“Your confidence in Frannie and me is flattering. But it’s not enough. I need to know what’s really going on. Max? Who’s after you? Why are they after you? Tell me what’s going on, Maxie. I need your help.”
Max shook her head in the universal sign for no way, absolutely no way.
“Don’t do that,” Kit said with an edge in his voice. “Don’t shut me out. I’m not Superman. I can’t begin to protect you guys if you don’t tell me who is after you, and what they want. You know, don’t you, Maxie?”
“See, this’s why Frannie hates it when you ‘go FBI’ on her,” Max said, and shook her head from side to side. Her ears and cheeks were hot from a rush of blood.
Then before she could say anything worse, Max pushed off the branch and, with a loud rustle of wings, flew away from Kit and his probing questions.
She kept going up, up, up, until she was at least half a mile high. Talk about the great escape! God, it was totally gorgeous up here!
Except for one terrible thing—flying away didn’t change what was going on down below.
She knew things, horrible secrets, and they could all die because of it. It sounded crazy, but it was true. All eight of them could be murdered because of what she knew about the Hospital.
You know, don’t you, Maxie?
Oh yeah, she sure did. She knew a lot more than she wanted to.
God, she felt so alone.
That was what she truly hated about Pine Bush—the loneliness.
She thought about the Lake House again—the one place where she hadn’t been lonely, not for a single minute. The best place on earth. God, she’d loved it there. They all had. Stop it, Max. Just let it go. The Lake House was too good to last. It’s gone now.
Then Max heard someone whistle and call her name. Was it possible? Yeah, it was.
“Hey, Max. Ollie-ollie-oxen-freeeee.”
It was Ozymandias.
57
IT WAS OZ, and she was unbelievably happy to see him. He was flying, hovering actually, in the clouds above her—and then he dived right past her.
Max followed close behind. “Watch your butt, bub!” she hollered. “I’m on it!”
She spotted Oz bouncing on a tree limb down below, and since she could see every particle of motion, it seemed as if he were bouncing in slow motion.
She landed on the same slow-moving branch. “Hey,” she said. “I was just thinking about you.”
“Likewise, I’m sure.”
Ozymandias reached out his arm to steady Max, touching her at the sensitive place between her wings and shoulder blades.
A kind of electrical jolt went through her, an amazing shock of pleasure that made her a little dizzy. Hey! What is this all about?
She uttered an entirely involuntary whistle: “Whooooooh.”
“You’re flushed,” Oz said, concerned. “You okay? Max?”
Max felt her face and her cheeks. They were warm. “I had a fight with Kit,” she said. “It’s nothing. No biggie.”
“I heard.”
“We’ll get over it,” she said. “I can’t stay mad at Kit for very long. Nobody can.”
“Come on, Max. Why are you keeping big bad secrets? From everybody.”
“Can we forget it right now?” Max said, and turned away from Oz. “Just forget it.”
“Okay, okay.”
He plucked a spruce branchlet and stripped away the needles. He looked contemplative. He also looked incredibly beautiful, handsome, whatever. “I’m glad to be away from home. I hated it there. My mother was always selling interviews and appearances. She played the saint, the martyr, but she wasn’t.” He looked Max full in the eyes. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot. Just about every day. Every minute.”
Max caught her breath. So it isn’t just me thinking about Oz. Picturing him in my mind. Hearing his voice all the time.
As they looked at each other, she felt the same dizzying feeling she’d had when she’d been with him at the raptor center. Oz’s pupils dilated and contracted rapidly. His stare was superintense.
Max furtively grabbed the trunk of the tree and held on tight. Oh boy. What now?
“I’m feeling kind of crazy,” Oz told her. “But I think I like it.”
“You think you do?”
“I know I like it. And I know I like you an awful lot, Max. I always have. Almost since we were babies.”
Max could barely contain the wild emotions she was feeling. She wanted to laugh out loud, only she didn’t think that would be the right thing to do.
