Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports (Maximum Ride 3)

4

“Fans still hanging on your every word?” Max asked sleepily some time later.

Fang looked up from his blog. He didn’t know how much time had passed. The slightest tint of pink on the horizon made the rest of the world seem blacker somehow. But he could clearly see every freckle on Max’s tired face.

“Yep,” he said. Max shook her head, then relaxed into the crook of a large branch. Her eyes drifted shut again, but he knew she wasn’t yet asleep—her muscles were still tight, her body still stiff.

It was hard for her to relax her guard. Hard for her to relax period. She had a lot to carry on those genetically enhanced shoulders, and all in all, she did a dang good job.

But no one was perfect.

Fang looked down at the screen he’d flipped off when Max had leaned closer. He thumbed the trackball, and the screen glowed to life again.

His blog was attracting more and more attention—word was spreading. In just the past three days, he’d gone from twenty hits to more than a thousand. A thousand people were reading what he wrote, and probably even more would tomorrow.

Thank God for spell-check.

But the message on the screen now was particularly odd. He couldn’t reply to it, couldn’t trace it, couldn’t even delete it without its mysteriously reappearing moments later.

He’d gotten one just like it yesterday. Now he reread the new one, trying to decipher where it came from, what it meant. Looking up, Fang glanced at the flock, now all sleeping in various nearby trees. It was growing lighter with every second, and Fang was pretty whipped himself.

Iggy was slung across two branches, wings half unfolded, mouth open, one leg twitching slightly.

Nudge and Angel had curled up close to each other in the crooks of wide live oak limbs.

Total was nestled on Angel’s lap, one of her hands holding him protectively in place. Fang bet it was incredibly warm with that furry heat source snoozing on her.

The Gasman was tucked almost invisibly into a large hole made by long-ago lightning. He looked younger than eight, dirty, pale with exhaustion.

And then Max. She was sleeping lightly, characteristically frowning as she dreamed. As he watched, one of her hands coiled into a fist, and she shifted on her branch.

Again Fang looked down at the screen, at the message just like the one he’d received yesterday.

One of you is a traitor, it read. One of the flock has gone bad.

5

We’d never been to Dallas before, and the next day, we decided to visit the John F. Kennedy memorial, as part of our “Highlights of Texas” tour. Or at least the other kids had decided, and they had outvoted me and my wacky “lie low” suggestion.

Now we wandered around the outdoor site, and I have to tell you, I could have used a couple of explanatory plaques.

“This thing is going to fall on our heads any second,” Total said, examining the four walls towering over us and looking around suspiciously.

“It doesn’t say anything about President Kennedy,” the Gasman complained.

“I guess you’re supposed to know already when you come here,” Iggy said.

“He was a president,” Nudge said, trailing one tan hand along the smooth cement. “And he got killed. I think he was supposed to be a good president.”

“I still think there was a second shooter.” Total sniffed and flopped on the grass.

“Can we go now?” I asked. “Before a busload of schoolkids comes on a field trip?”

“Yeah,” said Iggy. “But what now? Let’s do something fun.”

I guess being on the run from bloodthirsty Erasers and insane scientists wasn’t enough fun for him. Kids today are so spoiled.

“There’s a cowgirl museum,” said Nudge. How did she know this? No clue.