No wonder she was kind of legendary.
And I’m kinda halfway glad she’s my mom.
CHAPTER 110
I was right; it would take practice. I sucked at it. I wiped out so much that Max got way ahead. It was amazing how freaking fast and smooth she could fly through a tunnel too narrow to fly through. I needed a couple of months to practice.
She didn’t come back to me, though once or twice at a cross tunnel she stopped, landed on her feet, and looked back. I waved her on, took another running jump, and tried again. There were times when I could do it for like four or five wing strokes and I’d get so psyched, surging ahead, and then I’d get too close to a wall and tumble to a humiliated, scraped-up halt.
I gathered myself up, took a running jump, and… flew right past a four-way tunnel cross. Which way did she go? Urgently I increased my speed, knowing that if I messed up, I could really do myself some damage. But I needed to find her, make sure she was on the right path.
I got the barest hint of Pater’s scent a split second before an electrical wire, stretched taut across this tunnel, almost sliced me in half.
CHAPTER 111
I landed on the subway tunnel floor, breathing hard, adrenaline lighting up my fight-or-flight cells, scared to move—waiting for my guts to start spilling out onto the cold, dirty ground.
Shit, shit, shit. What happened? I glanced up, saw the wire, saw how it was tied tightly to old hooks on either side, about halfway up the curved wall. I started panting when I saw a bright red pool of blood seeping from where I lay. What… what…
“Hello, freak,” said Giacomo Pater, coming out of the darkness to stand over me.
CHAPTER 112
“You know my son,” he said, looking down at me. I had no energy left, felt my eyes rolling in their sockets as I tried to meet his gaze. My blood reached one of my hands, splayed out on the concrete. I was shocked at how warm it was, spreading past my fingers. Holy shit I was messed up. Where was Max?
“I hate that you know my son,” Giacomo went on. “I’m going to make sure that you never see him again.”
I wasn’t sure Pietro was alive, but I said nothing. Probably not a good time to tell him that.
“Mercenaries think they can take my city from me? It would take so much more than your tiny, mosquito army.”
The “mosquito army,” the Flock, had destroyed his estate and a whole bunch more of the city, but I couldn’t speak. My blood had almost reached Giacomo’s shoe.
“You’re going to die here, today,” he said, like he was having a normal conversation. “And so is that other one. Today you get eliminated from my life. Then things go back to normal.”
He reached into his pocket and took out a pistol.
I’d never been so scared in my entire life. Never had any idea that anything could hurt this much. I wanted to scream and swear and tell Giacomo Pater how evil he was, that he had no home, how much I hated him. But I was a trapped rat, scared stiff and too wounded to move. I was going to die now. Like Clete was dead. I clenched my teeth so hard to keep my lips from trembling. To hell with Giacomo Pater. The city was forever changed, and I’d had a hand in that. It would never go back to being the desolate hellhole it had been.
But… I would never fly above the clouds, never again feel the sun on my wings, my face. Never talk to Pietro again. Never see my mom and dad again.
Giacomo Pater pointed the gun at my head. If he monologued long enough, I would bleed to death, cheating him out of his kill shot. I was light-headed and felt sleepy. I moved one finger a bit to see if there was any forking way I could miraculously leap up and save myself. My body’s feedback was like, No. Find some buckets for us to be carried in.
Oh, goddamnit. Max, Mom, this would be a good time for you to find me. Before it’s too late. If it wasn’t already too late. I closed my eyes.
A banshee wail, an unholy shriek, made me open them. I had no more than a second to see the white and brown jet streaking toward us.
Max! Max?
Giacomo Pater raised his pistol and fired it just as Max screeched to a halt. The bullet hit her somewhere—her whole body jerked.
I saw the surprise on her face and tried to scream. I tried to say Mom but couldn’t.
Max’s face looked like it was carved from stone. Then one long, strong wing whistled through the air and smashed into Giacomo just as he shot the pistol again.
His face crumpled like rubber as his neck snapped, the sound loud in the tunnel. His head flopped grotesquely to one side like a puppet’s just as Max collapsed to the ground, her feathery warmth covering me. Her body limp.
Hot tears ran down my cheek, and I wished she’d never found me. Not this time, not ever.
