"Here," came Fang's quiet, calm voice, as he picked himself out of a Fang-shaped hole in the opposite wall. Ooh, I bet that hurt.
"That was so awesome!" Gazzy yelled, leaping to his feet. Bits of broken countertop and wall fell off him.
"I give it a solid ten," said Iggy, rolling out from under what used to be a desk. "Just for sonic blast alone."
It had been eerily quiet for a minute after the blast, but now voices started up in the hallway outside. Again we began hearing shouted orders, the clanking of weapons, running feet. Though the feet sounded less steady. I heard groaning from beneath rubble.
A quick survey showed me my flock was whole and ready to move. It also showed...
... a huge hole in the basement wall, big enough to drive a truck through, leading right outside into the night.
"Oh, excellent," Nudge said.
I grinned, feeling close to tears. Once again, the flock had come through. Our lives were one gnarly sitch after another. Again and again they tried to defeat us, and again and again we showed them what we were made of. I was so proud, and so mad, and now that I thought about it, really sore all over.
"You got that right," I said, already hurrying toward the hole. When I was next to Gazzy, I held up my hand. "Way to be," I said, slapping him a high five.
"Max?" Angel said. She looked like she'd been dipped in gray flour.
"Yeah, sweetie?"
"Are we leaving now?"
"Oh, yeah," I said. "We're gonna-"
"Blow this joint!" the flock yelled with me.
"Total!" I clapped and held out my arms. The small dog ran and leaped into them. He stuck out his tongue to lick me happily, saw my face, and thought better of it.
Then the six-seven-of us raced for the hole and did an up-and-away that looked like poetry.
EPILOGUE
Needless to say, there was a tearful reunion, stories exchanged, hurts examined and gotten mad about all over again.
We grabbed our stuff and flew south until sunrise. Then we dropped down into the Everglades and found a patch of dryish land to sleep on. We felt exhausted and wrung out and yet deeply happy to be together again. To have won again.
Iggy, the younger kids, and Total crashed immediately. They curled up together like puppies, filthy and ragged, and I was so happy to have them all in one piece that tears leaked out of my eyes and ran down my bruised cheeks.
Fang sat next to me, and we split one of our last warm Cokes.
"Breakfast of champions," he said, raising the can in the air.
"Did you see what happened to the other Max?" I asked him.
"No, actually I didn't," he said. "But maybe she escaped."
I drank the warm soda, feeling it run down my parched throat. Never would be too soon to see the other Max again. But I couldn't make myself destroy her. Killing the fake Max would be like killing the Eraser Max who looked back at me from the mirror sometimes. Besides-it would just be wrong.
I was exhausted, beyond exhausted, but the last time I'd gone to sleep, I'd woken up with my mouth duct-taped shut and then gotten put in an isolation tank. So I didn't want to close my eyes anytime soon.
The tank. I shuddered just thinking about it.
"Was it bad?" Fang asked quietly, not looking at me.
"Yep," I said, not looking at him, and took another swig of Coke.
The sun was higher, the air heavy and warm and growing warmer. It was December. We'd been on the run for what felt like forever. I didn't know how much longer I could do it. I was ragged out, and between the tank and the Voice, I felt like I was losing my mind. I still wasn't sure how the Erasers were tracking us. I remembered Angel campaigning to be leader and didn't know what to think.
"Did you know that wasn't me, the other Max?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"When?"
"Right away."
"How?" I persisted. "We look identical. She even had identical scars and scratches. She was wearing my clothes. How could you tell us apart?"
He turned to me and grinned, making my world brighter. "She offered to cook breakfast."
A second later we were laughing so hard it brought tears to my eyes all over again. Fang and I leaned against each other and laughed and laughed, unable to speak, for the longest time. www.maximumride.com