Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure (14 page)

I gasped at the state he was in. He looked as if he could barely stand. His face was grayish and drawn, his shoulders hunched. His clothes were filthy. One arm hung uselessly by his side, and one wing was caked with dried blood. He looked like the living dead.

“
Fang!
” Nudge shrieked, and, ignoring all the rules I’d taught her about the million possibilities of danger, bounded off the porch in a blur of pink nightgown. She reached him in one leap, ignoring his obvious injuries and jumping into his arms.

I stepped out onto the porch, scanning the area for threats, but there was obviously no point. It was the real Fang, all right. Nothing else could explain why I felt so tingly and weird all over.

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and I realized Dylan was standing right behind me. His fingers reached out to hold me at my waist, and I tried to subtly
move away. But subtlety has never been my strong suit, and Dylan sighed loudly.

“Fang!” Iggy whooped. He and the Gasman followed Nudge off the porch, and the three guys exchanged those weird half-hug frat-boy things where they pat one another on the back. Even Total ran forward, putting his front paws against Fang’s leg, wagging his tail.

“Go on,” Dylan told me. “You know you want to.” His voice was bitter, so different from the gentle tone he’d used in the tree house. I could hear the implication in that tone and resented it, even as I felt myself moving from the doorway.

Fang detached himself from Nudge and looked up. Our eyes met, and just like that, my legs hurtled me forward and suddenly I was hugging him tightly. Fang’s uninjured arm went around my shoulders.

“You came back,” I whispered, hating the longing in my voice.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” he asked with a half smile that was infuriating and devastating and revealed nothing and everything at the same time.

A smile I had known all my life.

Fang felt… familiar. Warm—as warm as Dylan had felt, just a few short hours earlier in the tree house.

As I buried my face in Fang’s dirty, bloodied hair, I felt Dylan’s eyes boring into my back, and tried to swallow my guilt.

47

FOOD HAS ALWAYS been our number one solution for any awkward situation, so Iggy had the bright idea of whipping up a Welcome Back cake for Fang. This was undoubtedly to save us from the semi-uncomfortable silence that followed once I finally managed to peel myself from Fang’s grimy, sweaty body.

It may shock you to learn that Dylan decided to skip Fang’s Welcome Back party. Said he had homework. But I could
feel
his glowering energy radiating through the house while the rest of us were making fake conversation in the kitchen, pretending that the newest member of the flock didn’t exist.

I avoided trying to figure out the who, what, where, when, how, and
why
of Fang’s return by forcing Iggy to let
me
bake the cake—maybe a first—and then serving it up. Almost without thinking, I scraped the icing off Fang’s slice of cake before I put it in front of him (he’d never been a fan of icing) and plopped a quart of chocolate milk down for him to chug out of the carton, like he always used to do. Like he was still a little kid.

He looked up at me with a dull smirk. “Been taking home ec?”

My face turned red. Was he disgusted, like I didn’t know him anymore? Or did he think it was sweet, like I’d
always
known him, and always would?

I’d been pacing around the kitchen, avoiding eye contact with him, for forty-five minutes. Now I finally planted myself across the table from him and stared intently at his beaten face. His hair had grown shaggy and long, and he’d aged several years in a matter of months.

He’d become a man.

At first the thought made me a little sad. And then it kind of scared me. But then it actually…
excited
me, somehow.

And what have you become, Maximum Ride?
I thought. Definitely
not
a woman. And definitely not a savior. Barely a leader, anymore. Basically, I was nothing.

“So… no offense, man, but why’re you here?” Iggy asked, his mouth fully loaded with cake, spraying us all with chocolate crumbs. “Shouldn’t you be with your gang?”

Fang shoved a hunk of cake into his mouth. He glanced at Iggy and shrugged. Fang was giving us the silent treatment, just like old times.

“I’m just looking for some answers, man,” pressed Iggy.

“The gang is done,” Fang answered shortly, taking a swig of the chocolate milk. A shadow passed over his face, and I remembered what Ari had said about Maya. “So, how’s Dylan doing?”

Dylan, the elephant in the room (well, in the living room). The rest of the flock stared at me expectantly. Iggy whistled, and Gazzy made kissing noises.

“Out!” I yelled at them. They scrambled away, taking the rest of the cake with them.

