Maximum Ride Forever

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  For Captain Jack, who got this enterprise flying

  To the Reader

  THE IDEA FOR the Maximum Ride series comes from earlier books of mine called When the Wind Blows and The Lake House, which also feature a character named Max who escapes from a quite despicable School. Most of the similarities end there. Max and the other kids in the Maximum Ride books are not the same Max and kids featured in those two books. Nor do Frannie and Kit play any part in the series. I hope you enjoy the ride anyway.

  Prologue

  One

  Hey, you!

  This is important. What you’re holding in your hands is the only written record of the new history of the world. Don’t freak out—I know I’m making it sound like a textbook, and believe me, I hated school more than anyone. But this much I can promise: It’s not like any textbook you’ve read before. See, this chunk of pages tells the story of the apocalypse and all that came after—some pretty heavy stuff, for sure, and I don’t blame you for being nervous. We all know that history tends to repeat itself, though, so for your sake and the sake of the future, I hope you’ll read it… when you’re ready.

  Max

  Two

  I KNOW WHY you’re here, and I know what you want.

  You want to know what really happened.

  You want the truth.

  I get it. I’ve wanted the same thing my whole life.

  But now I’m convinced the only real truth is the one you find out for yourself. Not what some grown-up or CNN tells you. The problem is, the truth isn’t always kittens and rainbows. It can be harsh. It can be extremely hard to believe. In fact, the truth can be the very last thing you want to believe.

  But if you’re like me, you’d rather put on your big-girl pants than dwell on things—and truths—beyond your control.

  Like the fact that I was a test-tube baby whose DNA was grafted with a bird’s, so rather than your typical childhood filled with cartoons and tricycles, I spent my most adorable years in a dog crate, poked and prodded by men in white coats.

  Cowardly jerks.

  And how my flock and I escaped and spent our entire lives after that being hunted down by Erasers—human-wolf mutants with truly eye-watering dogbreath.

  While rolling with the punches (and bites and kicks), I had a mountain of personal crap to deal with, too. I was betrayed by my own father, who also turned my half brother, Ari, into an Eraser to kill me. Family fun!

  Then Fang left us—left me, heartbroken—to start a new flock with my freaking clone. I won’t lie—that one stung.

  And I can’t forget the crazies.… There are a lot of bad people out there who want to do a lot of bad things. From the suicidal Doomsday cult to the population-cleansing nutcases, we’ve fought them all.

  And the icing on the cake? Something happened—a meteor? A nuclear bomb? We might never know—that caused all hell to break loose… and destroyed the world.

  Yep.

  But you want to know what really happened after the apocalypse. Fair enough. The story belongs to all of us, especially you. Our history is your future.

  Disclaimer: This is a story of perseverance and hope, but it’s also one of grief. I’ve seen things—terrible things—that no one should even know exist. I’ve witnessed the world’s darkest days and humanity’s ugliest moments. I’ve watched cities collapse, friends die. This is the hardest story I’ve ever had to tell.

  Still think you can handle it?

  Let’s go back, then. Our journey starts on an island somewhere in the South Pacific, not long after the sky first caught fire. You’ll want to make sure your seat is in a locked, upright position, and prepare for some turbulence.

  After all, we’re talking about the end of the world.

  Book One

  APOCALYPSE

  1

  BREATHE, MAX. FORCE the air in and out.

  The air was heavy, and the rotten-egg stench burned the inside of my nose, but I focused on inhaling and exhaling as I ran. The earth shook violently and my feet slid over loose rocks as I raced down the slope. Red-hot coals pelted the earth around us as volcanic ash set our hair on fire and ate tiny, stinging holes in our clothes.

  “Our backpacks!” I yelled, stumbling to a stop. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten them. “They’re all we have left. Tools, knives—the crossbow!”

  “We left them in the field!” Nudge cried.

  I shaded my eyes and looked up—the air was thick with spewing magma, ash, and glowing rock belched up from deep beneath the earth. “I’m going for them,” I decided. As the leader of the flock, responsible for everyone’s survival, I didn’t have much choice. “You guys get to that rock outcropping by the southern beach. It’s the only protection we’ll find.”

  “You have five minutes, tops,” warned Gazzy, our nine-year-old explosives expert. “This whole part of the island’s gonna blow.”

  “Right,” I said, but I was already sprinting up the hill through the hailstorm of fiery pebbles. I might have flown faster, but I couldn’t risk singeing my flight feathers right now. I grabbed the backpacks and raced back.

  The ground shuddered again—a churning quake this time that felt like it was shifting my organs around. I lost my balance and catapulted forward, the provisions we needed torn from my arms as I face-planted hard.

  Sprawled in the dirt, I focused through the dizziness just in time to see a smoking boulder the size of a refrigerator bouncing toward my head. I tucked my chin and rolled, saying a silent prayer.

  Then I heard the sound—BOOM! It was like a rocket had been set off inside my brain. I may have blacked out, I don’t know.

  Shaking my head, I opened my eyes and gasped. The boulder had obliterated the space where I had just been lying, but beyond that, the top of the volcano was now shooting off a thousand-foot column of liquid fire and smoke.