But what was the right thing? What was she expected to do now? She was supposed to be so damn smart. Well, how did this work?
She wanted to touch Oz, to kiss him on his sweet mouth. And just about everywhere else.
She wanted to hold him so bad, and to be held.
If he feels it, too, he’ll reach out for me. Max concentrated on that simple thought.
Do it, Ozymandias. Reach out and touch me. Do it now. Plee-ease.
Please kiss me, Oz. Then I’ll know I’m not crazy. Or at least that we both are.
“I want to show you something,” Oz whispered. “My secret.” He unzipped the hood he was wearing and lifted up his T-shirt.
“The eagle, I know. You showed me last time.”
“No, there’s more to it than that. Look closely,” said Oz. “Come closer, Max. Please. Don’t be afraid to get close to me.”
Max did. She cozied up next to Ozymandias, feeling his warmth, smelling him, loving it. And there on the eagle’s breast tattoo was a small red heart.
Inside it there were three inked letters in curling script: MAX.
Max gasped. “Is that a tattoo? Like, it’s permanent?”
“It’s a little rough,” Oz said. “But I did it myself. And you know, I was writing upside down.”
“Thank you. I love that you did that,” Max said softly. “I mean—I love it.”
Max lifted her eyes to look at Oz. She searched the strong lines and planes of his face, the gentle slope of his nose, the curves of his mouth, the thin white scar across his right eyebrow, the curling lashes around his deep brown eyes. Frannie said that he looked eighteen. In bird-human years he might be even older than that.
She leaned over and kissed Oz on the cheek. Her lips lingered. The smell of his skin went straight to her brain and she was instantly overcome by feelings she couldn’t begin to name.
Kiss me back, Oz. God, he is so handsome; he is gorgeous. A real-life prince.
Oz’s face flushed with pleasure.
“Hey,” Max said then. “Let’s go for a fly, you and me. Let’s go where no one’s ever gone before.”
58
WITHOUT WAITING for Oz’s answer, Max assumed an athletic crouch and shoved off the branch, into the air.
“Whoo-eeee!” she yelled at the top of her voice. “I say, whoo-eeee!”
She beat her wings rapidly, climbing fast and high, pointing her hands straight up, aiming for the moon. She was still feeling a little dizzy on account of Ozymandias being there with her.
Shake it off, girl, shake it off.
She turned her head when she heard a disturbance in the air. Then she smiled. Oz was right there again. She watched him. His flight pattern was beautiful, a work of art.
“Chee-rup-te-rup-te-rup,” she messaged as she flew in a long, undulating upward flight path.
Oz followed, duplicating her movements exactly. She figured it had to be just about the most mind-blowing game of follow-the-leader anyone had ever played. A couple of air force jets couldn’t do it any better.
She peeled off, rolling to the left, again with Oz tailing only a few feet behind.
She couldn’t lose him. Kind of, well, sexy, she thought. Whatever was going on, she liked it a lot.
Who wouldn’t?
Then she dived straight toward the ground, pulling out of the dive just a hundred feet above the forest floor.
You still with me, Oz?
You keeping up? You on my tail?
&
nbsp; When she saw that Oz, too, had pulled up right beside her, she shot him a smile and winked outrageously, and did a talondrop until they were a dozen feet above the treetops.
They were facing each other as they dropped. Max reached out for Oz, and he did the same. Their hands touched briefly—electrifying.
They were doing an intricate dance, and somehow both Max and Ozymandias seemed to know all the steps.
God, what does it mean? What is happening to us? Does Oz feel it, too? He must!
The moon was at its zenith, the light soft on his feathers, turning them platinum white. She had never seen anything more beautiful in her life. Nothing came even close.
“Chee,” Max said softly, tenderly, a sound just for Oz. The two of them beat their wings in unison, flying above the woodland again.
This time Oz fluttered just above her. Maybe a foot and a half. No more than that. This was so great, so cool. Their movements were synchronized. Oz was so close that the air warmed her back. It was as if Oz had covered her with a cashmere blanket.
