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  I nodded and then I stepped right on top of something disgustingly squishy, because things had to be worse right now. Swallowing my swear, I said, “I can’t think of anywhere to put them where they’ll be safe.”

  “I know a place,” she said, and left me to work her way back to Fang.

  She knew a place? We had a place to go? I was furious at myself for not having thought through the plan this far, but also felt huge relief. For so long, I’d been the only person I could really rely on, really trust. I mean, I love my lab rats—they’re my family—but in a pinch? I was my own go-to person.

  Even though I hardly knew her, my gut told me I could lean on Nudge. And Gazzy. And Iggy. I could. Fang, I wasn’t so sure about.

  Suddenly Iggy pushed past me, holding Rain by the hand. “There’s a fire down the last tunnel, on the left,” he said. “I think the Sixes are here, and they’re sending scouts ahead. We gotta get out of here!”

  “There’s an exit twenty meters up and on the right,” I said quickly. I knew this city’s tunnels like I knew the cracks in the ceiling of our sleeping closet at the Children’s Home. We might be moving through almost total darkness, but I knew exactly where we were.

  “Let’s go!” Iggy said, and took over my place as leader.

  Without stumbling, walking into the sewage, or turning face-first into a cement wall, Iggy led Rain and the rest of us to the exit.

  “Where does this come out?” he asked me.

  “One street off the main street,” I said. “It’s a bad area, but close to a good area.”

  “Okay,” Iggy said, and started to climb the rusted, filthy metal rungs.

  “Why?” Rain protested, not sounding like herself at all.

  “Please, Rain, just do it,” I said firmly.

  “To get some dope,” she said, and started to climb.

  Whatever. Nudge went through next, then a dark, furious-looking Fang, who was guiding Moke by a firm hand at the base of his neck. Behind us, I saw the very dim lights of a pair of scouts, checking to make sure the tunnels were clear.

  “You go,” Gazzy said, digging around in the pockets of his big leather belt.

  “Clete?” I said and motioned him upward. I hadn’t heard any shouts or gunfire, so I was assuming it was okay up there.

  Now I heard the scouts shouting, the faint sounds of their booted feet running toward us.

  “Come on, honey,” I said to Calypso and picked her up so she could grab the first rung. She started to climb. “I can smell dope!” she said excitedly.

  “You,” Gazzy said, motioning toward the rung.

  “I’ll go last,” I said. “Hold those hoods off for a while.”

  “Hawk, I’ll take care of these guys. You go, see what’s happening up there.”

  There was nothing I could do. I started to climb.

  I was almost to the top when Gazzy’s blond head appeared at the bottom of the ladder and he started scrambling up. “Go, go, go!” he said, pushing at me. I practically jumped up the next meter and then leaped to my feet.

  There was a boom! Followed by the sounds of tiles and plaster falling from the tunnel ceiling. Gazzy shot out of the manhole, slammed the cover back in place, then sat on it.

  A second later the cover hovered several inches above the manhole. Gazzy hung on tightly. It dropped back into place with a clang, and Gazzy got up and dusted off his pants.

  “Now where to?” he asked.

  CHAPTER 57

  An excellent question. I looked for Nudge and saw her standing shoulder to shoulder with Fang, who was gesturing angrily, sometimes pulling at his long black hair. Nudge’s cheeks turned pink as she, too, began to argue.

  It was so late—probably hours after midnight. I bet Ridley had her head tucked under her wing somewhere high and dry. I was glad she was safe and not caught up in this mess.

  I was tired down to my bones, almost faint with hunger, and so thirsty that I was ready to drink the gross water from the pothole in the street. Clete looked super unhappy, too. His kind of normal routine had been shot to shit tonight.

  I went over to him. “Hey, honey. How you doin’?”

  There was misery in his eyes.

  “I know you’re tired,” I said. “And hungry and thirsty?”

  He nodded, shifting his weight from one foot to another.

  “Well, I couldn’t have done this without you,” I said. “You’re my hero.”

  He looked at me, a little smile on his lips.