  I gaped, mesmerized, as bright orange lava oozed over the cliff we’d called home for the last three months. Then the sky started to rain blazing rocks, big ones, and I snapped back to attention.

  Craaaaap.

  I leaped to my feet, frantically grabbing backpacks and scooping up the scattered tools that were all we had left. The ground around me was being covered with hot ash, and as I reached for Gazzy’s pack, it went up in flames. I snatched my burned hand back, swearing as the nerves convulsed with pain.

  “Max, hurry!” My ears were ringing, but Angel’s voice was clear inside my head. Ordinarily, I would be annoyed at being bossed around by a mind-reading seven-year-old, but the terror behind her words made my throat dry up.

  I looked back at the volcano. Considering the size of the boulders it was hurling out of its crater, conditions could be even deadlier farther down the mountain.

  What was I thinking, leaving my family? Forget the tools—I had to run!

  My mouth filled with the taste of deadly sulfurous gas, and as it tore at my lungs I wheezed, choking on my own phlegm while glowing bombs fell all around me. I stumbled through the ash and rubble, tripping again and again, but I kept going.

  I had to get back to my flock.

  Another hundred yards and I would be at the meeting place. Pumping my legs, I took the turn onto the rock outcropping at top speed…r />
  And sailed toward a river of boiling lava.

  2

  WHOAAA—

  I windmilled my arms as momentum propelled me out into midair, with nothing but red-hot death below. As gravity took hold and I felt myself starting to drop, my avian survival instinct kicked in automatically. A pair of huge speckled wings snapped out from my back and caught the air, swooping me aloft on a hot, acrid updraft. I quickly wheeled back to the outcropping and closed my highly flammable wings.

  “Wow!” Total’s voice reached me over the sounds of the eruption, and then I saw his small, black Scottie-like head peer out from a shallow cave beneath the boulders. He came and stood next to me, his paws stepping gingerly on the hot ground. His small black wings were tucked neatly along his back. Did I mention that everyone in my mutant flock had wings? Yup, even our talking dog.

  “I thought you were a goner,” he said, nose wrinkling from the horrible smell.

  “Your faith in me is touching, Total.” I tried to steady my voice, but it sounded hollow and shaky.

  Gazzy came out and nodded up at the volcano with seriously misplaced admiration. “She’s a feisty one. This is just the start of it.” With his love of fire and explosions, this eruption was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  “The lava’s, what? Fifty feet wide?” I backed up as the edge of the outcropping began to get swallowed up by the tar-like river—a thick black goo with brilliant flashes of orange where molten stone glowed with heat. “We’ll fly across, find a safer place on the northern side.”

  Gazzy nodded. “Right now we can. But see that molten mudslide rolling toward us? It’s about two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. If we don’t get to high ground fast, we’re cooked.”

  It already felt like my clothes were melting onto my body—clearly Gazzy knew what he was talking about.

  “Let’s move!” I yelled.

  Fang was already grabbing up the backpacks. Always calm and always competent, he was the steady rock to my whirling tornado. I rushed to join him, trying not to wince as my burned hand throbbed. We didn’t have much, but what we had we couldn’t replace: Besides our few weapons, we had some clothing stripped from the dead, cans of food that had washed up on shore, medicinal herbs plucked from now-extinct trees.

  “Okay,” I panted. “Have we got everything?”

  Nudge shook her head, her lovely face smudged with soot. “But if the lava reaches the lake…”

  Then the water supply we’ve stored there will be obliterated.

  “I’ll go back for the jugs,” Dylan and I said at the same time.

  “The sulfur levels just tripled!” Iggy shouted. “Smells like acid rain!”

  “I’ll go,” Dylan repeated firmly.

  Fang was my true love, but Dylan had literally been created to be a perfect partner for me: It would be against his nature not to protect me if he could. It was both endearing and maddening, because, hello? I’m not so much a damsel in distress as I am an ass-kicking mutant bird kid.

  Now Dylan touched my burned hand so tenderly that for a second I forgot about being tough and was just grateful for his help during the chaos. He nodded at the other kids. “They need you here. Just work on getting everyone to the northern beaches, and I’ll be back in a minute.”

  I frowned. “Yeah. But be careful, okay?”

  “You’re not actually worried about me, are you, Max?” His turquoise eyes twinkled playfully.

  “No,” I said, making an ew face at him.

  He laughed. “I’ll catch up.”

  I turned, smiling and shaking my head, and of course there was Fang, standing behind me silent as a shadow. He cocked an eyebrow and I flushed. I opened my mouth to say something, but he was already reaching past me for the backpack Dylan had left.

  “Hover chain?” Fang asked brusquely. He knew me better than anyone, so he knew when to leave things alone. When I nodded, he unfurled his huge black wings, then leaned down and picked up Akila. A big, beautiful malamute, she was the only non-mutant among us—and the love of Total’s life. Trying not to breathe the poisonous air, Fang leaped up and took off across the steaming river of molten rock.

  “Okay, Iggy,” I ordered. “You’re up next! Nudge, get ready. Total, wings out. Gazzy and Angel, I’ll be right behind you. Let’s go, go, go!”

