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

Save your world. Love it, protect it, and respect it, and don’t let haters represent it.

Don’t leave the saving to anyone else, ever, because, exhibit A—why, hello there!—it’s way too much for one person. And if you want to skip out on the responsibility train, my whole life—and death—will have been in vain.

It’s yours. It’s all yours for the taking!

You’re not going to waste it now, are you?

Epilogue the Last

THE

BEGINNING

One

WHEN I OPEN my eyes, everything is dim blue wonder. Playful shapes of light dance across my vision, diving, and dipping, then merging into shadow. I thought heaven would be brighter.

I’m spinning, and I watch in bug-eyed wonder as my hand moves in front of my face in slow motion, my fingers leaving streaks like sparkler trails in the dark as my eyes try to adjust to their movement.

I can feel the air as I push and poke, think I can taste the sound of what blue feels like—a whale’s warbling echo.

Or is that singing?

Of course my angels sound like strangled whales.

It’s wonderful feeling weightless, free. Almost like flying, but without even having to move—floating toward an easy, carefree eternity of being rocked like a baby, free of all burdens and responsibility. I actually sigh with relief.

Wait a minute. I just sighed. I’m… breathing?

Underwater?

I’m alive?

“Max,” I hear a voice call from above. What a magical sound that is.

Hmm? I think. Voice, is that you pestering me again? Do not disturb. Busy floating. Call if you want to talk rainbows.

A disembodied hand grasps mine and pulls me upward.

Are you there, God? It’s me, Max.

“Max!” The voice is clearer, immediate.

The water cradles me closer. Am I moving at all? Is this real?

My eyes trace slowly, lazily up the hand that’s entwined with mine, the squared fingers tan and vaguely familiar. And strong. Like the arm and shoulder the hand is connected to. The face finally registers just as we break the surface.

As does shock.

Thrashing, I stupidly suck in a huge breath through my nose, instead of using the gills I developed long ago. The harsh air rips through my lungs, and I double over, coughing and choking out water.

“I told you I would come back for you,” Dylan whispers, rubbing my back.

Two

FANG, DYLAN, ANGEL, and I sit perched on a large, exposed ridge of rock that rises high out of the water. We’re alive. A little soggy and a lot banged up, maybe, but still living, breathing.

Survivors.