EPILOGUE
“How long will it take them to rebuild?” Nudge asked.
“Forever,” Gazzy said, tracing his fingers over the rough rock wall of this Tetran room. “They’ll always be improving. I hope.”
“I know that they’ve opened twenty new centers to help people get off dope,” Iggy said.
“A new, real Children’s Home has opened in what’s left of the Paters’ estate,” Angel said. “Pietro has chosen a manager, and they already have fifteen kids there. Kids who were foraging in the streets.”
“The people rallied against the rest of the Six,” Gazzy reminded them. “I don’t see how they could ever seize power again. I mean, I’m hoping the new City Council does a good job, but it might take a while.”
Nudge looked over at Fang, whose dark eyes revealed nothing. He was rolling a small rubber ball back and forth in his hands, not speaking. He hadn’t spoken much since it had happened. You don’t just get over—
“I like it here,” Iggy said. “Despite—”
“There’s a lot to like about Tetra,” Angel agreed as Calypso climbed into her lap. The four antennas on her back were now so long that holes needed to be cut into her shirts. “I miss Hawk,” she said, and Angel nodded.
Rain stood up, holding out her hand to Calypso. “Come on, sweetie. I’ll tell you a story.”
Max came into the room, wearing the loose linen clothes that most Tetrans wore.
“Unh,” she said, sitting down by Fang. “I feel like crap on a stick.”
Fang put his arm around her and kissed her hair. “War is bad, honey.”
“You were shot,” Nudge pointed out. “Twice.”
Max leaned over the table and put her head down on her arms. “Maybe some ice cream would help,” she mumbled.
“I’ll get you some ice cream,” Angel said. “Again.”
“Ice cream sounds good,” a voice said from the doorway.
“Hawk!” Angel went over and gave her a gentle hug.
“You’re up!” Iggy said. “You didn’t say anything this morning.”
“Wasn’t sure I could do it,” Hawk said.
Max looked at her daughter, this creature that she and Fang had made a lifetime ago. She looked like shit. And it was going to take a long time to remember to call her Hawk instead of Phoenix, which was so much better.
Max held out her hand. “Can you sit in a regular chair?”
“I’ll try,” Hawk said, gingerly making her way over. “I’m not real bendy these days.”
“It’ll get better,” Fang promised.
“I still feel… like that was all so bad,” Hawk said, carefully sitting.
“It was war,” Iggy said. “It was necessary, to free those people and save the environment they live in, but war is always ugly. Always bloody. Always has too high a cost.”
Hawk nodded soberly, then looked at Max and Fang. “Where will the next one be?”
“I don’t know,” Fang said. “But we’ll find it.”
“That’s what’s so horrible,” Nudge said. “We always find it. Always.”
Hawk nodded again, not smiling. “And I’m always coming with you.”
MORE EPILOGUE
Hawk
Turns out, I could eat ice cream without gagging. Two weeks of f
orced bed rest and recovering in the care center at Tetra had left me twitchy and anxious to be moving, but the Tetrans were determined, sneaky bastards. Every day they’d figured out how to keep me in bed, how to keep my mind occupied so I didn’t go crazy.
“You were practically sliced in half,” Ying had said disapprovingly, like it had been my fault somehow. “It took a hundred and forty stitches to put you back together, and that’s not counting the part of your liver and part of your spleen that you lost.”
“Hm,” I said. Of course, they’d totally saved my life. No one had been more surprised than me when I’d opened my eyes and realized I was still alive.
For the first time I was being allowed to sleep in my own room, not at the care center. I sank gingerly onto the bed, telling myself that I would get under the covers in just a minute.
Then I felt eyes watching me and I turned my head to see Io, quivering with anticipation.
“Hi,” she whispered. “Are you awake?”
My eyes were open, but whatever. I nodded. She scrambled up onto my bed, picking her way over my legs.
“They said I had to be so, so careful,” she said, making her way up to my shoulder. She put one paw on me. “I’m going to help you get better! Look! My wings are so big now!”
She screwed up her face as if about to exert the supreme effort of popping her wings out, but I said, “Can I see them tomorrow? So tired.”
“Sure!” she said and patted my arm until I caught on and moved it so she could snuggle up right next to me.
