Maximum Ride Forever (Maximum Ride 9)

“Do you know why all these animals died?” I interrupted.

“Come,” the woman said, walking away. “Come with us to our home and we will talk.”

Exhausted, starving, and desperate for answers, I followed.

34

“THERE WAS A very bright flash of light, and then heat all around.” Azizi was an animated storyteller, and his breath made the candle jump.

Once inside the mud-packed hut, my hosts had pulled their cloaks down around their shoulders, and I saw that Azizi and his sister, Nuru, had albinism. “We have to cover our skin,” Nuru explained. “Or the sun cooks it.”

They reminded me of Angel and Gazzy, and it wasn’t just their fair hair and skin. Nuru was measured and unreadable, while Azizi could be goofy, filling the spaces between his sister’s silences.

“A Jeep from one of the travel groups, its windows, pfft.” Azizi made a fist and shot his fingers out to signify the explosion of glass.

The travel groups were safaris—I learned that I was in eastern Africa, in the Ngorongoro Crater. I’d gotten pretty turned around in that storm.

“And then the animals, they sink to their knees and lie down, one by one,” Azizi went on. “They raise their voices and beg for Death to come to them! And Death, he comes.”

Nuru was boiling the bones she’d collected earlier for their marrow, and she looked over to where we sat cross-legged on the mat.

“At first it was very good fortune, you can imagine. So much meat that we didn’t have to hunt. But now, as you see, the meat rots, and we are very hungry.”

“After the animals, every person we see is a burned man,” Azizi continued. “Until you.”

I leaned closer. “And what did the burn victims say?”

“One man saw a smoking tree rising into the sky, its branches full. Another said it was a pale woman standing tall with a basket on her head. My sister, she says it is God they saw in the sky.”

I chewed my lip, thinking. Dead animals, burned men. Another seemingly huge disaster, but what did it have to do with a virus in Asia, or a betrayal in Russia?

“So none of these people were actually in the center? Was everyone else killed? You didn’t wonder what happened?”

The siblings looked at each other—that silent understanding I’d seen earlier. Nuru’s voice was soft when she spoke. “Yes. We wondered. But we cannot go back to the city.”

“Why not?”

Azizi got quiet for the first time all evening. He shrugged the bright purple cloak aside, and when he unwrapped his arm, I saw that his left hand was gone at the wrist.

“In our country, albinos are said to be good fortune. Witch doctors like to lie to the people to line their pockets. So there have been attacks…”

“Someone cut your hand off?” I gasped.

“Bad fortune for me,” Azizi said, somehow able to laugh about something so horrible.

“We came to the caldera because the Masai tribe thinks we are better luck alive than dead,” Nuru said. “Many times, they bring us their cattle blood milk.” She held out a cup to me.

I didn’t particularly love the idea of the vampire diet, but I wasn’t too picky these days. I also didn’t want to be rude, so I took a long swig.

“Mmm.” The mixture was thick, closer to pudding than milk, and wonderfully warm as it went down my throat. It was salty, with a sharp, coppery tang, but it wasn’t half bad.

“Yes, it is nourishing.” Nuru nodded as I tipped the clay cup back again. “This is the last of it now, so soon we will die.”

I sputtered, choking on the dregs—I couldn’t believe I’d just gulped down the last of their stash! “I’ll help you find food,” I promised, taking Nuru’s hand.

“There is nothing.” Azizi shook his head sadly. “We have searched as far as our feet can carry us. There are only bones.”

“I can search farther than you. And I can go into the city.” I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and shrugged it off my shoulders, stretching my wings long.