Maximum Ride Forever (Maximum Ride 9)

The kids in the bleachers chorused their approval, gawking at us like we were zoo animals, and I stood fuming in front of Harry, who probably didn’t even know he should be offended right now.

“It can even form full sentences,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “And it is Maximum Ride, in case you want to memorize the name of the mutant who’s going to destroy you.”

The Remedy crossed his arms over his chest. It was supposed to look threatening, no doubt, but the way his shoulders hunched forward and his head ducked down made him look uncomfortable. Scared, even.

“Considering where you’re standing and where I’m standing, I think you might not get that chance, Maxine.”

He had actually inched back another foot.

“It’s Maximum,” I sneered. “And keeping the dangerous animals locked up is kind of cheating, isn’t it?”

The coward turned away, climbing back onto the stage to continue his lecture. He clicked open a slide titled “World Domination in a Historical Context.”

Context? Context? I have some context for him, all right.

“Did you tie up my family before you killed them?” I yelled after him, my voice shaking with fury. “When you silenced Nudge underwater, did you think she couldn’t talk, either? When you blew up Gazzy, did you have to look at his nine-year-old body parts? Or was that too much ‘context’ for you?”

“Napoleon’s downfall was ego,” he continued doggedly.

“What about your ego? Did you think you wouldn’t have to pay?” I shouted more loudly, rattling the cage. “Did you think I’d let you get away with it?”

“You might not get that chance.” His words echoed in my head, snagging on the last one: “Maxine.” Was it just a taunt, meant to infuriate me?

Or did he really not know me?

58

SOMETHING WASN’T ADDING up.

The giant had known me, and he’d said the Remedy had sent him. And the girl in the chat room, ImMargaretA, had claimed the Remedy was specifically hunting the flock. But even if they were both liars, something seemed off about this guy.

I quieted down and watched him carefully—his expressive face and breathless cadence, the way his eyes bulged with urgency.

“It was Goebbels, with his understanding that nothing human could be sacred, and the Hulk, with his appetite for complete and total destruction, who laid the foundation for our current revolution…”

Even I, with my sketchy grasp of history, could tell he was making no sense, but it didn’t matter. He rambled in circles until he had them eating up every word. He was a storyteller, for sure.

But a killer? A megalomaniac bent on world domination?

Uh-uh. This guy was a joke.

“It’s not him,” I whispered.

“Max Mum?” Harry said, looking at me.

“These kids all believe him, but I don’t. He’s not the Remedy.”

So why was he pretending to be?

Probably to save his own skin. If what I’d heard was true, the Remedy wanted to wipe the planet completely clean, sparing no su

rvivors. No one was safe… except the Remedy himself.

So this guy had conned some cleanup crews, convinced them he was their revered leader. It probably hadn’t been too hard. Doomsday was a cult, after all, made up of vulnerable kids easily duped by smooth talkers.

And the man could talk, I’d give him that. He was so desperate to sell his story, it almost made me feel sorry for him.

Almost.