Her soft breathing calmed me down and I was about to drift off when I became aware that someone was coming toward me. In less than a second I was wide-awake, tensed, ready for fight or flight even in my pathetic condition.
“You two look cozy,” Max said. “Room for one more?”
“Yeah.” I tucked Io closer to me and she moved her paw over my chest. Max lay down on her other side and stroked the soft, thick fur.
“Oh, my god, she’s like the size of Iggy’s shoe under all this fur!” Max said.
“I know, it’s weird,” I agreed.
Max stretched her arm over Io and smoothed my mohawk down. She looked at me.
“If you say how cute I was as a baby, you’re gonna have to leave,” I said, setting some boundaries.
“Did I tell you how cute it was when you started to fly?” she asked solemnly.
“Yes.”
“Did I tell you what your first word was?”
“You said it was why. Gazzy said it was doughnut. Fang said it was no bath.”
Max snickered, then changed tactics. “What’s it like having an amazing revolutionary for a mom?”
I knew she was expecting a jokey answer—we were kind of tiptoeing into anything deeper. But I used to see posters with her picture, or Maximum Ride on a T-shirt, and it had been like—seeing hope? The idea that someone even halfway like her could exist in the world… I had fantasized about her swooping in and saving me and the lab rats. That was before I even knew she had wings.
Now I understood that heroes were more complicated than that. Heroes could get hurt, be angry, sad, scared. That didn’t make them less of a hero.
Max and Fang, my parents, were heroes.
Max had fallen asleep, waiting for my answer. She and Io were breathing in rhythm, both of their mouths open just a bit.
I reached out my hand and touched Max very softly.
“It’s amazing,” I whispered. “It’s the best.”
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
For his prodigious imagination and championship of literacy in America, James Patterson was awarded the 2019 National Humanities Medal, and he has also received the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community from the National Book Foundation. He holds the Guinness World Record for the most #1 New York Times bestsellers, including Confessions of a Murder Suspect and the Maximum Ride and Witch & Wizard series, and his books have sold more than 400 million copies worldwide. A tireless champion of the power of books and reading, Patterson created a children’s book imprint, JIMMY Patterson, whose mission is simple: “We want every kid who finishes a JIMMY Book to say, ‘PLEASE GIVE ME ANOTHER BOOK.’” He has donated more than three million books to students and soldiers and funds over four hundred Teacher and Writer Education Scholarships at twenty-one colleges and universities. He also supports 40,000 school libraries and has donated millions of dollars to independent bookstores. Patterson invests proceeds from the sales of JIMMY Patterson Books in pro-reading initiatives.
Gabrielle Charbonnet is the coauthor of Sundays at Tiffany’s, Crazy House, and Witch & Wizard with James Patterson, and she has written many other books for young readers. She lives in South Carolina with her husband and a lot of pets.
JIMMY PATTERSON BOOKS FOR YOUNG ADULT READERS
James Patterson Presents
Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco
Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco
Escaping from Houdini by Kerri Maniscalco
Capturing the Devil by Kerri Maniscalco
Becoming the Dark Prince by Kerri Maniscalco
Gunslinger Girl by Lyndsay Ely
Twelve Steps to Normal by Farrah Penn
Campfire by Shawn Sarles
When We Were Lost by Kevin Wignall
Swipe Right for Murder by Derek Milman
Once & Future by Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy
Sword in the Stars by Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy
Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan
Girls of Storm and Shadow by Natasha Ngan
The Maximum Ride Series by James Patterson
The Angel Experiment
School’s Out—Forever
Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports
The Final Warning
MAX
FANG
ANGEL
Nevermore
Maximum Ride Forever
The Confessions Series by James Patterson
Confessions of a Murder Suspect
Confessions: The Private School Murders
Confessions: The Paris Mysteries
Confessions: The Murder of an Angel
The Witch & Wizard Series by James Patterson
Witch & Wizard
The Gift
The Fire
The Kiss
The Lost
Nonfiction by James Patterson
Med Head
Stand-Alone Novels by James Patterson
The Injustice (previously published as Expelled)
Crazy House
The Fall of Crazy House
Cradle and All
First Love
Homeroom Diaries
For exclusives, trailers, and other information, visit jimmypatterson.org.
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