Dylan loved Max more than anything.
Even more than the survival of the earth.
69
JUST WHEN I thought Dylan was going to crush the life out of Fang forever, the word “us” changed everything.
You’re better than this, Dylan, I had screamed at him. They’re the ones making you do this—not you. You don’t want to kill Fang. Let him go. Do it for you. And me. Do it for us!
When I was sure that Fang was on his last breath, when I was sure my heart was one second away from irreversibly shattering, Dylan suddenly released Fang’s throat and shot away from us, his powerful wings beating so fast they were a blur.
I dropped to the ground with Fang’s unconscious body in my arms, still weeping.
“Is Fang…” Nudge asked, her voice trembling.
I could only look at her solemnly as I heaved us both up and staggered toward the house. I didn’t know how to answer her yet, and I couldn’t voice the fears snaking through my thoughts.
“Let’s just get him inside,” I said s
hakily.
With the flock close on my heels, I laid Fang on the couch, wondering if I would ever have furniture that wasn’t bloodstained. Nudge hurried over with a blanket and carefully covered Fang. I looked at my flock, being so strong, and my throat threatened to close.
I sat down next to Fang and held his cold hand in mine, trying to warm it. I stroked his dark, bloodied hair. The blood vessels in his eyelids and cheeks had burst, and there were tiny red lines streaking over his pale face. The face I’d grown up with, the face I loved. His neck was all blotchy, covered in dark purple, hand-shaped bruises—it looked like Dylan was still choking him.
“He’s supposed to be immortal, anyway, right?” Iggy said from next to me. He was trying to sound tough, but I heard the fear in his voice, and saw how tightly he was pressing his lips together. “Right, Max?”
I shook my head. Iggy hadn’t quite understood Jeb’s shorthand scientific gobbledygook, but I couldn’t explain it to him now. I couldn’t speak. All I could think about was what Angel had said long ago: Fang will be the first to die.
I pressed an ear to Fang’s chest, holding my breath. His heartbeat was weak and erratic, but it was there.
“He’s alive,” I said with a sigh, sweet relief flooding through me. Behind me, Gazzy cheered, and I heard small, hiccupping sobs coming from Angel. “He’s okay, he’s okay—he’s just knocked out,” I continued, my voice hard and determined. “He’s going to be fine.” I concentrated on Fang, trying to will his strength back into him.
“Do you think he needs blood or x-rays or—” Iggy started to say, and then he suddenly froze, a strange expression on his face.
Everything changes now, I heard my Voice say in my head. Be ready. You’ve won this battle, but the real threat has been unleashed. The war has only just begun.
I watched Gazzy’s face grow even paler and saw the despair in Nudge’s eyes, and I realized that the Voice wasn’t just in my own head this time. Every member of my little flock had heard the same thing.
Be ready, the Voice repeated. The 99% Plan is in effect.
70
I DIDN’T EVEN have time to launch into a full-fledged freak-out over the Voice’s message before my thoughts were drowned out by a distinctive chopping sound that was quickly getting louder and louder.
“Is that a helicopter?” Nudge asked, peering out a window. “There’s a helicopter now?”
The chopper was super close—almost right on our roof, it sounded like. I hated leaving Fang for even a second, but I hurried over to the window. Outside, the treetops were bent almost double and dead leaves were flying everywhere. The house windows were starting to shake when the whirring sound of the blades slowed and stopped.
“I seriously can’t deal with this right now,” I muttered. For the first time, I really didn’t know if we were up to any new challenge. My flock was bloody and beaten up, Fang was still out cold, and Dylan was gone. If this was some new threat, I didn’t have a Plan B. Or a Plan A, for that matter.
I needed a break. But leaders don’t get breaks.
“Okay,” I said, straightening my shoulders even though inside I was screaming. I pushed a strand of blood-soaked hair out of my eyes. “I’m going to go see what’s up. If I’m not back in ten, I’m either dead or asleep on my feet. Stay with Fang—keep him safe. Do not come after me.”
With that, I walked woodenly back outside. It was fully light out. I stepped over the fallen Erasers and past Jeb, who was still lying next to the porch, unconscious. I didn’t have enough energy to feel anything toward the man who had created me, the man who had betrayed me in the worst way imaginable—more than once. I’d been awake since about three AM, and most of those hours had been spent locked in fatal combat. I was too exhausted to feel anything but despair.
The chopper had landed on a piece of flat ground right next to the house. I squinted but couldn’t see through the tinted windows, so I stopped and waited to see what fresh disaster was about to emerge.