set about tying up Jeb’s hands and feet while the rest of us loaded Fang into to the chopper on a makeshift stretcher. Total had to be forcefully scooped and carried into the back, protesting all the while that he couldn’t go anywhere that might be too far away from
Akila. Mom reassured Total that Akila would be waiting for him at the place we were headed. She refused to divulge anything further.

The pilot started the helicopter, and the deep noise of the blades filled our ears as we fastened our seat belts.

I sighed as the chopper lifted off the ground and we left everything—all of our emotional baggage, Ari, a hundred dead Erasers, and the empty house in Newton—behind us. I wondered briefly what the neighbors would think of the mess we’d left in our wake, and couldn’t help smiling.

73

WE WERE FIVE hours into a very long flight on Nino Pierpont’s fancy private jet when Fang’s eyes finally fluttered open.

“Fang!” I shrieked. I was so ecstatic I almost kissed him right there, in front of everyone. Instead I settled for hugging him tightly, like my life depended on it—way too roughly for his injuries.

“Max?” he croaked. “What… happened?”

I took a deep breath and told Fang that he had been hurt really badly in a fight, and that when the fight was over, he was unconscious. I told him that Ari had been taken down in the fight, but I didn’t mention Dylan. I told him how my mom had come for us, how it turned out that,
in the end, Jeb was just another stupid whitecoat who had lost his mind. I was breathless, talking as fast as I could. I was afraid if I stopped talking, even for a second, I’d start sobbing again.