fter about half an hour, I felt like I’d worked most of the kinks out of my muscles. I knew tomorrow I’d be horribly sore, but right now I felt okay, and right now was what mattered. I flew hard and fast, coasting on air currents whenever I could.

This time, I didn’t look down.

An hour later, I was approaching the meeting place, praying that Nudge and Fang had waited for me.

I was two days late, and I wouldn’t blame them for giving up on me, but I didn’t want to think about the possibility that they had decided to rescue Angel on their own.

When I got close to the meeting place, I started circling big, losing altitude slowly while examining the ground, the cliffs, the shadows. Nothing.

I flew the length of a canyon, looking for signs, but was disappointed again. Panic made my throat tighten. I’d been so stupid.

Oh, God, what if they had never made it here? What if-

A shadow fell across me, and I glanced up, thinking, helicopter! But it wasn’t-just a scattered flock of hawks above me, wheeling through the sky.

I frowned and angled myself upward. Several of the hawks were oddly large and misshapen. But they were flying right along with the others and seemed part of their flock. I squinted and focused, all the time gaining altitude.

My heart swelled-there were four way-too-big hawks, all right. Except hawks usually weren’t quite as awkward as these four. And hawks didn’t usually wear sneakers.

They had waited for me, all right, and they were safe. Relief and joy flooded through my body and soul. Now we would go find Angel, and then the flock would be whole again.

And yes, I did say soul.

They spotted me, and bright, goofy smiles lit the faces of the Gasman and Nudge.

Iggy of course didn’t see me at all, and Fang wasn’t a big smiler. He caught my eye and motioned with his head, over toward a cliff. It had been only two days since I’d seen him, but he seemed to be flying with a new grace and power, his fourteen-foot wingspan glinting darkly in the sun. As we got closer, Nudge squealed happily, brushing her wing against mine. “Max! Max! I can’t believe it! Can I believe it?”

Fang landed first, almost disappearing into nothing. It was only when I was about twenty feet from the cliff that I saw he had tucked into a shallow ledge scraped out of the cliff face. It was an excellent waiting place.

One after another, we flew in and landed, scurrying toward the back of the cave so others could come in after us. We were together. We five were safe, at least.

“Max!” Nudge cried, rushing over to hug me. Her thin arms gripped me tight, and I hugged her back, scratching her wings where they joined her shoulders, the way she liked. “We were so worried-I didn’t know what had happened to you, and we didn’t know what to do, and Fang said we were going to eat rats, and-“

“Okay, okay. Everything’s okay,” I told her. I met Fang’s eyes over her shoulder and mouthed Rats? silently. A flicker of a grin crossed his lips and then was gone. I looked down into Nudge’s big brown eyes. “I’m just so glad to see you safe,” I told her. I turned to the Gasman and Iggy. “What are you two doing here? Why didn’t you stay home?”

“We couldn’t,” the Gasman began earnestly. “There were Erasers all over the mountain. They were hunting for us. We’d be dog meat by now.”

“When did they start hunting for you?” I asked, startled. “Right after we left?”

“No,” said the Gasman slowly. He slanted a glance at Iggy, who was standing impassively, brushing dust he couldn’t see off his dark pants.

“What?” I said, suspicion starting to rise in me. “When did they start coming after you?”

“Was it-was it after the oil-slick Hummer crash?” the Gasman asked Iggy tentatively.

My eyes widened. Oil-slick Hummer crash?

Iggy rubbed his chin, thinking.

“Or maybe it was more-after the bomb,” the Gasman said in a low voice, looking down.

“I think it was the bomb,” Iggy agreed. ‘That definitely seemed to tick them off.”

“Bomb?” I asked incredulously. “Bomb? You guys set off a bomb? Didn’t that tell the Erasers exactly where you were? You should have stayed hidden!”

“They already knew where we were,” the Gasman explained. ‘They’d seen all of us-they knew we were in the area.”

“It was just a matter of time,” Iggy agreed.

I didn’t know what to say. To tell you the truth, I hadn’t actually considered the fact that the Erasers might find our house. I opened my mouth and closed it again, at a loss. Maybe in about twenty years I would get the hang of dealing with boys. And maybe not.

“Well, I’m glad you’re safe,” I said lamely, and heard Fang trying to smother his laughter. I ignored him. “You were right to come here. Smart thinking. Excellent.”

I hugged the Gasman, then Iggy, who was almost five inches taller than I am, I realized. I hugged Nudge again, and she clung to me as I stroked her hair. “It’s okay, sweetie,” I said softly.

Finally, she let me go and I reached out to hug Fang. Fang is not the huggiest person in the world-he turns into an unbending statue, and you just have to do the best you can. Which I did.

Then I held my left hand out in a fist, and the other four instantly stacked their left fists on top of it. We each tapped the other’s hands twice, then threw our arms up in the air.

“To Angel!” I yelled, and their voices echoed mine.

“To Angel! To Angel!”

Then, one by one, we fell off the side of the cliff, opened our wings, and headed for the hated, dreaded School.

“Okay,” I said, once we were high, flying with a steady rhythm. “How about some quick reports?”

“I tried to find my mom,” Nudge said with no warning.

“Whaaat?” My eyes went as wide as they could go. “Your mom?”

Nudge shrugged. “I made Fang go down to Tipisco while we were waiting for you. We found the right address. I saw a woman, and she was my kind of color, but I wasn’t sure. Then the Erasers, including that dirtbag Ari, showed up, so we kicked butt and left.”

It took me a minute to digest this. “So you didn’t talk to her? Umm, your mom?”

“No.” Nudge carefully examined her fingernails, keeping her wings moving steadily.

“Did she look nice?” I was consumed with curiosity. Parents were something we all obsessed about, talked about constantly, cried about-if truth be told.

“I’ll tell you about it later,” Nudge said offhandedly, so I knew it had gone badly.

I narrowed my eyes at Gazzy and Iggy. “We know what you’ve been up to,” I said. Gazzy gave me his sweet, abashed smile. That kid.

Time for news of my own.

“I think I have a tracer chip implanted in me,” I said baldly, feeling a coaster current in my face. I angled my wings and glided. “I’m not positive, but it showed up on an X-ray, and that’s what it looked like.”

Jaws dropped. Everyone stared at me in horror.

