Then the eyes of the world winked shut.
85
GET UP, A fuzzy voice shrieked. Get up get up get up. It sounded water-soaked, low and slow. Was it my Voice, or Angel’s, or someone else’s entirely? I didn’t even know if it was real.
The ringing in my head grew, turning into a sound like the hiss of rushing water, an echo bouncing around like a rubber ball inside my head. Wind whipped around me and the hiss grew to a wail. My brain throbbed.
I covered my ears and felt wetness. The metallic smell of blood burned in my nostrils. I pried open my eyes, and that’s when the hurricane-strength needles of rain started to hit my face.
I turned to look for help and felt my stomach lurch as a strong arm yanked me back, keeping me from plummeting over the edge of the cliff. “Get up!” Fang yelled in my face, finally piercing through my confusion and dragging me to my feet.
I looked across the cliffs for the other kids, but saw only a wall of water out in the sea. Not just a wall—a massive wall, miles long and taller than a skyscraper. Surrounding us. The monstrous wave grew more massive by the second, almost blotting out the smoking sky as it surged toward the precarious crag we clung to.
A mega-tsunami.
I instinctively tried to flap, but a searing pain shot through my mangled, bleeding wing. Panic froze my heart. This was it.
There would be no more.
I felt a sob of self-pity building in my chest, but Fang held my face in his hands and looked at me urgently, his eyes locked on mine.
“I love you, Max,” Fang said, and those words, the ones I’d been waiting to hear forever, towered above all the chaos, making everything else fall away. Whole universes were built and destroyed by those words. There were tears in his eyes. “God, Max, I love you so much.”
I know, I thought. I’ve always known.
Then Fang’s stormy eyes grew blacker than I’d ever seen them as they looked past me, at our fate. I turned to see the wave swelling toward us, seconds away, the white foam of its mouth howling higher and higher. But I wasn’t surprised, or scared, or even angry. I accepted it like a friendly wind, come to fly me home.
It’s okay, I thought. And it was.
Fang kissed my eyelids, my cheeks, and then my lips one more time, whisper soft. Then he clutched my head to his chest and we took one last deep breath, wrapping ourselves in each other’s arms for eternity as the warm water crashed over the cliff and swallowed us whole.
I love you, too, Fang.
Epilogue
MAX’S
LAST
WORDS
NOW, DON’T GET all weepy on me, dear reader. No chin-quivering or nose-sniveling, either. These pages do not need to be all soggy with your mucus.
There’s nothing to moan and groan about, anyway. The truth is, I am the luckiest girl in the world.
Don’t give me that I-can-see-right-through-you-Max- and-not-just-because-you’re-freaking-dead look. I’m serious.
Think about it. When the end comes, will you be buried in the arms of the one you love? Of the one who knew you your whole life, who loved you your whole life? The one person who could really and truly love you like you needed to be loved?
I hope so.
Because I was, and I wouldn’t change any of it—not for anything.
Not even the world.
Okay, I can see that you’re upset. I know you must be wondering, just like I’m wondering right now: Was I really supposed to save the world, or was it all just a big lie?
In other words, did I fail? (Gosh, it sounds so ugly when you put it like that.)
Or was my life just a metaphor for what we’re all supposed to do with our lives—that each of us is supposed to believe that we can, that we must save the world? That the world will be saved only if we each take that kind of responsibility?
Because if this life has taught me anything, it’s that we can’t leave anything up to fate or chance, or for someone else to clean up. Because in the end, “special” people are still just people. Because, PS, those so-called special people can’t actually save us.
We all have to save ourselves.
Or maybe this was a lesson in carpe ever-loving diem—seize the day, kiddos, and hold tight to your loved ones, the only part of life that really matters, and live each moment to the fullest, because you never know when an explosive ball of gas is going to light up the sky and blow you into oblivion.
But no, really.
Was it all just a big shrug of meaninglessness that will now plunge you into a pit of existential emptiness and melancholy?
I hope not. At least, don’t blame me for it. What, carrying the weight of the whole world wasn’t enough? I have to look out for your happiness, too?
Jokes aside, I really do hope that my life meant something in the end—that it meant all of those things. I don’t know what’s next—what any of us can expect—but I do know that I’m ready to see what’s out there for me. In fact, I think I hear Fang calling my name now. He sounds so far away….
You guys? I don’t want to, like, freak you out at this point in our journey, but I think I’m starting to see that famous light at the end of the tunnel that you always hear about. This is where we part ways, I’m afraid.
Before I go, even if you’ve rolled your eyes at every bit of cheesy advice I pulled out of my butt when the flock needed some pep in their patooties these last few years, know that I mean this last little nugget from the bottom of my not-really-so-cynical little freak heart:
Save your world. Love it, protect it, and respect it, and don’t let haters represent it.
Don’t leave the saving to anyone else, ever, because, exhibit A—why, hello there!—it’s way too much for one person. And if you want to skip out on the responsibility train, my whole life—and death—will have been in vain.
It’s yours. It’s all yours for the taking!
You’re not going to waste it now, are you?
Epilogue the Last
THE
BEGINNING
One
WHEN I OPEN my eyes, everything is dim blue wonder. Playful shapes of light dance across my vision, diving, and dipping, then merging into shadow. I thought heaven would be brighter.
I’m spinning, and I watch in bug-eyed wonder as my hand moves in front of my face in slow motion, my fingers leaving streaks like sparkler trails in the dark as my eyes try to adjust to their movement.
I can feel the air as I push and poke, think I can taste the sound of what blue feels like—a whale’s warbling echo.
Or is that singing?
Of course my angels sound like strangled whales.
It’s wonderful feeling weightless, free. Almost like flying, but without even having to move—floating toward an easy, carefree eternity of being rocked like a baby, free of all burdens and responsibility. I actually sigh with relief.
Wait a minute. I just sighed. I’m… breathing?
Underwater?
I’m alive?
“Max,” I hear a voice call from above. What a magical sound that is.
Hmm? I think. Voice, is that you pestering me again? Do not disturb. Busy floating. Call if you want to talk rainbows.
A disembodied hand grasps mine and pulls me upward.
Are you there, God? It’s me, Max.