Maximum Ride Forever (Maximum Ride 9)

90

EVERYTHING SEEMS STARKER in the daylight, doesn’t it? It’s easier to see all that you’ve lost, and all that you’ve gambled, and how hard it’s going to be to get back to where you started.

We never did have a victory celebration. After all the bombs and burned homes, no one was very excited about fireworks. And with blood still staining the field around us, no one could really imagine partying.

Not here, anyway. Not now.

Instead, for the past week, crews had worked on burying the dead and cleaning up the tent city. Others questioned captives and explored Himmel’s labyrinth of tunnels.

I had started hauling food up from the vast storage supplies of Himmel. I needed to do something with my hands—organize supplies and make plans for shelter, or plant some of the seedlings we’d found in the giant greenhouse. I needed to focus on the future.

But everything is so stark in the daylight.

I felt the faintest, mostly healed scratches on my stomach chafing against my shirt. Now that I’d said a certain two words aloud, the future was feeling like a pretty scary place.

I patted my belly button, feeling the swell that was growing a tiny bit bigger every day. I pressed my knuckles against the small curve, kneading in, but it always rebounded.

I really hoped this wasn’t going to be a great big egg to lay. How could I possibly sit still on it for nine months?

“What are you doing?” Angel asked from behind me.

I dropped my hand from my stomach and tried to clear my thoughts.

“Sorting supplies for distribution.” I tossed one of the frozen meals to her. “Dr. G-H sure loved him some TV dinners.”

“You have to put them back.” Angel was already messing with the piles I’d made. “Right now. The plants, too.” She nodded at the bean plants sprouting in the plastic containers. “They won’t survive out here in the cold, and we have to eat what we can in the forest before it’s gone.”

“What do you mean, ‘gone’? The woods are full of wild game. We’ll have lots of time to build shelters and get set up out here before winter.”

“Try nuclear winter.” Angel squinted at the hazy sky. “Do you see how thick the dust is getting? The asteroid and all the bombs sent tons of stuff into the air, and that cloud is coming our way. It’ll totally block out the sun.”

She looked at the thousands of makeshift tents strewn around us. “Tomorrow we’ll get organized, try to contact any other survivors. We’ll probably have to go underground in less than a month.”

“You want to live in the Remedy’s city?” My body recoiled instinctively at the thought of those claustrophobic tunnels, and I shook my head. “I can deal with the cold.”

“Not cold like this,” the little prophet insisted. She pinched the top of a bright green bean sprout. “They’ll grow fine in artificial light.”

Could I, though? I thought of the small life taking shape inside me, never seeing the sun, and I started to shake.

Just focus on stacking supplies, I thought, gripping the packaged food so tightly I was crushing the boxes.

You don’t have to hide it from me, Angel’s voice said in my mind. I already know.

My eyes flew to hers.

Angel smiled. “Why do you think I made Dylan and Kate stay glued to your side during the battle?” she said with a smirk.

I was confused about so many things—including whether I wanted to strangle Angel or hug her.

“I’m not ready to be a mom,” I whispered. “I don’t know what to do.”

I’d fought super-mutants and defeated dictators, but this was so far out of the realm of things I could handle, I was asking a seven-year-old for parenting advice.

“Yeah, you do.” Angel smiled, bumping my shoulder. “You mothered us, didn’t you?”

I remembered the flock’s food fights at breakfast. My utter hatred of school. The way Nudge had to remind me to brush my teeth.

Not really.