“You had an X-ray?” Fang looked incredulous.

I nodded. “Details later. If I do have this chip, it explains all the Erasers everywhere-but not why it’s taken them four years to hunt us down. And I don’t know if any of you have one,” I added, seeing the question on Iggy’s face.

Everyone was quiet, flying with their thoughts and fears.

Then, “Max? Do you think there’s still a chance?” The Gasman was forcing himself to be strong. Another reason I like that kid.

“I don’t know. I hope so,” I said honestly. Honesty is always good, except when it’s better to lie. Like to protect them. “I know I’ve delayed us by two days. I’m really sorry about that. I just did what I felt I had to do. But we’ve come this far-there’s no turning back. We’re going after Angel, no matter what.”

There were a few moments of silence, as if we were all gathering our courage again. I know I was, trying to pull my strength into a tight, hard ball that would carry me through the rest of the day, as we headed back to our worst nightmare.

Anybody’s worst nightmare, believe me.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, but all of us in the flock have an inborn sense of direction. I don’t know how it works. We just always know which way we’re going. So we rocketed west-northwest for a good two hours. Many of the hawks whose cliff Fang and Nudge had shared stayed with us, flying in loose formation. Our new best pals.

“We learned some stuff from the hawks,” Fang said, seeing me watch them. “Some banking moves, how they communicate, stuff like that.”

“They’re really cool,” Nudge added, flying closer to me. “They, like, use the tips of their feathers to help aim them, and we tried it, and it was amazing. A little thing like that makes such a difference. Like, I practically didn’t even know I could move those feathers.”

“Can you teach us what you learned?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure,” said Fang.

We ate our last granola bars in midair. We flew over desert, mountains, rivers, scrubby plains. I only looked down when I had to, and forced myself not to think about Ella or her mom, who I missed like a real mom.

I watched the hawks, imitating their moves, banking, tailing, soaring, diving-all the things they were doing, minus the dead rodents. I was exhilarated to be included among those fierce, awesome birds. When they split away from us at the edge of their territory, I was sad to see them go.

Just as I was starting to feel shaky from lack of sugar, our markers came into view. Signaling to the others, I headed downward, aiming for a small wood on the backside of a foothill.

It was a pretty unpopulated area, and I couldn’t see much activity, except for a strip mall about a mile away.

We landed and looked around. I rubbed my aching shoulder. “Okay, we need food. And a street map wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world.”

“The School isn’t going to show up on any map,” Fang said.

“I know. But we know pretty much where it is- there’ll be a blank space on the map, but it would still help us to find roads to get there,” I said.

Fifteen minutes of hiking brought us to the back of the strip mall. It was a decent-sized place, with a dollar store, gas station, a freestanding bank machine, dry cleaner, and a beauty salon. No food, except at the gas station store.

“Need to get your hair done?” Fang asked, and I elbowed him. Like I’d ever had my hair done in my life. Mostly I whacked it shorter with the kitchen scissors when it got too annoying.

“Well, what now?” the Gasman asked. “Should we keep going?”

“Let me think,” I muttered, looking the mall up and down. Hitchhiking was out of the question-we’d end up murdered in a ditch or something. It was at least ten miles to the School. We could fly it, but I didn’t want to approach from the air. So we’d have to walk, but it would, take a while, and we were already hungry.

“Okay,” I said finally. “Looks like we’ll have to-“

I was interrupted by the squeal of a car pulling in. Without speaking, we, drew back into a clump of bushes by the side of the building. A fancy gray car with a silver hood ornament roared up by the little bank machine.

The window opened, and loud music spilled out. A slick-looking guy leaned toward the machine, a cell phone up to his ear.

“Shut up, you idiot!” he was saying. “If you hadn’t lost your card, I wouldn’t need cash!”

The man stuck his arm out and pushed his card into the machine. Quickly, he punched in his code, then waited. “That’s what I get for trusting you with anything!” he snapped into the phone. “You can’t handle getting dressed in the morning!”

“Jerk,” Nudge whispered next to me. I nodded.

Like magic, the machine spit some green bills through a slit, and the man snatched them and started counting. The next moment, a big black pickup truck screeched into the parking lot, way close to the fancy car. Its rear tires spun and spit rocks, and we could hear little pinging noises as they hit the cushmobile.

We shrank back farther into the woods. Goose bumps rose on my arms, and my breath caught in my throat. Erasers? The chip I had. Should I run now, getting the Erasers to follow me and leave the flock alone?

“He’s going to go ballistic,” Fang predicted quietly.

Veins practically popping out of his neck, the jerk leaned out his window and yelled a bunch of swear words, including a new one I tucked away in my brain for future use, if necessary.

The darkened window of the pickup rolled down, and I inhaled silently.

“What’d you say, dipstick?” Ari asked with a creepy smile.

I swallowed hard, my muscles tightening. I put my hand on Gazzy’s shoulder. “Shhh. Shhhh.”

The jerk in the gray car’s eyes bugged out, and the next thing we knew, he had stomped on his gas pedal. His car leaped forward.

Ari laughed like a maniac, and the black pickup peeled out too, spraying gravel. Five heartbeats later, we could barely hear the roar of the two engines racing down the road.

“He gets around,” said Fang quietly.

“Was Ari’s hair green?” I asked, confused.

“Yep,” Nudge said, unusually brief.

The five of us looked at one another-well, not Iggy, so much-then at the ATM.

It was beeping quietly. We glanced around. There were people inside the stores, but the machine faced away from them. Without saying a word, we dropped low and slipped across the parking lot.

None of us had ever used one of these. For some strange reason, the mad scientists at the School had neglected to set up bank accounts and trust funds for us.

Fortunately, the machine was designed to be used by idiots.

Do you want another transaction? it asked in orange letters.

“Get cash,” Fang advised unnecessarily.

“You think?” I said snidely.

“Hurry,” the Gasman said.

I hit the withdrawal button.

Please enter the amount you wish to withdraw.

I hesitated. “Sixty dollars?” That would buy a lot of food, right?

“He was a total jerk,” said Fang. ‘Take him for all he’s got.”

I grinned. “You are evil. I like that.” I worked my way through the account balances, and we all stared and whistled.

“Oh, yeah, oh, yeah,” Nudge sang, doing a little dance. “We’re ri-ich, we’re gonna buy a ca-ar, oh, yeah.”