He called her name softly. “Max, Max, sweet Max.”
Max called out his, the sound magical to her ears. “Ozymandias.”
What is happening to us?
Why do I Iove it so much?
59
THERE WAS a picturesque clearing below them, like a deep bowl filled with moonlight. Max and Oz dropped toward the spot as if it had been placed there just for them.
Maybe it has been, Max thought. Maybe God is watching out for us after all.
Their feet touched down on a thick layer of pine needles. Suddenly, their arms encircled each other. They were face-to-face. So close. Ozymandias kissed Max for the very first time. A real kiss. She had the notion that she had been dreaming about this kiss for a long while. Only it was even better, so much better and sweeter and sexier than she’d imagined it could ever be.
She felt a rush of heat flow through her body. As soon as the magical kiss had ended, she wanted to do it again. She couldn’t stop kissing Ozymandias, couldn’t get enough of his mouth. She’d never felt anything like it before, couldn’t have imagined that it existed, whatever it was.
They clung fiercely together. Both of them were on fire: their hearts and minds and bodies. Then they lost their balance, and fell head over wings over heels.
“Timber!” Oz called.
Laughing, they fell to the ground, which felt like a soft bed made of pine needles. God must have taken care of this, too.
The laughter stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Oz gently folded Max into his arms. She couldn’t resist him. She didn’t want to.
She blocked out the surrounding buzz and whistle and whirr of the forest. She was aware of their ragged breathing as they kissed again. A little voice in her head was saying, This is so good. My God, I love this. It has to be right. I am so happy right now. I was never happy before. I didn’t understand happiness.
Oz touched her cheek, her lips, her neck, her shoulders, the small of her back. Everywhere he placed his hands was warmed under his touch.
Rapture, Max thought.
That is the right word. This is what it means.
Max began to unfasten her jeans with badly trembling fingers. God, she was shaking all over. Ozymandias pulled at his pants, his shoes, his shirt. Soon their clothes were in loose piles on the forest floor.
Max whispered, “My prince. Oh, my sweet prince. Ozymandias.”
He said, “Princess.”
She smiled. “No, just Mad Max.”
The feeling of their naked skin rubbing together was delicious, and Max’s fear of the unknown spun out of her mind. It was replaced by incredible longing, need, love for someone other than herself. There was a brief moment when maybe she could have said no. But as she gazed into Oz’s eyes and felt the intensity and honesty of his love for her, she returned the feelings. Then there was no turning back.
Rapture.
Max opened herself to Ozymandias. She trusted him completely. He fitted himself perfectly to her body. They rocked and they rolled and they waltzed. For a brief moment they fluttered their wings and rose a few feet above the forest floor. Oz sighed deeply and Max held him with her arms and legs and, most important, her whole heart.
A warm feeling rippled through Max and left her tingling in its wake. She knew a truth had emerged from this, their first time. Max thought, We were meant to do this, Oz and I.
We were made for this.
60
MAX CLUNG TO OZ, and as their breathing slowed, she knew that her whole world had suddenly changed.
She’d been shy with Oz before, but that feeling was completely gone. It just was. Gone. She knew him now; she knew Oz as a natural being in the universe; she was one with him. And he knew her in a way that no one else had ever known her, and in a way that no one else ever would. She silently promised that to herself. Max felt a deep bonding with Oz. She was sure that Oz, her dearest friend, her lover, felt it, too.
They were mated for life.
That’s what birds did.
They lay together on the pine needles, shivering slightly as their skin began to cool.
Innocent.
Pure.
Yet more experienced.
And wiser.
They used their wings to cover each other, keeping their damp chests pressed tightly together, their arms and legs and hips still entwined.
Max loved just lying there with him, listening to the subtle, very slow quieting of their heartbeats. She cooed in his ear, and blew softly on his pinfeathers.
Then Oz spoke.
“Max?”
She lifted her eyes lovingly to his face.
“Hmmm? What is it, Ozymandias?”
