“Do you want to talk about . . . anything?”
I looked at her. Her face was tan and kind, her eyes warm and understanding. But I knew if I started talking, I would never stop. I would break down and start crying. I would freak out. Then I wouldn’t be Max anymore, wouldn’t be able to function, take care of the others, be the alpha girl. To save Angel. If it wasn’t already too late.
“Not really,” I said.
She nodded and started stacking clean plates. I fantasized about actually being friends with Ella and her mom long after I left here and went home. I could come back and visit sometimes. . . . Yeah, and we could have picnics, exchange Christmas cards. . . . I’m so sure. I was totally losing my grip on reality. I had to get out of here.
Dr. Martinez put away the clean plates and loaded the dirty ones into the dishwasher. “Do you have a last name?”
I thought. Since I didn’t have an “official” identity, there wasn’t anything she could do with the information. I rubbed my temples—a headache had been creeping up on me since breakfast.
“Yeah,” I said finally. I shrugged. “I gave it to myself.”
On my eleventh birthday (which was also a day I picked for myself), I had asked Jeb about a last name. I guess I was hoping he would say, “Your name is Batchelder, like me.” But he hadn’t. He’d said, “You should choose one yourself.”
So I’d thought about it, thought about how I could fly and who I was.
“My last name is Ride,” I told Ella’s mom. “Like Sally Ride, the astronaut. Maximum Ride.”
She nodded. “That’s a good name. Are there others like you?” she asked.
I pressed my lips together and looked away. My head was throbbing. I wanted to tell her—that was the awful part. Something inside me wanted to blurt out everything. But I couldn’t. Not after years of Jeb telling me I couldn’t trust anybody, ever.
“Do you need help?”
My eyes flicked back to her face.
“Max—with your wings—can you actually fly?”
“Well, yeah,” I was startled into saying. That’s me: mouth-like-a-steel-trap Maximum. Yep, you have to use all your tricks to get me to talk. Jeez. That’s what I get for sleeping on a soft bed and eating homey food.
“Really? You can really fly?” She looked fascinated, alarmed, and a little envious.
I nodded. “My bones are . . . thin,” I began, hating myself. Shut up, Max! “Thin and light. I have extra muscles. My lungs are bigger. And my heart. More efficient. But I need to eat a lot. It’s hard.” Abruptly, I clammed up, a furious blush heating my cheeks. That, folks, was the most I had ever said to a non-flock member. But when I spill the beans, I spill big! I might as well have hired a skywriting plane to scrawl, “I’m a mutant freak!” in huge letters across the sky.
“How did this happen?” Ella’s mom asked softly.
My eyes shut of their own volition. If I’d been alone I would have put my hands over my ears and hunkered down into a little ball on the floor. Fractured images, memories, fear, pain, all came crashing together inside my brain. You think being a regular teenager with growing pains is hard? Try doing it with DNA that’s not your own, not even from a mammal.
“I don’t remember,” I told her. It was a lie.
41
Dr. Martinez looked distressed. “Max, are you sure I can’t help in some way?”
I shook my head, irritated at myself, irritated at her for bringing all this up. “Nah. It’s all over, anyway. Done. But—I have to get out of here. Some friends are waiting for me. It’s really important.”
“How will you get to them? Can I give you a ride?”
“No,” I said, frowning and rubbing my hurt shoulder. “I need to, um, fly there. But I don’t think I can fly yet.”
Dr. Martinez creased her forehead, thinking. “It would be dangerous for you to strain your injury before it’s healed. I couldn’t tell the extent of it. But I could give you a better idea if we had an X-ray.”
I looked at her solemnly. “Do you have X-ray vision?”
She laughed, startled, and I couldn’t help grinning too. God, Ella had this all the time. A real mom.
“No. Not all of us have superhuman powers,” she said teasingly. “But some of us have access to X-ray machines.”