You might not know this, but ATMs have a built-in limit of how much dough they’re willing to give you at one time. So our plans to buy our own country crumbled. However, it was willing to give me two hundred bucks.

Once we punched in our access code again, for security purposes.

“Oh, no,” I groaned. “Did anyone see it?”

“I heard it,” said Iggy slowly.

“I think if we put in the wrong code more than twice, the whole thing shuts down and swallows the card,” said Fang.

“Can you do it?” I asked Iggy.

“Um, I’ll try…” Iggy hesitantly put his hand over the keypad. His sensitive fingers oriented themselves to the keys.

“It’s okay, Ig,” said Fang. “Just give it your best shot.” Sometimes the Fangster is incredibly supportive, just not with me.

Iggy punched in five numbers, and we all held our breath.

Access denied. Please check your PIN and try AGAIN.

“Try again,” I said tensely. “You’ve got the best ears on the planet.”

Once again, Iggy’s pale hand hovered over the keyboard. He concentrated and punched in five numbers.

Nothing. My heart sank down into my stomach.

Then the machine started whirring, and soon a stack of twenties shot out.

“Yes!” said Fang, punching the air. “Freaks rule.”

“Grab it and go!” I said as Nudge began pulling out bills and stuffing them into her pockets. We were turning to run when the machine beeped again.

Thank you for your business. Please take your card.

“Okay, thank you,” I said, grabbing the card. Then we ran back to the woods. Well, we ran and flew.

For some reason, I didn’t feel too bad about taking that guy’s money. Maybe because he seemed like such a jerk. We were like his karma getting back at him.

I don’t know. I do know that I wouldn’t have stolen even ajar of peanut butter from Ella and her mom. Never. Nothing.

“Too bad we couldn’t get more,” Fang said, counting the money.

“Let’s go back to the gas station and buy a bunch of food,” Nudge urged.

I shook my head. “People there may have already seen us. We’ve got to get out of here.”

While we’d hidden in the woods, a red van had pulled up behind one of the stores. A young guy had unloaded some stuff from the back of it, then headed inside. Before the door swung shut, we saw him punch a time card.

So he was at work for at least a couple hours, till his first break.

And there was his van, just sitting there.

Fang and I looked at each other.

“Money from a jerk is one thing,” I said. “A car from just a guy is something else.”

“We’d only need to borrow it for a few hours,” Fang said. “We could leave him some money as a rental fee.”

“Are we stealing that car?” the Gasman asked. “Let’s.”

I frowned. “No. We’re sort of thinking about borrowing it.” On the one hand, I really didn’t want to become a teenage criminal. On the other hand, every minute that ticked by was another minute closer to Angel’s being the number one dissection lesson for a bunch of rabid geneticists.

“That’s like Grand Theft Auto,” the Gasman said helpfully. “I saw it on TV. It’s popular with kids.”

“Better ‘borrow’ it soon,” advised Iggy. “I hear a chopper.”

I made an executive decision. And yeah, I know-my karma’s going to come back and get me, too.

In movies, people always “borrow” cars by yanking some wires out from under the dash and connecting them. But the real way it works involves a screwdriver and the starter thingy, under the hood. My personal ethics prevent me from giving you more information. That’d be just what I need: a rash of car thefts across America, committed by dedicated readers.

I don’t think so.

Anyway, I did the engine thing while Iggy sat in the driver’s seat, pressing the gas. The motor grumbled into life, I slammed the hood, and we jumped into the van.

My heart was pounding at about two hundred beats a minute.

Then I just stared at the controls.

“Oh, my God,” said Fang. “None of us has ever driven.”

It wasn’t like him to have missed this important detail.

“I’ve seen people drive on TV,” I said, trying to sound confident. “How hard could it be?” I knew about the whole neutral, park, drive thing, so I put it into D.

“Okay, guys,” I said. “Here goes nothing.”

You might not know this, but cars have a separate parking brake, not just the foot pedal one. That brake is often not immediately obvious to the naked eye.

Attempting to drive a car before you find and release the parking brake is like trying to drag a Saint Bernard into a bathtub. But enough on that.

“Okay, okay, we’re doing okay,” I said twenty minutes later, after I finally found and released the parking brake. I felt like I was at the helm of a huge, clumsy runaway elephant.

I was sweating and about to jump out of my skin with anxiety about driving, but I tried to look way confident and calm. “I mean, it’s not as good as flying, but it beats the heck out of walking!”

I smiled bravely over at Fang to see him giving me a steady look. “What?”

“Could you take it easy on the hairpin turns?” he said.

“I’m getting better,” I said. “I just had to practice.”

“I didn’t know a van could go up on two wheels like that,” Nudge said. “For so long.”

“I don’t want to barf in a borrowed car,” the Gasman said.

I pressed my lips together and focused on the road. In-grates. “We need to turn east in about five hundred yards,” I muttered, peering out the van window.

A half mile later, I pulled over and rested my head against the steering wheel. “Where the heck is the road?” I bellowed in frustration. ‘There’s no freaking road there!”

“You’re going by your own directional senses,” Fang pointed out.

“And there can’t be roads everywhere you feel like there should be a road,” Iggy added reasonably.

I wanted to smack them both.

Sighing, I pulled out onto the turnoff-less road and did a U-ey.

“I’ll just have to take a less efficient route,” I said. I hated the sense of time ticking by, of not knowing whether Angel was still alive. And worse, I hated knowing I was getting closer and closer to the School, where everything bad that had ever happened to us had taken place. It felt like I was driving toward certain death, and it was hard to make myself do that.

“Argh!” After yet another unexpected turn that led us away from where we should have been going, I pulled over again and punched the steering wheel several times. Every one of my muscles was tense from driving and worry. I had a bad headache. Lately, I’d been having a lot of headaches. Gee, I wonder why?

“It’s okay, Max,” the Gasman said anxiously.

“Is she hitting the steering wheel?” Iggy asked.

“Look,” said Fang, pointing to a sign. “There’s a town up ahead. Let’s go there, get something to eat, and find an actual map. ‘Cause this wandering thing ain’t workin’”

Bennett was a small, almost cute town. I sat up tall in the driver’s seat and frowned, trying to look older. There were several places to eat. I turned into a parking lot slowly and then oh-so-carefully edged the van toward the back of the lot, away from everyone else.

