The Final Warning (Maximum Ride 4)

Head tilted on his gargantuan shoulders, Gozen listened to the wind. The storm was intensifying. Fortunately, neither he nor his troops would be much affected by it. It could even play into their plans.

He turned to his troops. “Prepare for combat.”

55

NO, FINDING ANGEL huddled inside a warm mass of penguins would be too easy.

The second we landed, Fang and I were almost knocked off our feet. I quickly pulled in my wings and leaned into the wind. My face felt like it was being sanded with tiny ice crystals, and my cheeks were already burning.

Still, I tried to keep my eyes pried open enough to see the last traces of penguin tracks. Dropping to my knees, I looked carefully. Were those boot marks amid all the faint penguin footprints? There were no dog prints as far as I could tell. Any sign at all was being obliterated. Still, it was the only thing we’d found. I’d follow the tracks to the clump of penguins and then — like, question them or something.

I motioned to Fang and he nodded, reading my mind as easily as he always did. Not in an Angel-really-reading-my-mind kind of way, but in a Fang-knew-me-too-well kind of way. He stumbled slightly getting up, and I grabbed his hand and held it as we made our way toward the penguins.

Together we staggered forward, leaning into the wind, trying to keep on the trail between us and the penguins. Regular kids wouldn’t have made it — they would have had to lie down to keep from being blown away. It was getting harder and harder to see, but the flock has a built-in navigator system that allows us to find our way places, even in the dark, even across huge distances.

It seemed like we’d been searching for hours. I was freezing, trembling with the cold, and really starting to panic. I was just beginning to think we’d never get there when with no warning, the ground gave way beneath my right foot. I yelped and stumbled, and Fang instinctively tightened his grip on my hand, hauling me up and back.

“Help!”

“Angel!” I screamed back, not knowing where her voice was coming from. I looked around blindly but could see nothing that would hide even a small bird kid.

“Max! Help!”

“We’re here! We’ll get you!” Fang kept his arms around my waist while I cupped both hands around my mouth, shouting into the wind. “Where are you?”

“Down here!” came her little voice. “You just kicked snow on me!”

With that, Fang and I both dropped cautiously to our stomachs and inched forward until we saw the deep hole my foot had gone into. I brushed away some snow, and the hole got much bigger, fast.

“You’re dumping snow on us!” Angel cried.

“I’m sorry!” I called. “I have to find you first! We can’t even see where you went in!”

Finally we brushed away enough snow to see the deep, deep crack in the ice, maybe a yard across at the surface, then plunging steeply down in an ever-narrowing vee. It was way too narrow for her to fly out, or for us to fly in. I remembered my flip reply to Brigid, that I would just fly out of a crevasse, and saw immediately that none of us could have flown out of there. No room.

“Get the rope,” I told Fang, but he was already uncoiling it. “Angel? We’re going to drop a rope down to you. Just hold on tight and we’ll pull you up, okay?”

“Uh . . . ,” Angel said, her voice weak and tired.

“What?” Fang asked.

“My foot’s stuck,” she said, sounding scared. “And I have Total and Akila with me. They can’t hold on to a rope.”

56

NORMALLY I WOULD have been swearing bitterly to myself at this point, but what with the Angel-reading-minds thing, I tried to hold off.

I looked over at Fang, lying next to me on the hard-packed snow. The strong wind was filling our mouths, noses, ears, and eyes with icy grit. “Great,” I muttered, and he nodded.

“I’m sorry,” Angel called up, close to tears.

“It’s okay,” I said. Years of successful lying stood me in good stead, and I sounded convincing even to me. “Just hold tight for a second. . . .” Plan, plan, need a plan.

“It’s awfully cold,” said Angel, teeth chattering. “Akila and Total went to sleep, and they won’t wake up.”

Oh, crap, I thought.

“Angel?” I called. “The only way we can get the dogs out is if you tie the rope around them and we haul them out first. Then we’ll get you.