“Ari!” Jeb said again. “You have your orders.”
Jeb walked toward me, keeping one eye on Ari. After endless seconds, Ari slowly, slowly drew back from Fang, leaving his body crumpled unnaturally on the sand.
Jeb stopped in front of me.
He’d saved my life more than once. He’d saved all our lives. Taught me to read, how to make scrambled eggs, how to hot-wire cars. Once I’d depended o
n him as if he were the very breath in my lungs: He was my one constant, my one certainty.
“Do you get it now, Max?” he asked softly. “Do you see the incredible beauty of the game? No child, no adult, no one has ever experienced anything like what you’re feeling. Do you see why all this is necessary?”
The Eraser holding me peeled his fingers away from my mouth so I could speak. Instantly, I spit hard, clearing my mouth and throat of tears. I hit Jeb’s shoe.
“No,” I said, keeping my voice steady, though everything in me was shrieking, desperate to run to Fang. “I don’t get it. I’ll never get it. I want to get out of it.”
His heartbreakingly familiar face looked strained, as if he was losing patience with me. Tough. “I told you, you’re going to save the world,” he said. “That’s the purpose of your existence. Do you think an ordinary, untrained fourteen-year-old could do that? No. You’ve got to be the best, the strongest, the smartest. You’ve got to be the ultimate. Maximum.”
I yawned and rolled my eyes, knowing he’d hate that, and Jeb’s jaw tightened in anger. “Do not fail,” he said, a hard note in his voice. “You did okay in New York, but you made serious, rather stupid mistakes. Mistakes cost you. Make better decisions.”
“You’re not my dad anymore, Jeb,” I said, putting as much annoying snideness into my tone as possible. “You’re not responsible for me. I do what I like. I named myself—Maximum Ride.”
“I’ll always be responsible for you,” he snapped. “If you think you’re actually running your own life, then maybe you’re not as bright as I thought you were.”
“Make up your mind,” I snapped back. “Either I’m the greatest or I’m not. Which is it?”
He motioned with his hand, and the Erasers let me and Iggy go. Ari turned and smirked at me, then blew me a kiss.
I spit at him. “Daddy always loved me best!” I hissed, and his face darkened.
He took a fast step toward me, paws coiled into fists, but was pushed along by a rough, hairy wave of the other Erasers. They swept him up and shuffled off around the large boulder at the end of our beach. Jeb was with them. No, he was one of them.
118
Stumbling badly, my shoulder feeling like it was on fire, I made my way down the beach. Before I moved Fang, I felt his neck to see if it was broken. Then I carefully turned him over. Blood trickled from his mouth.
“Fang, you have to wake up,” I whispered.
The others ran over. “He looks really bad,” Gazzy said. “He should see a doctor.”
Nothing seemed broken—maybe his nose—but he was still out cold. I lifted his head into my lap and used my sweatshirt to dab at the bloody stripes on his face.
“We could carry him, you and me,” said Iggy, his long, pale hands floating over Fang, cataloging bruises, lumps, blood.
“Where to?” I asked, hearing my bitterness. “It’s not like we can check him into a hospital.”
“No hospi’l,” Fang mumbled, his eyes still shut.
Relief flooded through me.
“Fang!” I said. “How bad?”
“Pre’y bad,” he said fuzzily, then, groaning, he tried to shift to one side.
“Don’t move!” I told him, but he turned his head and spit blood out onto the sand. He raised his hand and spit something into it, then opened his eyes blearily.
“Tooth,” he said in disgust. “Feel like crap,” Fang added, touching the knots on the back of his head.
I tried to smile. “You look like a kitty cat.” I made whisker motions on my face, indicating where Ari had raked his. He looked at me sourly.