I turned off the engine, and Nudge and Gazzy sprang for the door. “We’re alive!” yelled the Gasman.

“Wait!” I told them. “Look, we’re really close to the School. This might feel like the middle of nowhere, but really, Erasers could be anywhere and anyone. You know that. So we have to be careful.”

“We have to eat,” Nudge said, trying not to whine. It was hard on her-she seemed to burn through calories faster than anyone, except maybe the Gasman.

“I know, Nudge,” I said gently. “We’re going to. I’m just saying be really careful. Be on guard, be ready to run, okay? Anybody we see could be an Eraser.”

They nodded. I flipped down the visor so I could check myself in the mirror, and something small and heavy dropped into my lap.

I froze, my breath stuck in my throat. What-?

Gingerly, I looked down. It wasn’t a grenade. It was a key ring. One key was for this van. I looked at it blankly.

“Well, that’ll simplify things,” Fang said.

“I want my room to smell just like this.” Iggy inhaled deeply as the scents of flame-broiled burgers and hot french fries wafted around us.

“It would be an improvement,” I agreed, reading the menu board. My stomach felt like it was trying to digest itself. I was shaky with tension and adrenaline, and felt like I was going to come apart at the seams.

The fast-food restaurant was crowded and jarringly noisy. All of us felt nervous when we were around regular people. We shuffled into line, trying to be inconspicuous. As far as I could tell, no one here was an Eraser.

But of course Erasers looked pretty normal-until they started morphing and tried to bite your freaking head off.

“I don’t eat meat anymore,” Nudge announced. At my uncomprehending stare, she said, “Not after seeing the hawks go through rabbits and snakes and other birds. It’s just icky.”

Fang stepped up and ordered three double cheeseburgers, a chocolate shake, a soda with caffeine and sugar, three fries, three apple pies.

“Feeding a crowd?” the woman behind the counter asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Fang said sweetly.

Yeah, him and all his split personalities, I thought. I turned back to Nudge.

“Okay,” I said, reaching deep into my well of leaderly patience. “But you still need lots of protein.”

Iggy ordered the same thing as Fang, and I paid for him. Fang waited for him to get his food and unobtrusively led him to the most private booth.

“Um, let’s see,” I said, stepping up. “Could I have two fried-chicken sandwiches, two double cheeseburgers, four fries, six apple pies, two vanilla shakes, one strawberry shake, and then two triple cheeseburgers, only hold the hamburger?”

“You mean, just cheese on the bun? No meat?”

“Yes. That would be great.” I looked over at Nudge, who nodded.

I was about to faint from hunger, and smelling all the food was killing me. Standing beside me, the Gasman was shifting from foot to foot, looking eager. It seemed like a lifetime before we got our three loaded trays, paid, and joined Fang and Iggy in the back.

Another glance around showed happy families, kids blowing straw wrappers, women talking together, teens hanging out. I sat down warily, and Nudge slid in next to me. The Gasman squeezed in next to her.

Am I tough? Am I strong? Am I hard-core? Absolutely.

Did I whimper with pathetic delight when I sank my teeth into my hot fried-chicken sandwich? You betcha.

Nudge was tearing into her cheese bun things, Fang was on his second burger, Iggy could hardly breathe through all the food in his mouth, and the Gasman was wolfing fries by the fistful. We probably looked like starving orphan children. Hey! We were starving orphan children. For several minutes all you could hear were disgusting chomping noises. I had a sudden flashback to the fun, civilized meals with Ella and her mom, where we used napkins and good manners and talked about normal things.

Great. Now I was choking up and having trouble swallowing.

I’m not sure when it happened, but slowly I became aware that my neck muscles were tensing. I glanced at Fang, who was looking at me sideways while he ate his french fries. / knew that look.

Acting tres casual, I glanced around again. The couple of families who’d been sitting close by were gone. Now it looked as if a bunch of male models had suddenly gotten the munchies. They were surrounding us, tables of them.

All good-looking, thick-haired guys with big, pretty eyes and the voices of angels.

Oh, man. My stomach dropped like a wheelbarrow full of lead.

I gave Fang an almost imperceptible nod and glanced back at the fire exit door behind him. He blinked to show he understood. Then he tapped Iggy’s hand.

“Nudge,” I said under my breath. “Gazzy. Don’t look up. In three seconds, jump over Fang and out that exit door.”

Giving no sign they had heard me, Nudge and Iggy kept chewing. Nudge casually took a sip of her shake. Then, in a burst, she leaped up, sprang off our table, and practically crashed through the fire door. The Gasman was practically glued to her back.

I was so proud of them.

The alarm started clanging, but I was right behind them-and Fang and Iggy were on my heels. We made it to the van before the Erasers were out the door.

Inside, I jammed the key into the ignition and cranked the engine. Erasers were swarming into the parking lot, already starting to become wolflike.

I stomped on the gas and reversed fast, crying out when we felt the thunk of an Eraser being hit. Then I yanked the gear stick into D and we roared over the curb, right through the shrubs that lined the parking lot. The tires squealed as I careened out into traffic, causing a bunch of angry honking from other cars.

I cut right through a gas station on the corner, narrowly avoiding hitting several cars. On the other side, I roared back into traffic.

“Max!” Nudge screamed, but I had seen the semitrailer too, and swerved out of its way at the last second. Behind me, I heard the crunch of metal as the truck scraped a car. Then I was weaving in and out of traffic, wishing I knew how to drive better, wishing we had stolen something besides a van.

“It’s so bulky!” I cried in frustration as we teetered on two wheels again just turning a corner. Okay, turning fast. But still.

“It’s a van,” Fang said, as though blaming me for not stealing a race car.

We sped out of town-I had to get away from all this traffic. My adrenaline was pumping, my arms felt like corded cables on the steering wheel. We had to ditch this van.

“I’m gonna stop!” I yelled over the noise of the engine. “Jump out and get into the air as fast as you can!”

“Okay!” the flock yelled back.

A glance in the rearview mirror showed three black cars following us, catching up to us. They were going a lot faster than we were. I had to buy time.

