Maximum Ride Forever (Maximum Ride 9)

Gently Total nudged her nose with his, and I hurried over to kneel by the still, beautiful dog. Her eyes were closed and I put my hand on her side, praying that I would feel her ribs rising and falling with breath. I didn’t.

“Total, no,” I whispered again, unable to think of anything else to say. The rest of the flock crowded around. Nudge and Angel had tears rolling down their cheeks, leaving odd, pale lines where they washed away dirt.

“A couple of the Cryenas got her good,” Total said, his words muffled. “And the ash—she breathed too much of it. She sacrificed herself. Miserable excuses for canines…” He coughed a bark. “Pure courage. Pure grace. That was my Akila.”

Weeping, Angel wrapped her arms around Total’s scruffy neck, and then he couldn’t keep his composure any longer.

If you’ve ever heard a dog cry, you know it’s absolutely heartbreaking, a wail that cuts to the rawest emotion and shakes it in its teeth. Total howled for Akila, but also for Dylan, for the thousands of people below, for the whole world. And by the time he was finished, every one of us was all cried out.

9

TOTAL CHOSE AKILA’S burial site at an abandoned cottage way out in the middle of nowhere. We had no clue if the soil was full of nuclear radiation or if the air was breeding deadly viruses by the second, but there was no ash cloud in sight right now, and that was good enough for us.

The cottage was run-down and looked like it hadn’t been lived in in years, but we found a shovel and a hoe in a lean-to, and Fang kicked in the front door in the hopes there would be stuff inside we could use.

We started digging in the hard, parched earth. From the corner of my eye I saw Akila’s swaddled form, and something in me felt like it had split open.

“You okay?” Fang asked. He lifted my hand and ran his thumb over my dirt-caked fingertips. “I can take over.”

His touch felt solid. Reassuring. But I just couldn’t handle it right now. I just wanted to feel my body working. I wanted to dig. Or scream.

“I’m good.” I stepped back stiffly, and Fang let his hand fall.

When the hole was ready, Fang gently placed Akila in it. Total’s soft sobs made my heart feel like it was wrapped in barbed wire, but as leader, I knew I had to step up and say a few words.

I cleared my throat. “Here lies our brave friend Akila,” I said. “She deserves better than this unmarked grave, and to tell you the truth, she deserved better than us. I wish we’d taken better care of her. But even so, she was a true and loyal friend to us, a loving wife to Total, and a fierce fighter under the worst circumstances.”

I had to clear my throat again. My eyes were burning from the hot, dry dust, and I brushed my sleeve over them. Nudge had started crying and was trying to keep the stinging tears out of her injury, which had barely started to scab over.

“I don’t know about heaven or anything,” I said gruffly. “Though God knows we’ve seen a thousand kinds of hell. But I know that somewhere, Akila is running free, the sun on her face and the wind in her fur, and she’s got plenty to eat and isn’t in pain.”

That was when I started crying. I barely got out my last words: “Good-bye, Akila.” Then I took a handful of gritty dirt and sprinkled it on her cloth. One by one, we each threw a handful of dirt on her, and then Total backed up to the pile of dirt and kicked furiously, filling in the hole faster than we could have with the shovel.

“Good-bye, my love, my princess, my beautiful bride,” he sobbed. “Our love will never die.”

We were all quiet for a couple of minutes.

“I wish we had flowers to put here,” said Angel, wiping her face and leaving a smeared streak.

“Maybe there’s something inside we could use as a marker,” Fang said, turning to the house. “Like a statue or vase or something. Be right back.” He headed inside.

We stood in awkward silence until a distant, bone-chilling howl made us all jump… and set the Gasman off.

“What else is alive out there? Max?”

“I don’t know, okay?” I said, suddenly exhausted and frustrated and so, so sad about Akila. “I don’t have all the answers. The world looks like it’s been completely obliterated. So whatever possibly survived is going to be… pretty… yucky.”

“I’m sure rats and cockroaches made it,” Iggy muttered.

“And us,” said Angel.

Dropping the shovel, I covered my face with my hands.

Breathe. Just breathe.

This was it: I had finally hit my breaking point.

“Guys?” Fang called from inside the house, oblivious. “Nudge, c’mere, I need you.”