Angel (Maximum Ride 7)

“Look, you need to get out of the sun, get some fluids into you,” I said. “Then you’ll quit talking crazy.”

“No!” He frowned and shook his head. “You don’t understand. You don’t want to understand. I have everything I need! I’m being take care of!” He looked off at nothing in the distance. “Everything’s being taken care of,” he whispered.

“Please, let us help you,” I pleaded, taking his arm.

“No!” He pulled away from me and ran off shakily across the hard-packed soil. “I don’t need your help! I’m being taken care of!” he shouted over his shoulder.

“Okay, I’m starting to get a complex,” I said. “What, I’m not good at saving people anymore?”

The three of us watched the kid stagger away from us. I seriously felt like crying.

“Let’s just go home,” I said wearily.

30

“AND HOW HAVE you been locating the members of this little ragtag collection of yours?” Maya asked, taking a big swig of Yoo-hoo.

Great. Not only did “Maya” look exactly like Max and have the same husky voice that practically made Fang’s knees buckle, but she even talked like Max, all bravado and snark.

“Through my blog,” Fang answered. Across the hotel room, the rest of his little ragtag collection actually seemed to be getting along. The new guy, Holden Squibb, had finally arrived, and Kate was explaining to the pale, scrawny kid how she and Star had been kidnapped by two men in lab coats on some school trip. Fang turned back to Maya.

“I started getting letters from kids who were—different. They wanted answers. I want answers too. I thought we could find them together.” Maya looked at him when he said “together,” and his heart raced. She stepped closer to him, leaning over his shoulder to look at his computer.

“And what’ve you found?” she said, now inches from his face. Fang kept his eyes locked straight ahead on the screen. He could practically feel the warmth of her skin.

He’d been so stupid. But he’d needed another good fighter on his team and hadn’t been sure that the other four would work out. He’d wanted someone… familiar. He’d been a freaking idiot.

Now he didn’t know what to do.

“Well, everyone here seems to have been experimented on pretty recently,” he said as evenly as he could. “They didn’t grow up with it, like we did. They were just regular kids,” he said quietly. “And some of them had harsher experiences than others.” Fang looked at Holden and frowned. “Anyway, we think it has something to do with these guys.” He clicked open a new window, and a banner popped up that read, “Save the Planet. Kill the Humans.” Maya gave a low whistle.

“Sweet. These people seem like real winners.” Now her lips were close to his ear, and Fang forced himself to breathe normally.

“Yeah, you could say that. They seem to be all for genetically modified kids, though. What they don’t get is that not everyone wants to be ‘improved.’ ” He nodded over at Ratchet, Holden, Kate, and Star. “The gang here joined up because they’ve got a thing or two to tell the people who did this to them.” He squinted at the screen. “If we can just figure out how these Doomsday jerks work…”

“Hmm,” said Maya. “Well, I know I can fly, and I know you can fly, but what can they do?” She pointed her bottle at the others. They’d just met, but Ratchet already had Holden in a headlock.

“Ratchet’s got, like, insane senses,” Fang said, and Ratchet nodded to them from across the room. “Holden can heal really fast, and we think he has the ability to regenerate limbs and stuff.”

“Like a starfish,” said Maya, nodding. “Cool.”

“Yeah,” said Fang. “But slightly less cool when you think about how many times they cut him open before the potion actually worked.” Fang glanced across the room at Holden’s scarred arms and shuddered.

“And the girls, Kate and Star, were injected at the same time, but apparently with different stuff. Seems like the whitecoats screwed with their DNA, just like they did with ours. You wouldn’t think it to look at her, but Kate’s, like, wicked strong.”

He nodded at St

ar, who was pouring a supersize bag of chips down her throat. “We think Star’s part hummingbird or mouse. She can move like lightning, but she burns through about a zillion calories in the process. She must have double the fast-twitch muscle fibers we do since they spliced her genomes.”

Maya smiled at him. “I love it when you talk all sciencey.”

Fang almost laughed despite himself. He hated talking to people, but maybe with Maya he could just hang. Maybe she could be like Max for him. Like he and Max used to be. Before things got… complicated.

It would be just like before.

31

“MAX! THE MAXALATOR! Maxime! Maxalicious! Maxster!”