Gritting my teeth, I swung off road suddenly, right into a field of corn. We plowed through the dry stalks, wincing as they smacked the windshield. I tried to zigzag as best I could, and then a bit of light up ahead made me hopeful for a road.

I didn’t see anything in the rearview mirror, and the sound of crunching cornstalks was too loud for me to hear other engines. Had we lost them? And yes, here was a road! Excellent!

The van tumbled heavily out onto the road, with bone-jolting bumps. As soon as the front tires hit asphalt, I gunned the motor again-

Just as a sedan leaped out in front of us.

I hit it head-on at sixty miles an hour.

Note to self: Disable the air bags on the next car you steal.

The thing about airbags is that when you hit something at fifty or sixty miles an hour, they inflate with enough raw force to slam you back against your seat like a rag doll, possibly breaking your face. Which is what this one had done to me, I concluded, trying to stem the gush of blood from my nose.

“Report,” I called weakly.

“Okay here,” Fang said next to me. His neck was scraped raw by the seat belt, which had almost decapitated him.

“Okay here,” Nudge said from the backseat, sounding young and scared. I craned around to see her. She was pale, except where her forehead was bruised from hitting Fang’s seat. Her eyes widened with shock when she saw my bloody face.

“It’s just my nose,” I quickly assured her. “Head wounds always bleed a lot. Look, it’s already stopping.” A lie.

“I feel like, like pudding,” Iggy groaned. “Pudding with nerve endings. Pudding in great pain.”

“I feel sick,” the Gasman said, his face white, lips pale and bloodless.

Crash!

All around us, windows smashed, and we jumped and threw our arms over our faces. I saw a gun hammering at the glass, then hairy hands with ragged claws popped the doors open.

There was no time even to get a good kick in-Fang and I were hauled out of the van and thrown to the ground.

“Run!” I bawled, then hissed in a breath as my nose took another jarring blow.

I glanced up in time to see the rear doors of the van open and Iggy and the Gasman shoot into the air. A rush of pure joy made me beam, then gag as fresh blood ran into my mouth.

I spit it out as the Erasers roared with fury and started shooting at the boys. But Iggy and Gazzy continued to soar into the air. Yes, yes, yes!

A kicking and shrieking Nudge was yanked from the back of the van and tossed down next to me. Tears were in her eyes, and I reached out to hold her.

An Eraser kicked me hard with his hand-sewn Italian boot. Ow!

“Tag. You’re it,” Ari cracked, and the others laughed, almost dancing with monstrous excitement and glee.

“It’s almost like you don’t want to go back to School,” he went on, showing his razor-sharp yellow teeth, dripping Eraser drool on me.

There were five Erasers and three of us. I’m weirdly, incredibly strong for my size, but Ari outweighed me by about 160 pounds, and he kept his booted foot pressed hard against my forehead. I wanted a shot at him-just one lethal, brain-splattering shot.

I met Fang’s eyes, which were dark and expressionless, and then Nudge’s. I tried to give her a reassuring smile, but since my face was one big gore-fest, it didn’t have the cheering effect I’d hoped for.

Then we all heard the horrible whup, whup of a chopper headed our way, and the Erasers started to shout and wave their arms.

“What a touching scene,” Ari called down at me. “We’re all going home. Just like old times.”

Angel was alive. As long as she was, I could deal with just about anything else.

I knew she was alive because I could see her in the pitiful cage next to mine. If we pushed our fingers through our bars as hard as we could, we were an inch away from actually touching each other.

“At least they gave you a big crate,” she said in a small, raspy voice. “I’m in a medium.”

My throat closed up. That she was still trying to be brave just rocked my world. I felt ashamed for taking so long to get here, ashamed for letting the Erasers catch us, ashamed for being a failure, even as a freak.

“It’s not your fault,” she said, reading my thoughts. She looked just terrible. Her eyes were hollow and smudged with huge purple shadows. One whole side of her face was a bruise going yellow and green at the edges. Angel looked thin and dry, like a leaf, her bones as delicate as stems. Her feathers were limp and dirty.

Across the aisle from us, Nudge and Fang were in crates of their own. Nudge looked really shaky, trying to get her fear under control but losing the fight. Fang sat with his hands clasped around his knees, not moving. He’d smiled at Angel when he’d first seen her, but mostly he looked cool, removed, distant. He was retreating into himself, the only place left to retreat to.

“I’m sorry, Max,” Angel whispered, her eyes troubled. “This is all my fault.”

“Don’t be dumb,” I told her, sounding Elmer Fuddish because of my clogged and broken nose. “It could happen to any of us. And it’s my fault that Fang, Nudge, and I got caught.”

All around me, the smells of cold metal and antiseptic were awakening horrible memories I had buried deep a long time ago. Flashes of light, pain, and fear kept popping inside my head, making me feel a little crazy. My nose had finally stopped bleeding, but it hurt. My headache was back-big-time-and I was seeing flashes of the strangest images. What was that all about?

“Max, there’s something I have to tell you.” Angel started to cry.

“Shh,” I said soothingly. “It can wait. Just rest. Try to feel better.”

“No, Max, it’s really important-“

A door opened, and loud footsteps sounded on the linoleum tile. Angel’s eyes were panicked in her bruised little face. Fury ignited in me that anything, anyone, could make a little girl so afraid.

I coiled my muscles, narrowing my eyes and putting on my fiercest look. They were going to be sorry they ever picked Angel to mess with. They were going to be sorry they’d ever been born.

My hands clenched into fists. I crouched in my crate, ready to spring at whoever opened it so I could rip their lungs out. I’d start with Ari, the creep of creeps.

Angel was hunched over now, crying silently, and inside I started freaking, wondering what on earth they had done to her. I felt totally wired on adrenaline, just nuts.

A pair of legs stopped right in front of my crate. I could see the edges of a white lab coat brushing the knees.

He bent down and looked into my crate with a gentle, rueful expression.

My heart almost stopped, and I fell backward off my heels.

“Maximum Ride,” said Jeb Batchelder. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much.”

I’m hallucinating, I thought dazedly. I’m having an out-of-body experience.

Everything else in my vision faded away. I could see only Jeb, smiling at me through the bars of my dog crate.