  Fang threw up his hands and stalked off. Nudge called after him and he stopped but didn’t come back or even turn around. He was ready for flight.

  Looking back at our weird group, I saw that Iggy had taken charge of Rain, was talking to her, making sure she didn’t wander off. Oh, my god, Rain’s eyes, I thought again. Gazzy was on Moke duty—he still didn’t know who any of us were and kept asking for more dope, only coming along with us strangers because we promised him more. I was hanging on to Calypso. She was pretty small for her age, barely to my waist. Of course, I’m weirdly tall. We were all hunkering down in the deep entrance of a building, on a lonely, abandoned street with no lights. I’d eaten here a bunch of times, had made deals here… back when I flew alone.

  “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do,” Nudge said, gathering us in closer. “We, meaning all of us, are going to take your friends to a safe house. There’s room for Clete and these three can dry out there, with good folks. So, Hawk is going to carry Calypso.”

  What was this place she was talking about? I pretty much knew every inch of the City of the Dead, and I hadn’t seen anywhere like that. A safe house, with good folks? Ha!

  “Iggy is going to carry Clete,” Nudge went on, and Clete’s face went white. “Fang is going to carry Moke, and I’ll have Rain. Gazzy’s going to take rear point with all weapons ready. Got it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But where are we going?”

  “We’re leaving the City of the Dead,” Nudge said simply. “To a canyon city, outside of these tall walls.”

  “There’s nothing out there!” I said sharply. “Only desert! I know! I’ve flown out there and seen it!”

  “Maybe you didn’t go far enough,” Nudge said calmly. “It’s pretty well hidden.”

  My back pressed against the dirty building wall, my hands clenching and unclenching.

  “What’s the matter, sweetie?” Nudge asked me in surprise. “It’s a good place—we know the people who run it.”

  “There’s nothing out there,” I insisted. This was just like when I was five. I thought I’d had a family and they were going to leave me again. Last time they’d left and not come back; this time they were lying to me, telling me they were going someplace that definitely doesn’t exist.

  “No, it’s there,” Gazzy said firmly. “So everybody, get on your horses!”

  “What’s a horses?” Calypso asked, her fevered brain latching on to that one word.

  “They’re made-up animals,” I said shortly. “They’re not real; just in books.”

  Calypso nodded.

  Gazzy wrinkled his brow as if he wanted to say something but changed his mind and looked away.

  “Fang!” Nudge called. “Let’s go!”

  My breath was coming fast, as if I’d just run up ten flights of stairs. They’d gotten us this far. They’d said I was one of them. They’d helped all of us. But I knew this city, knew it inside out and knew the places beyond it. Knew there was nothing.

  “Hawk?” Gazzy said.

  My forehead was damp with sweat, and I bet I looked as white as Clete did.

  Shaking my head, I said, “I can’t do it. I can’t leave the City of the Dead.”

  CHAPTER 58

  Max

  My life totally sucks, I mused as the prisoners below chanted my name. Some of them were rooting for me, some of them against. All they knew was that I was providing some entertainment. McCallum was on every vidscreen, sometimes talking to me, sometimes shouting, sometimes coaxing. I st
ill had a death grip on the doctor and had tuned out his pleas, threats, and wiggling.

  Then the glitch happened, the glitch that would change the course of my life.

  My left-hand fingers were turning white from holding on to the bars of the ceiling cage, so I quickly shifted the doctor (he shrieked) and clamped my right hand around a bar.

  McCallum’s broad, fleshy face blurred and pixelated for a second, and then yours truly was on all the screens in the prison. Someone was talking: “For those of you just joining us, we’re watching as longtime freedom fighter Maximum Ride leads her captors on a less-than-merry chase. It’s been some hours now.”

  My mouth dropped open and I almost lost hold of the doctor. Down below, everyone was silent, in shock. I mean, my face was on the screens! I tore my eyes away to look for the camera. The screens showed me doing that! Quickly I judged the angle of the camera—it was practically eye level with me! But where was it? I have good eyesight, an eagle’s eyesight, so let’s say good, and I didn’t see any camera or lens or anything up there.

