Maximum Ride Forever (Maximum Ride 9)

A tornado-like blur whirled across the field. When it finally stopped spinning, the sound cut out, and Star, the last member of Fang’s gang, stood there smirking. “I remembered I had some unfinished business,” she explained with a shrug.

With the Doomsdayers no longer a threat, I realized we might just have a chance at winning this thing. I looked around, quickly taking stock. The Horsemen had been unfazed by Star’s brain-melting noise. Our kids were ganging up on them now, but even against ten of our soldiers, the new mutants were fierce, clearly made to be killing machines.

My heart beat faster as I scanned the muddied mess for my flock.

There were Nudge and Total, getting their revenge against a Cryena with the help of the silo girls.

Iggy, Ratchet, and Star were using their collective supersenses to make a metal mutant shake all over, until sparks shot out of its fingertips.

I inhaled the distinctive stink of greasy canine fur. An Eraser on steroids was making a beeline for me, and I took to the air and assumed an offensive stance. My muscles quivered with readiness, waiting for the ballet of an aerial fight stacked way against me.

That didn’t happen, though, because Dylan slammed into the Eraser first, again, getting between us and snapping its jaw with a well-aimed kick.

“You can’t take on everyone!” I yelled angrily as Boy Wonder finished off Teen Wolf. “I have dibs on that Eraser over there,” I said, pointing. “OKAY?!”

“Max, wait!” Dylan grabbed for my arm. “You can’t fight right now—don’t be stupid.”

My eyes almost bugged out of my head. If there was ever a time that I was going to actually rip someone’s head off, it was then. I was many things, but I was not stupid.

“Wh-what I mean is,” Dylan stuttered, seeing the rage in my eyes, “now that the Doomsday kids are down, the entrance is clear.” He pointed, and I saw it was true. “I think our soldiers can handle the rest of the Horsemen.… So do you want to meet the Remedy, or not?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Now you’re talking.”

82

NOT THAT FINDING the Remedy was so easy. Underground, I followed Dylan through the dank tunnels filled with stale air, and I was pretty sure we were going in circles.

“It didn’t look like this before,” Dylan explained. “It was a huge city, with skyscrapers and neon lights.”

“Uh-huh. And what is this, the subway station?” In every direction, all I saw were damp, sloped walls lit by faint tracking lights.

“I mean they were three-D projections,” Dylan said irritably. “And my eyesight isn’t so great after Gazzy’s explosion in the silo, okay? Here. I think this is the door to the lab.”

“I got this,” I assured him. “You take the mansion.”

Dylan didn’t want to split up, but we needed to cover as much ground as possible. There was no way I was letting the Remedy slip through my fingers.

Still, as my footsteps echoed down the hall, I started to feel uneasy. The air was getting colder with every step, but even if it had been a hundred degrees down there, the place would’ve given me chills.

I didn’t know if there would be a bunch more newly created Horsemen to attack me or a blast of gas to knock me out, but everything about this place felt wrong.

When I pulled open the single door at the end of the hallway, I understood why.

It was an exact replica of the lab I’d grown up in. The same large dog crates lining the walls. The same gurneys covered with crinkly paper sheets. The test tubes and scalpels. The same acrid, chemical smell of disinfectant.

A whitecoat was there, his back to me, and my stomach clenched as I flashed back to the years spent being poked and dissected on a table like this, sweating with fever as various drugs worked their way through my system, vomiting from exhaustion as they put us through test after test.

My breath was coming in shallow little bursts, and I was trying very hard not to completely give in to a panic attack as I crept forward.

“Hello, Max,” the whitecoat said, and I stopped in my tracks, the hair rising on the back of my neck as the last piece of this little nostalgic puzzle snapped into place. The man turned around, and when he pulled the blue mask down from his face, he was smiling.

“Jeb,” I said, shaking my head in disgust. “I wondered how you fit into all of this. I should’ve known it had to do with your passion for cloning your pathetic little wolfboy son, ad infinitum.”

Jeb looked pained, and he took off his surgical glasses and massaged his eyelids. “Max, when Ari died, I was devastated. I just wanted to bring him back, the way he was.”

“A murderous sociopath with staggering daddy issues?”

Jeb leaned against the counter and crossed his arms, sighing heavily in that way parents do when they want to apologize without apologizing and instead skirt responsibility entirely.