Jeb had been the only parentlike person I’d ever had. He had kidnapped the six of us four years ago, stolen us away from this freak show and hidden us in the mountains in our house. He’d helped us learn how to fly- none of us had ever been allowed enough space to try before. He’d fed us, clothed us, and taught us survival skills, how to fight, how to read. He’d told jokes and read stories and let us play video games. He’d made us dinner and tucked us in at night. Whenever I’d felt afraid, I’d remind myself that Jeb was there and that he would protect us, and then I’d always feel better.

Two years ago, he’d disappeared.

We’d always known he’d been killed. We’d known that he would have died rather than disclose our location. That he died trying to protect us. That kind of thing.

For the last two years, we’d all missed Jeb so much, with a horrible, aching, wailing pain that just wouldn’t stop. You know-like if your dad or mom died. It had been so awful in the beginning, when he hadn’t come home, and then when we’d had to accept that he never would.

Dead or alive, he’d been my hero. Every day. For the last four years.

Now my eyes were telling me that he was one of them. That maybe he’d been one of them all along. That everything I’d ever known or felt about him had been a rotten, stinking lie.

Now Angel’s words, her fear, her tears, made horrible sense. She’d known.

I was dying to look at her, at Fang or Nudge, to see their reactions.

I just wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

Like a door slamming shut, everything in me that had loved and trusted Jeb closed down. In its place rose new feelings that were so powerful and full of hate that they scared me.

Which is saying something.

“I know you’re surprised,” he said with a smile. “Come on. I need to talk to you.”

He unlatched my dog door and held it open. In a nanosecond, I had a plan of action: not to act. Just to listen and watch. To absorb everything and give out nothing.

Okay, as a plan, it wasn’t the blueprint of Westminster Abbey, but it was a start.

Slowly, I climbed out of my crate. My muscles groaned when I stood up. I didn’t look at any of the flock when I passed, but I put my right hand behind my back, two fingers together.

It was our sign that said “Wait.”

Jeb had taught it to us.

Jeb and I walked past a bank of computers, out of sight of the others. A door in the far wall led into a smaller, less lablike room furnished with couches, a table and chairs, a sink, microwave.

“Sit down, Max, please,” he said, gesturing to a chair. “I’ll get us some hot chocolate.” He said it casually, knowing it was my favorite, as if we were in the kitchen back home.

“Max, I have to tell you-I’m so proud of you,” he said, putting mugs in the microwave. “I just can’t believe how well you’ve done. No, I can believe it-I knew you could do it. But seeing you so healthy, so powerful, such a good leader, well, it just makes me so proud.”

The microwave beeped, and he set a steaming mug on the table in front of me. We were in a top-secret facility in the middle of Death Valley, officially called “freaking nowhere” on any map, and yet he managed to produce marshmallows, plopping two into my cup.

I looked at him steadily, ignoring the hot chocolate, which was making my stomach growl.

He paused as if to give me time to reply, then sat down across from me at the table. It was Jeb-my brain finally accepted the inescapable truth. I recognized the fine pink scar on his jawline, the slight bend to his nose, the tiny freckle on his right ear. This was not his evil twin. It was him. He was evil.

“You must have so many questions,” he said. “I don’t even know where to start. I just-I’m just so sorry about this. I wish I could explain-wish I could have explained two years ago, to you, if no one else. I wish I could explain what I’d give just to see you smile again.”

How about your head on a stick?

“But in time, Max, it will all come out, and you’ll understand what’s happening. That’s what I told Angel. I told her that everything is a test, even when you don’t know it. That sometimes you just have to do what you have to do and know it will all be clearer later. All of this has been a test.” He waved his hand vaguely, as if to encompass my entire experience.

I sat there, conscious that my sweatshirt was crusted with blood, that my face hurt, that I was hungry again- quelle surprise-and that I had never, ever wanted to kill anyone more, not even last summer when Iggy had shredded my only, favorite pair of non-Goodwill pants to make a fuse long enough to detonate something from fifty feet away.

I said nothing, had no expression on my face.

He glanced at me, then at the closed door. “Max,” he said, with a new tone of urgency in his voice. “Max, soon some people will come in to talk to you. But I need to tell you something first.”

That you are the devil incarnate?

“Something I couldn’t tell you before, something I thought I’d have time to prepare you for later.”

He looked around, as if to make sure no one else could hear. Guess he was forgetting all our surveillance lessons, about hidden mikes and heat sensors that can see through walls, and long-distance listening devices that could pick up a rat sneeze from a half mile away.

“The thing is, Max,” he said, tons of heart-wringing emotion in his eyes, “you’re even more special than I always told you. You see, you were created for a reason. Kept alive for a purpose, a special purpose.”

You mean besides seeing how well insane scientists could graft avion DNA into a human egg?

He took a breath, looking deep into my eyes. I coldly shut down every good memory I had of him, every laugh we’d shared, every happy moment, every thought that he was like a dad to me.

“Max, that reason, that purpose is: You are supposed to save the world.”

Okay, I couldn’t help it. My jaw dropped open. I shut it again quickly. Well. This would certainly give weight to my ongoing struggle to have the bathroom first in the morning.

“I can’t tell you much more than that right now,” Jeb said, looking over his shoulder again. “But I had to let you know the size of what we’re dealing with, the enormity, the importance. You are more than special, Max. You’re preordained. You have a destiny that you can’t imagine.”

Maybe I can’t imagine it because I’m not a complete nutcase.

“Max, everything you’ve done, everything you are, everything you can be, is tied into your destiny. Your life is worth the lives of thousands. The fact that you are alive is the most important thing anyone has ever accomplished.”

If he was expecting a gushing response, he was gonna wait a long time.

He sighed heavily, not taking his eyes off me, disappointed at my lack of excitement over hearing that I was the messiah.

“It’s okay,” he said with sad understanding. “I can barely imagine what you must be feeling or thinking. It’s okay. I just wanted to tell you myself. Later, others will come to talk to you. After you’ve had a chance to think about this, to realize what it could mean for you and the others. But for now, don’t say anything to the rest of the flock. It’s our secret, Maximum. Soon the whole world will know. But not just yet.”

I was getting very good at saying nothing.

He stood up and helped me from my chair, a solicitous hand under my elbow that made my flesh crawl.

We walked in silence back to the row of crates, and he unlatched mine and waited patiently for me to crawl inside. Such a gentleman.