  I looked back at the screen, which was a close-up of me and the doctor. Was this being broadcast to the world? To one country? To one city? Was someone somewhere learning about what had happened to me for the first time in years? And wow, I… I… really looked like shit. Yeah, world, finally see my face right now when I look the absolute worst! This was great timing!

  “How will this end?” the female voice went on. “No one knows! But we’ll bring updates as we get them!” The screen crackled and McCallum was back. I mean his back was to his constant camera and he was waving his arms and screaming as several people ran around like kids playing freeze tag.

  It wasn’t what we were used to seeing. McCallum was always calm, always in control… always facing you, always watching. But not right then—he didn’t seem like he was calm, or controlled, and for once I had been the one watching him.

  The screen went black again just as an extra-long, extra-bad Voxvoce dropped everyone to their knees. The doctor tried to curl up, moaning, his hands over his ears. I decided it was a good time to let go and was down before anyone realized it, dropping the doctor on the ground and immediately flying back up to perch on one of the courtyard’s tall walls.

  Then McCallum said, “Okay, people!” He was smiling wide on every vidscreen, but his smile looked kind of strained. “Today must be Crazy Day, right? I don’t know what that fantasy newscast was about, but you know that McCallum News is the only trustworthy news! There was no truth to that so-called newscast, and whoever put that up on your vidscreens is going to pay for it, I promise you.”

  Slowly the people below me, prisoners and guards, began to recover. Some had tears streaming down their faces, some looked like all the blood had drained out of their heads, and two or three had barfed. I was still immune to the Voxvoce poison, so at least something was going my way.

  “Yes, that glitch was most disturbing,” McCallum said smoothly. “No doubt the work of deviant troublemakers. We have to stamp their kind out, don’t we? We don’t need to be upset about their lies, do we?” He smiled, his dark eyes twinkling like sunshine on a beetle’s back. “Don’t worry, my dears! You can bet I’ll find out who did this disturbing thing. In the meantime, let’s join Lacey Lamb as she learns an important lesson about telling the truth!”

  A cartoon started and I looked away, still wondering where that camera had been. There were no choppers overhead, no drones. I’d be able to see them even in the night’s darkness. The only things besides me (and the doctor, we can rule him out) who’d been up on the ceiling cage were the usual rats, mice, roaches…

  I looked up again. Could one of them have been fake? Or carrying a camera? Who had arranged it? Who still cared about me, even if it was only to see me fail?

  Of course, it was while I was musing, pondering my life choices, that a tightly woven net dropped over me and yanked me up into the air.

  McCallum interrupted a couple screens of Lacey to gloat. “Got you now, little birdie! I’m patient, probably the most patient man in the world, but you’ve certainly been getting on my last nerve!” He chuckled and seemed to nod at someone. Then the screens went back to Lacey Lamb while I hung there like an onion in a grocery bag. And that’s what I got for letting my guard down for one second. That’s what I got for being merciful and putting the doctor down before I became too weak, and dropped him.

  My life sucks.

  CHAPTER 59

  Hawk

  “Sweetie, you’ve got to trust us on this,” Nudge said.

  I shook my head. “I’ve followed you guys long enough. Thanks for helping me get my kids out, but this is where we get off.”

  “There are cities besides this one,” Nudge said. “There are different countries, different lands… you were born inside an underground haven during a nuclear winter. It wasn’t this place. You came here. You can leave here. At least once, and to save your…” Nudge seemed to be searching for words.

  “Family,” I said tautly. “They’re my family.”

  Fang stalked over to me, tension rolling off him in waves. “Look, Hawk. You’re a smart kid, you can think this through. One, I have to leave to go save your mother. Two, you’ve got four kids who can’t fly, three of them about to go through dope withdrawal, unless you’re planning on keeping them hopped up. Three, you can’t go back to that… place. Four…” his voice softened a tiny bit. “You’re going to be wanted, your face flashed on vidscreens everywhere. The jail breakout, the rescue of these kids. You’ve got nowhere to go. You have to come with us. I will give you one minute to think about it.”

