She had just sucked in a ragged, hot breath of stinking smoke when she realized she was still in the lab, clamped to the table, her limbs splayed out as if she were a butterfly on display. For a fleeting second the surrounding madness was drowned out by the deafeningly quiet memory of the whisper-sound of her feathers drifting to the lab floor, the endless flow of tears running down her face. After that, she’d passed out.
Now she coughed weakly into her shoulder, but she couldn’t seem to take in enough oxygen as she choked on the smoke that was forcing itself under the door and into the room where she lay, alone.
Outside the door she heard muffled shouts and frantic footsteps.
“It’s time!” Angel was able to make out a woman’s voice yelling. “It’s really happening!”
Somewhere an alarm was triggered, and the high, plaintive cry drowned out much of the chaos. The door of the lab burst open then, and someone was banging through cupboards while someone else rifled through papers and clanged metal objects around.
They were ignoring Angel completely.
“Help,” she croaked. “Dr. Martinez?”
“Take everything!” a voice Angel didn’t recognize commanded to someone else. “The 99% Plan is in effect!”
For the first time since the operation, Angel became dimly aware of being able to see movement, but she didn’t have time to wonder about what was happening to her eyesight. She was wired to survive, and focused on trying to decipher who was in the room with her, and what they were doing. She fumbled wildly, trying to figure out how she might unlock her clamps, anything to free herself. But Angel could only make out blurred fractions of light, movements masked in smoke.
“Help,” she said again, coughing.
But no one answered, and the footsteps were already fading away. And then, over the wail of the alarm, she couldn’t hear any more voices. Beyond the wall of smoke, she couldn’t breathe.
No! her brain shouted, rebelling against the inevitable. No, I will not die like this, alone in smoky darkness. Not after the hell I have been through.
She began to fight then, really fight, even though every single muscle and bone in her body ached.
“You can’t leave me here!” Angel screeched with fury and despair to the empty walls around her. “I’m human, do you hear me? It hurts!”
She sobbed as she thrashed against the clamps and felt the cords digging into her flesh. But no matter how hard she struggled, she was trapped.
Smoke filled Angel’s lungs and she hacked wildly, gasping. The sound of the alarm seemed to ricochet around her brain.
It’s over, she thought with a sense of crushing defeat. Images of a giant, unstoppable wave gathering speed tormented her as she started to lose consciousness. For once, the freaks were right: It’s the end.
Book Three
THE END
52
“HOW MUCH LONGER?” Gazzy asked breathlessly, catching a small updraft and banking left till he was flying next to me. He was grinning, but his face was lined with strain, and he looked more determined than I’d ever seen him.
“Just a little bit more,” I said. Less than five hours after leaving Oregon, we had begun to near the facility, which, according to our source, was in Death Valley—so close to the School that Jeb had taken us from that I almost had a memory-induced panic attack.
“Days? Hours? Minutes?” Gazzy pressed.
“In fifteen minutes we should be within a mile radius. Then we find the place, touch down, do some recon.”
“And then find Angel,” he said fervently. “And spring her out of there. And do serious damage to whoever’s had her.”
I winced. “Gaz…”
“I know, I know,” the Gasman said. “Could be a trap, she might not be there, I get it. But still. She could be alive, Max!”
“Yeah, sweetie,” I said, grinning. “She could be.”
I happened to look over and meet Dylan’s eyes, which were as blue as the sky we were flying in. He hadn’t said much this morning. Actually, he hadn’t been saying all that much since Fang had returned. Mr. Discuss Everything was suddenly how Fang used to be. Meanwhile, Fang was now talking and emoting and expressing more than ever before. It was like the two of them had switched personalities.
“Yo, up ahead!” Fang said suddenly. “I see something!”
Nudge nodded excitedly. “It looks like a cluster of buildings!”
We all—well, except Iggy—concentrated on the ground, letting our raptor vision focus in on what indeed appeared to be a cluster of buildings, some of which were made of boring gray and black stone, others of brick and gleaming one-way glass. The buildings were arranged in the shape of a T, and to be honest, they looked like they could hold pretty much anything institutional and uninteresting. A coat-hanger factory. Whatever.
Except for the fact that they were in the middle of nowhere, with no cities, towns, or even houses in sight. And their location corresponded perfectly with the map we’d been given online.
“This is it,” Fang muttered. “Circle down.”
As we drifted back down to earth, Dylan moved closer to me. “Ready to beat up some whitecoats?” he said over the noise of the wind.
“Always,” I said. And I was glad he was with me.
The six of us landed among a sea of small desert shrubs and immediately sank down to their height, keeping low. Then we got in a huddle to go over the plan for the umpteenth time.
