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

People were moving away from us, and I was glad the stadium had a namby-pamby no-weapons policy. Now even the cheerleaders’ eyes were on us, though they didn’t pause in their routine.

“One,” I began, and we all leaped into the air, right over everyone’s head.

Whoosh! I unfurled my wings hard and fast. My wingspan is almost thirteen feet, tip to tip, and Fang’s and Iggy’s are even wider.

I bet we looked like avenging angels, hovering over the astonished crowd. Kind of grungy avenging angels. Angels in need of a good scrub.

“Move it!” I ordered, still scanning the audience, checking for Erasers. The last batch of Erasers had been able to fly, but no one seemed to be taking to the air except us.

A couple of hard downstrokes and we were level with the open edge of the roof, looking down at the brightly lit field, the tiny faces all staring at us. Some people were smiling and punching the air. Most seemed shocked and scared. I saw some faces that looked angry.

But none were elongating, becoming furry, growing oversize canine fangs. They were all staying human.

As we shot off into the night, flying in perfect formation like navy jets, I wondered: Where have all the Erasers gone?

8

“It sucked, but it was way cool at the same time,” Gazzy said. “I felt like the Blue Angels!”

“Yeah, except the Blue Angels are an extremely well funded, well equipped, well trained, well fed, and no doubt squeaky-clean group of crack navy pilots,” I said. “And we’re a bunch of unfunded, unequipped, semitrained, not nearly well fed enough, and filthy mongrel avian-human hybrids. But other than that, it’s exactly the same.”

I knew what he meant, though. As mad as I was about our being in that situation in the first place, and as much as I hated being on the run yet again, and as vulnerable as that last little stunt had made us, still—the feeling of flying in tight formation, all of us with wide, beautiful, awesome wings...it was just incredibly cool.

Gazzy gave a hesitant smile, picking up on my tension, not knowing if I was trying to be funny. I sat down, stuck a straw in a juice pouch, and sucked it dry, then tossed it aside and drained another one.

We were hiding in the Texas mountains, close to the border of Me-hi-co. We’d found a deep, very narrow canyon that protected us from the wind, and now we were settled on the bottom, in front of a small fire.

I hadn’t been this mad at Fang for this long a period of time since—never. Sure, I’d agreed to his lame-butt idea, but actually, now that I thought about it, it was about six times stupider than I’d realized.

“Hmm,” said Fang, looking at the laptop. “We’re everywhere—TV news, papers, radio. Seems a lot of people got photos.”

“There’s a surprise,” I said. “I bet that explains those helicopters we were hearing.”

“Are you okay, Max?” Nudge asked timidly.

I gave Nudge an almost convincing smile. “Sure, sweetie. I’m just...tired.”

I couldn’t help shooting a glance at Fang.

He looked up. “I got a hundred and twenty-one thousand hits today.”

“Whaaat? Really?” He had that kind of audience? He could barely spell!

“Yeah. People are organizing, actually trying to find out info for us.”

Iggy frowned. “What if they get caught by whitecoats?”

“What are you writing about?” I admit I hadn’t been reading his blog. Too busy trying to stay alive, etc.

“Us. Trying to get all the puzzle pieces out there, see if anyone can help us put the big picture together.”

“That’s a good idea, Fang,” said Angel, turning her hot dog over to burn the other side. “We need to make connections.”

What did she mean by that?

Connections are important, Max.

The Voice was back.