  Gosh, he’d suddenly put his dad-wings on. This was super annoying because he was… right. I couldn’t do this alone. I needed the Flock, and the kids needed me.

  “Fine,” I said, trying to hold on to some dignity. Looking at Nudge, I said, “I’ll check out this tent city. But if it’s messed up, we’re turning around.”

  “Got it,” Nudge said, and went to Rain. Iggy helped Rain put her arms around Nudge’s neck, told her how to lie still in the middle of Nudge’s back so Nudge’s wings could still move.

  “This is the best trip I’ve had yet,” Rain said, smiling.

  It took me a second to realize she meant Rainbow trip, a trip inside her mind. And as Rainbow made fun trips for Rain to take, it was also poisoning her brain. Another month and she’d be shuffling around, begging for a few coins so she could buy more. Regular dope was horrible—Rainbow was a thousand times worse.

  “Oh, uh, good,” said Nudge, not understanding.

  “Come on, Calypso,” I said. “I’m going to give you a piggyback ride, k? And you’re going to hold on super tight, got it?”

  “Sure,” Calypso said, and obediently climbed on my back. “You’re taking us to get more dope.”

  I let out a deep sigh and didn’t say anything.

  There was no trouble getting Moke onto Fang’s back—all we had to do was tell him we were taking him somewhere with dope—and then all that was left was Clete on Iggy.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Clete said faintly.

  Fang came over, Moke’s weight not slowing him down.

  “Get. On.” Fang’s voice was like black ice.

  “Heights,” Clete mumbled, rocking on his feet. His hands began flapping—he was really, really super upset.

  I hoped Nudge would come over and talk to him—I didn’t know what to say: I didn’t want to do this, either.

  Surprisingly, Iggy began speaking in a low, calm voice. “So, Clete, you don’t like heights, huh?”

  “No.” The hand-flapping continued.

  Iggy put his hand on Clete’s shoulder. “I understand. Most people don’t like heights. And most people wouldn’t have been able to do everything you did tonight to help rescue your friends.”

  “Hawk said I was a hero,” Clete remembered. I smiled at him.

  “We’re all heroes,” Iggy said. “And Hawk, and all of us, need you to be a hero for anoth
er ten minutes. Think you can do that? I think you can.”

  “Ten minutes?” Clete asked.

  “Ten minutes,” Iggy said. “You can do it.”

  “Okay,” said Clete, and climbed onto Iggy’s back. He must have outweighed Iggy by half, but Iggy barely seemed to feel it. I guess all of us bird-people are superstrong, not just me. I was learning so much.

  “You know, I have a plan that’s going to take the whole city down,” Clete said as we moved to an open area to take off. Iggy vaguely said, “Oh, good,” and the rest of their words were lost to the night as Iggy ran, snapped out his big white wings, and took off.

  I was next, Calypso’s slight weight making no difference in my takeoff.

  One by one, bird-people just like me took to the sky… and headed out of the city to some Other Place.

  CHAPTER 60

  I hadn’t been lying when I said I’d flown out, away from the city. Of course I had. I could fly; the first thing I’d wanted to do was fly away from the City of the Dead. The only thing out there was desert. Naked hills, bare, sandy stretches that couldn’t support an ant, much less people. I’d gone out there and had never seen a single living thing. No place to escape to. Nowhere to go. Nothing to see.

  The Flock headed northwest, where the land was somehow even more desolate. I saw no lights, no structures, no sign anywhere of a safe place. I mean, I trusted Nudge so much. She wouldn’t lie to me. But I knew there was nothing out here, knew it deep in my bones.

  We flew over a bunch of canyons, some of them with rivers. I’d never been out this far. We were eight minutes out; Fang had two more minutes to make me trust him more.

  A minute and a half later, the Flock started backstroking their wings so they could drop down. There was a narrow crevice here, maybe two meters wide? It was black, barely visible. One by one they dropped through, wings out, managing their descent.

  I’d never dropped down into a crack in the earth. I had no idea what was down there. I’d taken such a huge, stupid chance, and had to keep on taking it because Fang had been right: I truly had no other place to go.