Latching it behind me, he leaned down to give me one last meaningful look. “Remember,” he whispered. “Trust me. That’s all I ask. Just trust me. Listen to your gut.”

Well, how many times had I heard him say that? I wondered contemptuously as he walked away. Right now my gut was telling me I wanted to take his lungs out with a pair of pliers.

“You okay?” Angel asked anxiously, pressing her little face to the side of her cage.

I nodded, and met Fang’s and Nudge’s eyes across the way.

“I’m okay. Everyone hang tough, all right?” Nudge and Angel nodded, concerned, and Fang kept staring at me. I had no idea what he was thinking. Was he wondering if I was a traitor? Was he wondering if Jeb had managed to turn me-or if I had been in league with Jeb from the beginning?

He would find out soon enough.

Hours went by. In the dictionary, next to the word stress, there is a picture of a midsize mutant stuck inside a dog crate, wondering if her destiny is to be killed or to save the world.

Okay, not really. But there should be.

If you can think of anything more nerve-racking, more guaranteed to whip every fiber in your body up in a knot, you let me know.

I couldn’t tell the others anything-not even in a whisper. If it amused Jeb to pretend that closed doors and lowered voices protected one against surveillance, that was fine. But I knew better. There could be cameras and mikes hidden anywhere, built into our crates. So I couldn’t go over a plan, offer reassurance, or even freak out and say, “Oh, my God! Jeb is alive!”

When Angel whispered, “Where are Gazzy and Iggy?” I just shrugged. Her face fell, and I looked hard at her. They got away. They’re okay.

She read my thoughts, gave a tiny nod, then gradually slumped against the side of her crate, worn out.

After that, all I could do was send meaningful glances.

For hours.

My headache was back, and when I shut my eyes all these images danced on the backs of my eyelids.

At one point a whitecoat came in and dumped another “experiment” into the crate next to mine. I glanced over, curious, then quickly turned away, my heart aching. It looked enough like a kid to make me feel sick, but more like a horrible fungus. Huge pebbly growths covered most of its body. It had few fingers and only one toe, stuck onto the end of a foot like a pod. Senseless blue eyes looked out at me, blinked.

Sometime in the next half hour, I realized the “experiment” was no longer breathing. It had died, right next to me.

Horror-struck, I looked across at Angel. She was crying. She knew.

Finally, much later, the door to the lab opened. A crowd came in, and I heard human voices and Eraserlike croons and laughs. They wheeled a big flatbed cart to our aisle.

“I count only four,” a man said in a prissy, concerned voice.

‘Two bought it,” Ari said, sounding triumphant. “Back in Colorado. This is what’s left.” He kicked my cage, making the bars rattle. “Hi, Max. Miss me?”

“Is the Director quite sure about this?” a woman asked. “It seems a shame-there’s so much more we can learn from them.”

“Yes,” said a third whitecoat. “It’s just too risky. Given how uncooperative the little one has been.”

I caught Angel’s eye and gave her a thumbs-up, proud of her resistance. She sent a weak grin back at me.

Then her cage was grabbed roughly and swung onto the cart like luggage. She winced as her bruised cheek hit the side, and fury flamed in me again.

In the next second, Ari grabbed my crate and swung me up next to her on the cart, letting me drop with a crash that made me bite my lip hard. Like I needed another head wound. He grinned through the bars, letting me see his long yellow fangs. “Strong, like bull,” he bragged.

“Your dad must be so proud,” I said snidely, and he angered instantly, punching my cage so hard I almost toppled over.

“Easy,” murmured a whitecoat, earning herself a murderous snarl from Ari.

Then two more Erasers loaded Nudge and Fang on next to us. With Ari trailing behind, looking angry, they pushed us through wide double doors. The hall outside was painfully bright and overlaid with the smells of floor cleaner and office machines.

Clutching the bars of my crate, I peered out, trying to recognize a doorway, an office-anything that would tell me what section of the School we were in. The Erasers poked their fingers through our bars, trying to scratch us, taunting, literally rattling our cages. I wondered how much strength it would take to grab an Eraser finger and snap it.

We took a sharp left turn and got pushed through more double swinging doors, and then we were outside. I inhaled eagerly, but even outdoors at the School the air was tainted and foul.

Squinting, I shifted from side to side in my cage, looking for landmarks. Behind us was the lab building. Ahead of us, maybe a hundred yards away, was a low redbrick building. We were in the yard in back of the School.

The yard I used to look out at, in the dead of night, from our lab window.

The yard where Erasers were trained to bring down prey and tear it limb from limb.

Which was probably why they were laughing.

The funny thing about facing imminent death is that it really snaps everything else into perspective.

Like right now. My choices were to either give in and let them kill all of us or fight back with everything I had.

I chose the second one, ’cause I’m just funny that way.

In the split second I had to ponder what form my “fighting to the death” would take, a shadow blotted out the sun.

“Got your running shoes on, piggy?” Ari asked, pushing his hairy fingers through the bars of my cage and wiggling them. “Feeling like a little exercise? Wanna race? Wanna play food fight? You’re the food!”

I grinned evilly. Then I leaned over and chomped hard on Ari’s fingers. He sucked in a deep breath, then yelled in awful pain. I gathered my strength and bit down harder, until I actually felt my teeth break his skin, tasted his horrible blood. But you know what? I didn’t care. Seeing Ari hurt was worth it.

After the car wreck, biting anything hurt majorly, but I shut out the pain and put every ounce of my fury into my aching jaws. Ari was shaking my cage, slamming it with his other hand, and my head was getting snapped around like a paddleball.

But I hung on, thinking pit bull thoughts.

The whitecoats were yelling at me now. Still screaming, Ari began savagely kicking my cage. Suddenly, I unclenched my teeth and let go. His next kick smashed my crate sideways. It rolled over a couple of times.

I landed upside down, right next to Angel’s crate door. Being smarter than the average bear, it took me only a few seconds to unlatch it.

“Go!” I ordered. “Go! Don’t argue!”

She edged her door open and scrambled out just as Ari slammed down on top of my crate in a murderous rage. I braced myself as best I could, but he was tearing into the crate, roaring with pain. The crate tumbled sideways on the grass, and for just a split second, I caught a glimpse of the sky. It was streaked with dark, fast-moving storm clouds. Then I was batted upside down again, making me feel like laundry in a dryer.