  When I was sure my flock was airborne, I shook out my wings and followed, pushing down hard with each stroke as I struggled through the swirling ash. Burning and smoking debris pelted me from above, and waves of lava roiled below. The air was so toxic I could actually feel my lungs shriveling.

  It was a short, hard flight. There was a fierce swirling wind from above that pushed us down almost as hard as we pushed up against it. The lava below us burned a deep red-orange, and as it took in more oxygen, it crackled loudly and started to spit. It took all my strength to stay aloft as my flight feathers curled up in embers. I blinked away tears, trying to spot my flock through the sizzling smoke and steam. The skin on my ankles started to blister—I was literally being slow-roasted, and I prayed that the others had made it across.

  You are in a cool place. You are in Alaska. It’s freezing. Cool air in your lungs… I saw Fang emerge from the steam, a dark figure carrying a large dog. Everyone else was across now, but I veered back over the river of lava to do one final sweep, make sure we had everything.…

  My neck snapped sideways as a red-hot rock smacked into my head, and before I knew it I was careening down again toward the smoking, burping mouth of hell. I managed a strangled scream and then felt my whole body jerk as a hand yanked me upward.

  “Gotcha.” Fang smirked at me with that crooked smile of his and held me in his arms. “What do you say we get outta here?” Even with the chaos swirling around us, my heart skipped a beat at that smile.

  Our feet sank into the far bank just before the mudslide surged into the river. It sent lava shooting up hundreds of feet like a fizzy explosion of orange soda, but we were already out of its reach. And even though my feathers were smoking and my eyebrows were singed and I was gagging on ash, I was grinning as I ran.

  We made it. We’ve all—

  “Wait.” I skidded to a stop and turned around.

  “What is it?” Fang asked, still tugging at my hand.

  The hot air pressed in and sweat dripped down my face, but cold horror gripped my stomach like a fist.

  “Where’s Dylan?”

  3

  HOURS LATER, THE swirling wind had turned into a pouring rainstorm. I squinted into the rain and billowing steam, scanning the horizon, searching for the silhouette of a kid with a fifteen-foot wingspan.

  I began pacing back and forth across the rocky ledge on the northern side of the island, which was our go-to meeting place. All I saw was the volcano in the distance, still belching its plume of black smoke into the sky.

  Just three months ago, this island had been a tropical paradise, a safe haven for dozens of mutant kids like us. That was before some kind of huge meteor had crashed into Earth and killed most everyone on it, as far as we knew. Then the resulting tsunamis arrived to flood our paradise, including the underground caves where the dwellings were.

  Where my mom and half sister were.

  We’d tried to leave, but the meteor’s impact had devastated everything within immediate flying distance. The neighboring islands? As black and crispy as toasted marshmallows. And part of me couldn’t just leave without some hope that my mom and Ella had somehow survived the floods. But now, with this erupting volcano as a strong motivator, we had to go whether I wanted to or not.

  Dylan’s coming. He’s on his way. He’s fine.

  I was pretty beat up, with serious burns on my arms and legs, singed feathers, and a lump the size of a goose egg growing out of my temple. I clenched my teeth and tried to focus on the pain, but even that didn’t distract me.

  “Max, listen to me. You have to get in here,” Nudge pleaded from the mouth of a cave, where Fang was building a barricade. “It’s l
ike a hurricane out there. You’ll get blown off the cliff!”

  Unlike the now-toppled place where we’d made our home before the eruption, our new perch was high and safe from mudslides and lava. But from gale-force winds and acid rain? Not so much.

  I’d already lost my footing more than once, but I shook my head. “Everything looks different from before. He probably just got turned around.”

  Nudge’s curls got soaked immediately and stuck to her tan cheeks as she stepped out to survey the landscape. She frowned. “He would’ve found shelter by now, though. Dylan knows the rules.”

  The members of my flock had survived because we looked out for the group first. If you went off on your own, you took your chances—there was no room for risk.

  But this was different. Dylan would never, ever run away from me. That I knew.

  “Come inside the cave,” Nudge urged, bending down to put her chin on my shoulder. We’re all tall and thin for our ages, but this past year twelve-year-old Nudge had shot past me and was now almost six feet tall—as tall as Fang. “We’ll crack one of the cans for dinner and—”

  “Dylan!” I yelled suddenly, thinking I spotted movement on the horizon.

  But it was just the charred trunk of a tree blowing around, and the only answer I got was the howl of the wind.

  Nudge sighed, patted my back, and ducked back into the cave.

  Gritty pellets of water whipped against my face. Who was I kidding? No one could fly in this weather. Well, almost no one.

  Maybe I could just—

  “No, you couldn’t. You’re not going anywhere,” a voice said from behind me.

  I let out a breath. “Angel, just because you can read minds doesn’t mean you have permission to root around inside my head.”

  Angel crossed her arms and studied me with a stern look, or at least as stern as a golden-haired, blue-eyed seven-year-old can look. We’d pretty much resolved our differences since she tried to overthrow me as leader of the flock, but she still had her moments. Right now, dirty-faced, wild-haired, and firm-chinned, the flock’s youngest member looked like a short, blonde dictator.