36
“IS SHE IN trouble? Are the others okay?” Fang demanded aloud, sitting up, alone in the darkness. What’s going on? he screamed inside his head.
But the Voice stayed silent, in that incredibly annoying way it had. It was gone. For how long, he didn’t know.
Go home to Max.
He had no idea if something was really wrong, but he couldn’t exactly ignore the Voice, either. When Max heard her Voice, she pretty much always listened to it. His Voice was saying that Max needed him more than ever.
He pretended he didn’t feel the way his heart was speeding up with excitement and anxiety, just thinking about going back.
No doubt his replacement would still be there, being all Dylan-rific and glaring at Fang with narrowed eyes. Well, too bad. What choice did Fang have? None. He would’ve liked to have just taken off right then, raced back to the flock. To Max. To see that she was all right. But Fang’s wing had been bothering him more and more, and he definitely wasn’t in flying shape yet.
So he’d be patient. He’d find the nearest town and then get on the Internet. He would do some research before he went racing back to the person he kept trying to leave.
Two hours later the sun was just beginning to rise, and Fang was seated at a computer in an Internet cafe. He sipped from a Styrofoam cup of coffee as the Google home page loaded.
Then he typed in two words: Maximum Ride.
37
INSTANTLY, RESULTS POPPED up on the screen—1,704,890 of them in 0.43 seconds. The very first one was an article titled “Winged Children Attend Private School!” Oh, great. Looked like more of that successful “keep a low profile” stuff was going on.
Fang clicked the link and began to read.
As it turned out, the article was a piece from the private school’s own online newspaper, the Newton News. It spewed out a bunch of glorified info about the flock, accompanied by a hilariously cheesy photo of them posed around the school’s marquee, beneath a banner welcoming “Maxine and Co.” Fang almost snorted—and then he saw that Dylan had his arm casually thrown around Max.
It was surprising how much that hurt. Especially on top of the news that Gazzy had blurted out in Paris—that Dylan had been “designed” for Max, and that they were eventually supposed to go out and create little Maxes and Dylans. The concept was still impossible to swallow. Still tasted like crap in his throat.
Fang logged off the computer and dumped his half-finished coffee in the trash. It may have been corny and lame, but the Newton News article had given him one thing: the exact location of the flock.
His Voice had told him to go to Max, even though it sure didn’t seem like she needed him, all safe in her cushy new digs, with her new boyfriend. Didn’t the Voice know how much it hurt Fang to see her? Didn’t it know how much he hurt her every time he left?
Maybe it did. Maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe something bigger than just the drama of Max and Fang was happening.
At any rate, he knew he had to listen to his Voice.
He had to go back to Max. Whether she wanted him there or not.
38
FANG DIDN’T WANT to admit to the little surge of exhilaration he was feeling at the idea of actually going back to the flock. Home. He had tried to put Max out of his head for so long, but for him, “home” would always mean wherever Max was.
It was still barely light. It galled him that he couldn’t fly, and instead actually had to hike out to where the main highway passed the town.
He shook his head, thinking of Ari and his cronies. He wouldn’t be surprised if the price on his own head was so high that it had infiltrated the backwoods of Middle America, too—Fang knew any driver on the road could be a threat, and it was incredibly stupid for him to hitchhike. But with his painful wing, what choice did he have? He was in the middle of No and Where, and he had no hope of catching a plane or a bus—or even of stealing a car—in this place. He had to get back to Max, so hitching it was.
After an hour and a half spent trudging along with his thumb in the air, Fang’s head snapped up at the sound of wheels far down the road. A yellow convertible was speeding down the highway, music blaring.
This time, the car pulled to a slow stop just ahead of him, and he jogged up to it. Three beefy-looking guys peered out of the convertible at him, and Fang felt a twinge of anxiety.
This is stupid, a voice inside him said, and he couldn’t tell if it was the Voice or just his own rational thought.
“Need a ride?” the driver asked gruffly over the metal music thundering out of the speakers.
Fang glanced down the road. Not a single other car in sight.
“You heading west?” he asked the driver, frowning.
“Yeah.”
Fang sighed. The next city was at least twenty miles. It was now or never.
“Then yeah, thanks,” he said, hopping into the backseat. Before he’d even sat down, the driver jammed the pedal to the floor. Fang surged backward into the seat, his wing throbbing.
“Hey, watch it!” Fang snapped irritably, but the driver just stared straight ahead with a tight-lipped grin.
The guy in the passenger seat and the guy beside Fang both stared at him intently, their muscles bulging in their tight T-shirts, their faces twisted into weird expressions.
They looked… hungry. Almost like—Fang’s mind balked at the possibility—Erasers?
Or was he just seeing things? It was hard to tell. He didn’t trust his own judgment anymore. After Star and Kate’s betrayal, everyone seemed suspect.
He stared into the pockmarked face next to him, at the thick neck running up to a crew cut.
No.
They didn’t have the right amount of feral wolfishness marring their features to be Erasers. These guys were definitely human. Ugly as all get-out, but human.
So why were they acting so funny? Maybe they were just ’roid heads, Fang thought—crazed on testosterone. He was just being paranoid, that was all.
It’s called careful, you moron, he imagined Max chiding him. Always trust your instincts. Paranoia is our way of life.
But Fang’s wing hurt, and he was tired, and at the moment there wasn’t a better option than these shady characters. Shady human characters, who he could surely take if it came down to it.
Barely five minutes later, the convertible skidded to a stop. “Wow! A scenic overlook!” the driver shouted with over-the-top enthusiasm. “Whattaya say, boys? Should we get a closer look?”
Fang’s eyes snapped open. Something was off.
These guys didn’t exactly seem like the postcard type.
39
THE THREE GUYS hopped out of the car and strode toward the signs warning pedestrians to keep back from the railing.
“Check out this wicked cliff, fellas,” the driver said to his two grinning buddies. They laughed as if he’d just told the most hilarious joke they’d ever heard. “Hey, kid,” he called to Fang, “why don’t you come over here? I think you’ll really wanna see this. You know, up close and personal.”
Fang, leaning against the convertible, shook his head. “Nah, I think I’m fine right here, thanks.”
He assumed a more defensive position and crossed his arms, but even that small gesture made him wince as his wing bone bent awkwardly. What was wrong with him?
The driver grinned. “How’s that wing, Fang? Must be giving you some real trouble if you’re stooping to hitchhiking. Really slumming it.”