“Did you hear that? A car stopped by the highway. Listen. I hear footsteps. Someone’s coming fast. Someone’s coming this way!”
61
“JUST A SEC-OND,” I yelled to whoever was knocking like a crazy person on the bungalow door. I had a skimpy towel wrapped around my hair and another around my bod, so it took me a minute to dress before I could open up and stop the blasted racket.
It was Kit, and he had a disappointed look on his face.
“What happened with you and Max?” I asked. “Are you all right? Is Max okay?”
“Sure,” he answered brusquely as he pushed past me into the room.
“She’s just fine. She’s Max.”
“How’d it go? Really? The third degree.”
Kit pulled a face. “Not well.”
“She stonewalled you, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, well, she’s awfully good at it,” Kit said. “She’s hiding something, Frannie. I’m sure of it. Something scares her, and that scares me.”
“Any ideas at all?”
Kit shook his head. “Not a one. It’s driving me crazy. What could she be hiding? Why hide it from us?”
I felt him watching me towel-dry my hair as I walked back and forth between the bathroom and the bedroom. I switched on the TV, got a fuzzy version of Oprah and Brad Pitt on her talk show. I stood in front of the set for a few seconds. Then I started stuffing empty pizza boxes into a tiny trash can.
“Why don’t you sit, Frannie? You’re twitching like a cat in a box,” Kit said finally.
“Yeah? I’m worried about the kids. I’m worried about you, me, everything. I’m worried about what Max won’t tell us. She’s hiding her secret because she thinks the information could hurt us. Has to be that.”
“Come sit over here. Please. I’ll rub your back some. You look like you need it. Just a back rub.”
I looked into his big blues for one electrifying second and felt his gaze grabbing onto me like that tractor beam in Star Trek.
“Thanks, no,” I said. “Thanks anyway. Really.”
Kit breathed an exaggerated and comical sigh. “The two of you,” he said. “You and Max are the most stubborn women I’ve ever known.”
I laughed because I didn’t know how else to react. Well, actually I did. I wanted
to go over to the bed. I wanted to lock the door, close the curtains, peel off every stitch I was wearing, and make love to Kit for the first time in months.
Okay, let me be honest here.
I was still very much in love with Kit, but what if he didn’t feel that way? What if he just had, you know, an itch? Whoever said, “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” must’ve never loved and lost as hard as I’d done, because I didn’t think I had the flexibility to withstand emotional whiplash again.
So back rubs were out until I got a better sense of Kit’s true feelings. And, yeah, I probably needed to hear those “three little words.”
Kit must have been reading my mind. He can do that sometimes. “I know we’ve been apart,” he started to say. “I got spooked. First I lost my family. Then the kids. Frannie, I still —”
Still? Still what? Say it!
But Kit was staring at something behind me. What? I slowly turned and saw that the front door had blown open. Max and Oz were peering at us, stricken and ashen-faced, looking as if they’d just survived a tornado.
“The woods are crawling with hunters,” Oz said.
62
THIS COULDN’T be happening again—but damn it, it was!
Kit didn’t hesitate for more than a couple of seconds. He drew his scary automatic weapon, or semiautomatic, or whatever in hell it was, and bolted out of the bungalow at a gallop, moving on the ground as Oz and Max took to the air.
Kit didn’t have their raw speed, but he was quick and agile on his feet. Pip and I were running behind him, trying to keep up, not doing such a great job of it, to tell the truth.
There was a rough trail running through the woods and Kit stayed on it. Suddenly, he looked back and saw us coming.
“Goddamn it, Frannie,” he whispered loudly as he ducked behind a tree. “Get down,” he hissed. “Please get down. Now! I mean it, Frannie!”
I did as told. There was a lot of movement in the dark and overgrown woodland, so it took me a few seconds to understand that the rapid mothlike flapping at the bend in the trail was Matthew.
Jesus God! He was flying swooping circles over the four or five men dressed in black. He was swinging and kicking at their guns and their faces.