Ari was screaming furiously, calling me awful names and shaking his bleeding fingers so that flecks of gore spattered me through the bars.

But I was smiling now. My first really good smile in days.

I knew what the storm clouds were.

They were hawks-led by Iggy and the Gasman, who else? And they were storming the School to save us.

Call me crazy, but there’s just something cheering about seeing huge raptors tear into Eraser flesh.

Just as Ari, ignoring the latch in his murderous rage, finally succeeded in ripping it open, he was dive-bombed by a hawk with razor-sharp talons and a huge grudge against wolves. As I popped out, I saw him swatting at it, screaming like a big weenie as the bird sliced into the back of his neck.

“Angel! Get out of here!” I yelled, racing to her.

Two whitecoats were chasing her, but I got there first. I elbowed one out of the way, grabbed Angel’s waist, and threw her up into the sky.

Then I managed to unlatch Fang’s crate. The whitecoats fell on me, but a regular grown-up versus an angry Max doesn’t stand a chance. I backhanded one across the jaw, feeling teeth knock loose. The other I kicked right under his double chin. His head jerked back, and he dropped like a brick.

Fang burst out of his cage, then grabbed a whitecoat and slammed him against the cart. He drew back a fist and punched, looking cold and determined. The white-coat’s eyes rolled back, and he crumpled.

Getting to Nudge took no time. She tumbled out of her crate just as Iggy and the Gasman led their hawk swarm in for round two.

Close by, one of the female whitecoats was struggling to her feet. I darted toward her, then jumped into the air, my right leg already swinging out in a huge roundhouse kick. I hit her in the chest, wham! She sank to her knees, unable to breathe, a stunned look on her face.

“Think of this as an occupational hazard, you witch!” I snarled, then spun to check on the rest of the flock.

Fang was venting his hostility on Ari, who crouched defensively on the ground, his arms wrapped around his head. Fang smashed him sideways with a kick, then punched the side of Ari’s head. For good measure, Fang hoisted a crate and crashed it down on the wicked Eraser. Now it looked as though Ari had been caught in a cage.

I shot into the air, feeling exhilarated as fierce hawks rushed past me. I counted four whitecoats, Ari, and three other Erasers on the ground, two Erasers still standing. One of them pulled out a gun, but promptly had his wrist muscles slashed by an unforgiving beak. Ooh. That had to hurt.

“Fang!” I bellowed. “Iggy! Gazzy! Let’s go! Go, go, go!”

Almost reluctantly, they pulled high into the air. Iggy moved through the hawks. By some unspoken message, he communicated that our battle was over. Those beautiful birds swerved gracefully and rocketed upward, making my ears ring with their wild calls.

“One, two, three, four, five,” I counted, rounding up my own flock and urging them higher. “Fang! Get Angel!” Angel had managed to stay airborne all this time, but she was sagging and losing altitude. Immediately, the Gasman flew to one side, Fang to the other, and they held her as they rose.

More whitecoats and Erasers streamed out of the building, but we were too high and moving too fast for them to hurt us. So long, cretins, I thought. School is out-forever.

“Max!”

That voice tugged my gaze downward.

Jeb stood there. He must have gotten caught in the hawk attack, because his white coat was torn, his shoulder red with blood. “Maximum!” he yelled again. The expression on his face wasn’t anger-it was something that I didn’t recognize.

“Max! Please! This was all a test! Don’t you get it? You were safe here! This was only a test! You have to trust me-I’m the only one you can trust! Please! Come back-let me explain!”

I looked at him, the man who had saved my life four years ago, taught me practically everything I knew, comforted me when I cried, cheered me on when I fought, held my hair back when I was heaving my Wheaties, the closest thing I ever had to a dad.

“I don’t think so,” I said tiredly. Then I pushed down hard and let my wings carry me far away, up to where my family was waiting.

Two hours later, Lake Mead came into view, along with the cliff top covered with the huge hawks who had rescued us. The six of us, together again, landed gratefully on the scraped-out ledge.

Angel collapsed onto the cool, dust-covered floor of the cave. I sank down next to her, stroking her hair.

“I thought I would never see you again,” she said, and a single tear rolled down her face. “They did all kinds of stuff to me, Max. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.”

“I would never quit trying to get you back,” I told her, feeling like my heart was going to overflow. “There’s no way I would ever let them keep you. They would have to kill me first.”

“They almost did,” she said, her voice breaking. I gathered her to me and held her for a long time.

“This is how it should be forever,” Iggy said. “All of us together.”

I looked up to where Fang was leaning against a wall, facing the canyon. He felt my gaze and turned. I held out my left fist. Almost smiling, he came and stacked his left fist on top of it. One by one, the others joined us, and I disentangled my right hand from Angel’s hair and tapped the backs of theirs.

“I’m just… so thankful,” I said. Nudge looked at me with faint surprise. Okay, so I’m not the most mushy person ever. I mean, I love my family and I try to be nice to them, but I don’t go around telling them how much I love them all the time.

Maybe I should fix that.

“I mean,” I said, feeling really self-conscious, “this made me realize how much we all need one another. I need all of you. I love you all. But five of us, or three of us, or two of us isn’t us. Us is all six.”

Fang was examining his sneakers with great interest. Iggy was nervously tapping long white fingers against his leg. But my little guys got what I was saying.

Nudge threw her arms around my neck. “I love you too, Max! I love all of us too.”

“Yeah, me too,” said the Gasman. “I don’t care if we have our house, or a cliff ledge, or a cardboard box. Home is wherever we all are, together.” I hugged him, and he nestled against me, looking happy.

Later on, we all slept, and awoke in the night to heavy rain, a miracle in the desert. We scrambled up to the ledge and let the rain pour down on us, washing off blood, dirt, and memories. Even raindrops hitting my nose hurt, but I held my arms open to the sky and felt clean and cold and shivery.

I shivered, and Fang briskly rubbed my shoulders. I looked at him, his eyes as dark as the desert sky. “Jeb knows our house,” I said very softly.

Fang nodded. “Can’t ever go back. Guess we need a new home.”

“Yes,” I said, thinking. I closed my eyes and opened my mouth slightly, inhaling the chill, rain-washed air. I opened my eyes. “East,” I said, feeling the Tightness of it. “We’ll go east.”