“Dylan’s fine,” I told him, as nonchalantly as possible. “Doing well on his flying and fighting techniques, adjusting in the community, you know…”

“Uh-huh.” Fang stared at me, his dark eyes focusing on me intently, a tight little smile on his lips. “You look… different, Max. Lighter, or happier, or something.”

Or something.

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” I snorted dismissively, but inside, my stomach leaped a little. Was he trying to say I looked
good
? Maybe even…
pretty
?

“I guess Dylan was just what the doctor ordered,” Fang went on, unlocking his eyes from mine abruptly and stabbing his fork into his cake.

“Yeah, right. The insane Dr. Gunther-Hagen, that is. I really trust the guy.” I coughed. “Anyway, thanks, but… you actually look a little like roadkill, and I’m pretty freaking worried. What
happened
?”

He gave me a penetrating stare that made me shiver—
not unpleasantly—from my neck to my toes. “Basically, I came back from the dead, Max. And I’m ready to move on now. End of story.”

As if it wasn’t bad enough that my evening with Dylan in the tree house had pretty much filled my every thought up until about an hour ago, now that Fang was back I was having flashbacks of kisses with
him
.

The different memories kept swirling through my head like a swarm of tadpoles in a muddy pond, twisting into darker and darker masses of shapes until I couldn’t tell which way was up.

Or which intensely beautiful winged boy I was fantasizing about.

48

FANG AND DYLAN stood across from each other, both silent, arms crossed. Dylan shifted his weight, rubbed absently at his temple. It wasn’t like he was facing the mostly-ex-but-it-was-confusing boyfriend of the girl he loved or anything.

“You wanted to talk to me about something?” Dylan asked finally, cursing the anxiety he heard in his own voice and envying the expression on Fang’s face—that cool blankness that gave nothing away.

“Yeah,” Fang replied quietly, yet with so much hostility in the single word that Dylan was taken by surprise.

The time away from the flock had left Fang leaner, more angular. Add in the amount of still healing bruises and
cuts on his face and the pissed-off scowl, and Fang looked downright menacing.

Not that Dylan couldn’t take him in a fight, if it came to that. He totally could. But still. An ideal situation, this wasn’t.

“So…?” Dylan said after another long minute of uncomfortable silence. “Talk.”

“I heard you’ve been sleeping in Max’s room,” Fang said, his dark eyes narrowing.

Ohhhh. So that’s what this is about
, Dylan thought.
Note to self: There is a reason Max calls Nudge “the Vortex of Friendly, Chattery, Bambi-Eyed Doom.” She sees, hears, and
talks about
all.

“Yeah, and?” Dylan said, feigning as much boredom as he could muster. He even picked at his fingernails.

“And”—Fang leaned forward—“that’s not necessary.”

Dylan put up his hands. “Look, you don’t need to get all alpha on me, man.” Regardless of his history with Fang, he wasn’t about to actually fight him there, in the middle of the house. Especially not after all the headway he’d made with Max. “I just like to sleep there. There’s nothing going on,” Dylan said, and instantly wished he hadn’t.

“Oh, nothing’s going on?” Fang barked out a laugh that made Dylan flush with humiliation. “No kidding, Casanova. You don’t need to tell me that much—Max has standards, after all.”

Dylan opened his mouth to protest, to tell this jerk
exactly what kind of standards Max had, to blurt out every detail about the scene in the tree house—Max’s mouth, Max’s skin, Max’s soft feathers under his hands. But in that instant Dylan also saw what would follow—the hurt on Max’s face, the accusation—and stopped short.

“Look, maybe you think you’re protecting her or something,” Fang continued. “Who knows? But she’s safe here, with all of us around her. She doesn’t need you curled up at the foot of her bed like a lovesick dog.”

Dylan clamped his lips shut and tried to talk himself out of decking Fang.
Not worth it
, he told himself.

“So you can stop
protecting
her,” Fang said. “I’m back now. The flock is together again.” He faltered for a split second, and Dylan knew exactly which person had just crossed his mind—a small blond person with white wings. “Max is fine.”

Now it was Dylan’s turn to laugh. He looked at Fang coolly. “Excuse me? You’re back now, so automatically everything’s good again? Who do you think you’re kidding? Things got worse the moment you came crawling back through that door.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Fang. “Worse for you, you mean, now that your little dream world is ending?”

