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

At that moment, I had no mind to change, or not change, or throw against the nearest wall. My mind had shorted out as soon as Fang’s lips touched mine. His mouth was warm and firm, his hand gentle on my neck.

I’d kissed him once before, when I thought he was dying on a beach. But that had lasted a second. This was...going on and on.

I realized I was getting dizzy, and then realized it was because I hadn’t taken a breath yet. It seemed like an hour before we broke apart. We were both breathing raggedly, and I stared into his eyes as if I would find answers there.

Which of course I didn’t. All I saw was the dancing flames of our small fire.

Fang cleared his throat, looking as surprised as I felt. “Forget the mission,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Let’s just all be safe somewhere together.”

And boy, did that seem like a swell idea just then. We could be like Tarzan and Jane, swinging through a jungle, snagging bananas right off a tree, living at one with nature, la-di-da—

Tarzan and Jane and their band of merry mutants!

Fang’s hand was making slow, warm circles between my wings, and that plus the hypnotic fire and the stress of the day all combined to make me tired and unable to think straight.

What does he want from me? I thought. I half expected the Voice to chime in here, sure it had been eavesdropping on this whole embarrassing scene.

Now Fang was rubbing my neck. I was both exhausted and hyperaware, and just as he leaned in—to kiss me again?—I jumped to my feet.

He looked up at me.

“I—I’m not sure about this,” I muttered. How’s that for silver-tongued rapier wit, eh? Overreacting impressively, I raced to the front of the cave and launched myself out into the night, unfurling my wings, feeling the wind against my burning face, hearing the rush of air all around me.

Fang didn’t follow, though when I glanced back I saw his tall, lean form standing in the cave entrance, highlighted by the fire.

Not too far away, I found a narrow rock ledge, well hidden in the night, and I collapsed there in tears, feeling confused and upset, and excited and hopeful, and appalled.

Ah, the joys of being an adolescent hybrid runaway.

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What was Fang going to do, blog about Max throwing herself out into space just so she wouldn’t have to kiss him again? No! Instead he smashed his fist against the cave wall, then grimaced with the pain and stupidity, seeing his bloodied knuckles, the almost instant swelling.

He banked the fire, keeping a small pile of embers glowing in case she came back and needed help finding the entrance. Neither was likely.

He kicked most of the rocks off a Fang-sized place and lay down, rubbing his wings against the fine silt because it felt good. He didn’t want to check his blog—he’d had almost eight hundred thousand hits earlier—didn’t want to do anything except lie still and think.

Max.

God, but she was stubborn. And tough. And closed in. Closed off. Except when she was holding Angel, or ruffling the Gasman’s hair, or pushing something closer to Iggy’s hand so he could find it easily without knowing anyone had helped him. Or when she was trying to untangle Nudge’s mane of hair. Or—sometimes—when she was looking at Fang.

He shifted on the hard ground, a half-dozen flashes of memory cycling through his brain. Max looking at him and laughing. Max leaping off a cliff, snapping out her wings, flying off, so incredibly powerful and graceful that it took his breath away.

Max punching someone’s lights out, her face like stone.

Max kissing that weiner Sam on Anne’s front porch.

Gritting his teeth, Fang rolled onto his side.

Max kissing him on the beach, after Ari had kicked Fang’s butt.

Just now, her mouth soft under his.

He wished she were here, if not next to him, then somewhere in the cave, so he could hear her breathing.

It was going to be hard to sleep without that tonight.

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