Maximum Ride Forever (Maximum Ride 9)

I held the shoe out and the kids hovered in a circle. It was just a shoe, just a piece of half-melted rubber. I took a breath.

You have to do it. Do it for the flock.

“Good-bye, Dylan,” I whispered.

“Good-bye,” my flock echoed.

Then I opened my fingers. Just like that.

As I watched the sneaker plummet, I remembered Dylan falling from the roof when I’d taught him to fly, barely a year ago. The feeling of his body beside mine that night we took refuge in the desert. The tree house he had made just for me. His last words: “I’ll catch up.” Wasn’t he always trying to catch up with me? I drew a shaky breath.

No.

I dove hard, reaching toward the chunk of blackened rubber. But I was too late, and I watched the waves swallow up all that remained of Dylan.

I flipped and shot back into the sky, angry tears streaming down my face. He was just one more person who had fallen beyond my reach. Like my mom and Ella.

I’d refused to believe it. Even when Angel stopped hearing their thoughts from the underground caves, and even when the months had passed without any sign of life other than us, I couldn’t accept that we were all alone.

Their bodies could still be there, somewhere.

“Let’s turn back,” I shouted over my shoulder.

Fang looked alarmed. “You want to go back to the island?”

“It’s our home.” My words were thick, threatening another waterfall. Their home.

He flew up next to my ear. “Max, it’s a wasteland,” he said urgently. “And even if we could somehow breathe the air, we’ll never make it back before nightfall.”

“It doesn’t—”

“Them’s the rules, Max.” Angel’s voice in my head.

“I felt a pressure change a couple of miles back—I’m pretty sure we passed land to the west,” Iggy offered from my other side. Despite his blindness—or because of it—his other senses were sharper than razors. “It might be worth checking out.”

We’d passed other islands before, but most were tiny—no shelter, no fresh water. When we reached the one Iggy had felt, it was different. Bigger. We couldn’t even see where it ended. Actually, we couldn’t see much: Three active volcanoes just off the coast were spewing towers of lava and ash. It made us feel right at home. Not.

It was a big detour to get around them, but once we were closer to the huge island we saw square cliffs in the distance, spaced like jack-o’-lantern teeth. And near the water’s edge, a blur of something big and white and triangular.

Like sails billowing in the wind.

“Is that a ship?” My heart sped up.

Are there people here? Alive?

“No, it’s…” Nudge hesitated. “I think it’s the Sydney Opera House.”

I spun around to stare at her. “How do you know what that even looks like?”

“Because I know things,” she replied curtly. “More than you think I do.” And then, “Haven’t you ever seen Finding Nemo?”

I cackled. “That is not seriously what you’re basing—”

“Actually, I think I’d recognize the pinnacle of modern architecture,” Total said, “and that is not…”

I tuned him out, really studying the shoreline. I saw the skeletal remains of a bridge in the surrounding harbor, and the white blur started to look more like a building than a boat. But it didn’t make sense—Sydney, Australia, was a huge city.

I worked my wings harder, squinting through the ash to see inland. “That would mean those weird cliffs—” Angel nodded, following my thought.