Jeb’s anger flared. “You don’t know what you’re doing. Max is a multimillion-dollar, finely tuned instrument. You’ve almost ruined her. She’s not a lapdog! She’s a warrior—the best there is. I made her what she is and I won’t let you destroy her.”
“Whoa,” I said, holding my hands up. “This is getting a little dysfunctional, even for me. I have an idea: How about the three of you take flying leaps off a cliff? That would solve most of our problems right there.”
“That would suit me just fine,” Ari snarled. “Then it would be just you and me.”
“Please. The way you fly? There wouldn’t be enough left to fill a garbage bag.”
He lunged at me again. Both Anne and Jeb stopped him.
“I’m going now,” I said, “and I’m going to stay gone. If I see any one of you again, I’ll take you out. And that’s a euphemism, by the way.”
Jeb sighed and shook his head. “It’s not that simple, Max. There’s nowhere for you to go. This whole planet is one big maze, and you’re the rat running through it.”
My eyes narrowed coldly. “That’s what you think. You and your psycho-scientist pals can play out Act Three by yourselves. As far as I’m concerned, this experiment, this training scenario, is over. Way over. Don’t come knocking again. I mean it.”
“The decision, unfortunately, isn’t yours to make,” Jeb said patiently. “But you don’t have to believe me. You can ask my boss, the one who’s pulling all the strings.”
“Jeb . . . ,” Anne said, a warning tone in her voice.
“Yeah, right.” I sneered. “Call him on your cell phone. I’ll wait.”
“I don’t have to. She’s right here,” Jeb said with a gentle smile.
Well, the only other “she” around was Anne.
She was his boss, the one who was running things.
The one who was running me.
92
I should have known.
Maybe, deep down inside, I had known. Maybe that was why I had never been able to trust Anne, to relax. Or maybe that had just been my total paranoia coming in handy again.
“You’re the lead dog?” I asked Anne, then shook my head. “No, I can’t even pretend to be surprised. Nothing you guys throw at me could surprise me anymore.”
“Let’s put that to the test,” Ari said tightly. His whole body was rigid, his eyes bloodshot. His ragged claws were curling up into his palms over and over.
“Down, boy,” I said, expecting him to snap at any second.
“It’s not like that, Max,” said Anne, her face sincere and concerned. “I wanted to be part of your becoming. You’re not just an experiment. To me, you’re almost like a daughter.” Her eyes were warm and pleading. I thought of all the nights she’d tucked us in, the many disastrous attempts to put dinner on the table. How she’d bought us clothes, books, art supplies. She’d held Nudge when she cried, she’d patched up Gazzy’s skinned knees.
You know what? I’d done all that stuff too. And I was better at it. And, bonus, I wasn’t evil.
“I’m guessing that almost is the operative word here,” I said. “Part of my becoming? Congratulations. You’re part of my becoming pissed off.” I realized how crushed Gazzy, Nudge, and Angel would be when they found out Anne was in this mess even deeper than the spawn of Satan, Jeb himself. Suddenly I’d had enough, more than enough. I shook my head, subtly loosening my wing muscles. “You can’t even make decent cookies,” I told her, and then jumped straight up into the air, the way we’d practiced so many times. With one bound, I was over their heads, and then I unfurled my wings and pushed down with all my might. I almost clipped them—I have a thirteen-foot wingspan. I soared up to where my flock was waiting.
“Vámonos,” I said. “There’s no one here but people to leave.”
93
That would have been too easy, right?
W
ithin seconds, Ari’s control broke. Even as I was speeding away, I heard him shouting orders. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw a swarm of heavy, clumsy Erasers rising darkly into the air. Only—hello—these weren’t that clumsy.
“Uh-oh—this is a new batch, guys,” I called. “These Erasers can actually fly. Move it!”