Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure (Maximum Ride 8)

27

ANGEL HEARD JEB’S breath catch in horror.

“They didn’t,” he said hollowly. “Not you, too. Not your eyes.”

“You’re just upset because you wrecked your perfect little specimen,” Angel spat, shoving away his hands and retreating farther into her dog crate. She still ached all over.

Jeb clutched the door of the cage, shuddering so hard that he rattled the metal grid. “Oh, Angel…”

“Save it.”

“It’s like Ari all over again,” he said brokenly. “So many failures… so many mistakes. You can’t imagine the remorse I feel, Angel….”

It’s your own fault, Angel thought, but she was almost surprised to hear tears in his voice. She couldn’t remember Jeb ever crying, no matter what happened.

“I was such a bad father to him,” continued Jeb dejectedly.

Angel bristled. Ari had been a disaster, that was for sure, but he was dead. Angel was the one who was here; she was the one whose eyes had been ruined. His apology had been meaningless, but this little heart-to-heart about Ari was straight-up insulting.

And he wouldn’t shut up. “After Ari died, I just… I had to try again. I had to give myself another chance at being a father, at caring for a son. That’s why I worked so closely with Dr. Gunther-Hagen.”

Wait, what? Angel sat up straight inside her crate, her attention snapping back to Jeb. She forgot her anger for a moment. “You were creating another Ari?”

“I swore this time I wouldn’t fail. I would be a good father….” Jeb’s voice caught in his throat. “And he would be a good son. I would retire from my work with the School and care for him with all my heart.”

And despite everything, Angel couldn’t help but feel the tiniest twinge of pity. Here Jeb was, a fully grown man, sobbing over his dead son.

“You have to understand, Angel,” Jeb pleaded. “I had only the best in mind. Just one new Ari. Then it would end.”

“But it didn’t end,” Angel whispered, thinking of the flying mutants they’d battled for months.

“Well, of course there were many less-than-perfect attempts,” Jeb conceded. “But Dr. Gunther-Hagen is an incredibly brilliant geneticist. With his help, I made Ari bigger and better than ever before, seamless and strong. Finally, I had my son back.” Jeb wasn’t crying anymore. He sounded almost triumphant.

Triumphant, and something else.

Angel felt the dread building in her stomach.

“The not-Aris were useful, too,” Jeb said. “Not as sons, but as warriors, designed for one mission, and one mission only.”

“Mission?”

When he spoke, Angel could hear the cold serenity in his tone. “To eliminate Fang.”

28

“WHAT?” ANGEL FELT her skull prickle all over and her hands go numb. The air around her felt like it was vibrating, and she rested her head against the plastic wall of the dog crate, breathing deeply.

With darkness consuming her vision, she couldn’t see Jeb’s face, but she could picture it clearly: the laugh lines around his mouth, a bit of stubble on his jawline, and his eyes—intelligent eyes that she had once known so well, that she had trusted, that even Max had trusted. The eyes that seemed well meaning, even when he was screwing everything up.

She must’ve misunderstood him.

“Wait—what?” she said again, shaking her head to clear it. “Eliminate Fang… as in, kill Fang?”

“That’s what the 99% Plan is all about,” Jeb said simply.

He sounded calm. Creepily, eerily calm. The calm that comes with absolute certainty. It was terrifying.

“Isn’t 99% about sparing the mutants?” Angel tried to keep her voice as calm as Jeb’s, though her body was shaking all over. “How can that mean killing Fang?”