Fang (Maximum Ride 6)

THE SUN BEAT DOWN on my shoulders. It felt heavenly to be out flying, my hair streaming back, silence all around. I gazed down at the earth beneath me, the winding streams carved through red canyons, the striated layers of rock revealed by millennia of erosion, my tiny shadow on the ground, barely visible —

And the dark shadow following me, so close, practically right on top of me.

I took a breath, folded my wings down, swung my feet so I was vertical, and snapped my fist up hard. With unerring timing, it connected solidly with a face.

I heard a surprised hiss of breath, felt skin split beneath the force, then dove down, did a somersault in midair, and angled myself to attack from below.

“What the hell is the matter with you!” Fang shouted. One hand was pressed to his face, below his right eye.

“Fang!” I evened myself out till I was flying close to him. Our wings kept us about eight feet apart. “I’m sorry — I didn’t know it was you. Why were you sneaking up on me?”

“Who else would it be?” He sounded cranky and kept rubbing his face.

“Anyone! An Eraser, or a Flyboy, or —”

“There aren’t any more Erasers,” he said, giving me a confused look. “And I don’t think there are any more Flyboys either. We haven’t seen any in ages. Who else is going to be flying after you except one of us?”

We both thought of Dylan at the same time. “Sorry,” I muttered again. “I just reacted.”

His cheek was pink and already swelling — he would have a helluva shiner by tomorrow. “Look, there’s a tree over there. Can we stop a minute?”

A huge pine stood at the edge of the tree line on the mountain. We swooped down, slowed, and landed on a large branch.

“Sorry about yesterday,” Fang said. He leaned his back against the broad, rough trunk. “I let Dylan get to me. It was stupid. I can’t believe I didn’t notice the house almost burning down.” He gave a brief, wry smile.

“It didn’t almost burn down,” I said. “Just the couch, really. Gazzy and Ig were making a new stash of detonators, and ‘something happened.’”

Fang shook his head and let out a breath, then looked deeply into my eyes. I got that hollow, fluttery feeling again. I wanted to melt into him and forget everything, but something still felt like it had changed.

For some reason, Dylan’s face popped into my mind, and it was as though the two of them were side by side: Fang and Dylan. They were night and day. Dylan’s face was more open, wanting to talk, to ask questions, to learn. Fang’s face was closed, secretive, strong, like the most interesting riddle I would ever find.

“Jeb said the others were complaining about us,” I told him. The fresh pine-scented breeze blew my hair around, and I tucked it behind my ear.

“We’re all getting used to the … changed dynamics,” said Fang. He reached out and took a strand of my hair, immediately getting caught in a tangle. “It’s pretty, in the sun,” he said, holding the strand out to catch the sun’s rays. It was mostly brown but had streaks of dark red and even a little blond.

“Still,” I pressed on, “we have to think —”

“No, we don’t,” Fang whispered, and he tilted his head. I barely had time to breathe in before his warm lips were on mine, for the first time in … days. He put his arms around me and angled his head more.

I was so familiar with him that I could feel how swollen his cheek was, right under his eye. I mean, I knew Fang. I’d always known him. Literally always, my whole life. He’d always been my best friend and my second-in-command. I didn’t really know when our feelings had changed. All I knew was that he was the best thing I had in my life.

He held me closer and closer until we were practically glued together. I don’t know how long we stayed there, kissing and murmuring to each other. Finally my stomach rumbled, making us both laugh and break apart, our foreheads still touching.

“I guess I better get to the store,” I said, feeling like everything would be all right again in my world. “You coming?”

Fang nodded, and then a low buzzing sound, like a swarm of bees, distracted me. We both looked up through the top of the tree. Very, very high, higher than helicopters usually go, were four black choppers. We could barely see them, barely hear them. Most humans wouldn’t have been able to spot them, wouldn’t have known they w

ere there.

But they were. And they were headed in the direction of our house.

Without speaking, we let go of the tree and fell outward, then opened our wings as the ground rushed up to meet us.

Time for reality again.

43

DYLAN HADN’T BEEN ALIVE much longer than eight months and didn’t know much about flock taboos, but one thing he instinctively knew: Don’t mess with a bird kid’s wings.