Dylan ignored that. “You’re supposedly doing this all for Max, right?” he challenged. Fang nodded, leaning back against the doorjamb. “Well, sorry to break it to you, but by coming back, all you’ve done is put Max in more
danger.” Dylan sighed and sat on the edge of his bed, resting his elbows on his knees.

Silence. Then: “What?”

Dylan looked at Fang with a level gaze. “Haven’t you noticed that, like, the entire world is hunting you?” he asked.

Fang shifted. “They’re after all of us. They always have been,” Fang said quietly, but he was frowning.

“You seriously don’t know? You’re the one they want, not
Max
, not the rest of the flock!” Dylan was shouting now. “It’s
you
, Fang. It’s your DNA they’re after.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

“
My
DNA?” Fang laughed, but it sounded tinny and hollow to Dylan’s ears. “My DNA is, like, Generation
Zero
.”

“Well, fifty-fourth, actually,” Dylan said. “But apparently they discovered something that has every whitecoat in the world after you.”

“Who did? I don’t believe you,” Fang spat, but the uncertainty in his eyes—the fear—betrayed him. “What kind of discovery could they possibly make about me that I wouldn’t know?”

Dylan let out a breath. “I… can’t tell you.”

Fang pushed off the doorjamb and crossed the bedroom in two strides. He stood in front of Dylan, fists clenched, the veins in his neck straining. “You can’t tell me? And why is that? Because you’re making this up? Because a little bird told you? Because you’re on their side?”

“I’m on the side of Max surviving,” Dylan shot back. “I didn’t make this up. But I can’t tell you the details unless—”

“Unless what?” Fang’s voice was tight.

“Unless you swear to leave… and never come back.”

They stared at each other, black eyes locked onto blue, night and day.

“I can’t swear that,” Fang said in a low voice.

Dylan’s jaw clenched. “Then I can’t be held accountable for anything I do to you. You’re putting her in danger. You’re putting everyone in danger. Don’t you even care?”

“My Voice said to be with Max,” answered Fang. “I’m never leaving her again.”

49

“PAWS OFF, BUCKO,” I barked, slapping the Gasman’s hands away from my slice of pie. “You already ate an entire half of the pie. Your pie privileges have been revoked.”

“Paws off?” Total said, looking up from his plate. “I resent that. You’re saying that all pie stealers have paws? Is that it?”

“Chillax,” I told Total. I’d forgotten he was sitting there. “It’s just a turn of phrase.”

“Hmph,” said Total.

“And you,” I said, turning back to Gazzy. “Step. Away. From. The. Pie.”

“Poop,” Gazzy mumbled. “Dylan wouldn’t give me any of his, either. Neither would Nudge. Or Iggy.”

“And what have we learned from this experience?” I asked, raising one eyebrow.

Gazzy shuffled. “Um… everyone but me needs to work on their sharing skills?”

“No,” I said patiently. “We learned that if you eat half a pie, you get your pie privileges taken away. Capiche?”

I am such a good not-mom.

The Gasman started to say something else but was cut off by the sudden appearance of Fang, who had entered the living room like a freaking shadow.

Just like old times.

I glanced at Fang and was startled by how pale he was. His normally inexpressive face looked taut, and his lips were pressed into a thin white line.

“What’s wrong?” I said immediately, getting ready to do a head count. “Is everyone okay?”

Fang hesitated. “Can you come with me?”

I took one last bite of pie, then followed Fang down the hallway, past Nudge’s room, Iggy’s room, Gazzy’s, mine, Dylan’s, and Total’s. (Yes, the dog got his own room.)

Fang opened the door to the guest room and led me inside. His laptop was open and running on the bed, and I saw the page for his blog pulled up on the screen.

“Wait, this is about your
blog
?” I exclaimed, one part relieved and two parts annoyed that he’d gotten me all worked up for nothing. “From your face, I thought we were gearing up for Armageddon!”

He sat and motioned to the laptop. “Read the comment on top.”

Great. Probably another Fang fan-girl (Fang-irl?) gushing about how incredibly
guh-orrrrr-geous
he was. I sighed and sat down next to him on the bed.