“Okay, so first Max and I scout the place,” said Fang. “Look for possible cracks in the armor, etc. If we don’t come back within a half hour—”
“We fly to Badwater Basin,” Iggy interrupted. “Then we wait for three days. Then, if you’re still not back—”
“We absolutely do not barge in there and attempt to rescue you,” Nudge deadpanned, repeating the words I’d drilled into all of them over and over again. “We act like sensible, self-preserving mutants and head back to Oregon.”
“Good,” I said. “Anybody have a problem with the plan?”
They all shook their heads no. Except Dylan. I knew he wanted to go with me, knew he was miffed, or peeved, or maybe even furious that I’d asked him to stay with the others. He’d bought my explanation—that they would need another good fighter with them, and that Dylan, out of all of us, was the least well known to the inner circle of crazed maniacs who seemed to chase us everywhere we went. He’d bought it. But he wasn’t happy about it.
I looked at Fang. “You ready?”
He nodded, his eyes burning into mine, reading me, knowing my needs and my history and, it seemed, even my thoughts.
We’d just bent our knees and were about to take off together when Iggy yelled, “Wait!”
We all turned to him, instantly on the alert. “Fire,” he warned. “I smell smoke.”
“Smoke?” I glanced around, not seeing or smelling anything other than the undisturbed buildings and the clear, sunny day. “From where?”
Wordlessly, he pointed in the direction of the facility we were about to break into, and then the breeze changed and I smelled it, too: smoke. Lots of it.
Little did we know then that the 99% Plan was in effect… just a little bit ahead of schedule.
53
THE SMOKE LED us right to the burning building, which was eerily hushed, with only the crackling sound of dying flames, and no signs of life anywhere at first glance. No panicked refugees, no firefighters—just a red-hot shell.
When the fire had finally died down enough for us to safely explore the inside of the smoking facility, we stepped gingerly through the wreckage. Everything was horribly, deathly silent.
My intestines sank down to my shoes.
Marks from the fire had streaked the walls—or what remained of them—with gray and black. The stench of smoke permeated the dry air completely, scorched metal lay heaped where foundations used to be, and machinery that I recognized as mutant-testing equipment lay blackened and twisted in the rubble.
I swallowed. Time to be a l
eader, Max.
“Okay, everybody,” I said, coughing against the thick air. “Search everything.”
There was a huge crash then, as part of the floor above us gave way and a large piece of lab equipment fell through near to where we stood. Gazzy giggled nervously, at home in the destruction despite the underlying worry on his face.
“But be careful,” I continued. “The roof could collapse at any second. Pay special attention to the part that wasn’t destroyed—the eastern side. Angel could be in there.”
Maybe. Hopefully. God, if she was in the section of buildings we were standing in… Well, I would still want to find her, I thought grimly. Still want to take her body home.
Carefully we picked our way toward the far side—the eastern side—through a doorway that had been stripped of its actual door.
I nearly threw up when I stepped over a partially melted plastic Kanine Kamper. Were we too late? Had we come this close only to miss saving Angel from a horrible death by—what, minutes?
My heart was shriveling, but I kept picking my way through the demolished building, opening every door, trudging down passages that led to the smell of fire and combustibles and sickening chemicals.
And fear. It hung in the air, thicker than smoke.
I don’t want to describe the sick things we saw, experiments on… some kind of life-form… that had clearly failed. Everything that might have been alive was now dead from smoke inhalation, including a couple of whitecoats.
“How did the whole thing go up so quickly?” Dylan asked me. We were in the process of searching a lab that was filled with large machinery and operating tables. The sights made me physically ill. “I’ve been trying to work it out. It ate through the brick in, what? Ten minutes? And it was a scientific laboratory. Didn’t they have some kind of fire-safety procedure?”
“Maybe they didn’t want to stop it,” Fang answered from across the room. He gestured at a utility closet, at a pile of overturned metal jugs inside. They reeked of gas fumes.
I heard Nudge gasp from another doorway and ran to her side, my adrenaline rushing.
“Max, why are they in a circle like that?” she whispered, her bottom lip quivering.
A strangled moan escaped my lips when I saw what she had found: the still smoking bodies in the lab, dozens of them, slumped against one another, arranged in a circle, just like Nudge had said. Like they’d been sitting down to tea, or a game of telephone. Like they’d died en masse.
My throat was dry and my mind was whirring.
We’d tried to get inside when we’d first seen the smoke, but the doors had all been bolted.
What had seemed like an abandoned building had been packed with people.
What had seemed like an accident reeked of purposeful destruction.
We’d been there for the fire. We’d watched the whole thing happen. No one had run outside.
I shivered, understanding the horrific implications. They’d wanted to die like this. This place was making my soul hurt.
“Max.”
It was Dylan who’d spoken. He was down the hall.
“Yeah?” I forced the word out of my mouth, peeled my gaze away from the awful sight of the bodies before me. “Did you find something?”
“I… I think so.” His tone was hollow.
I swallowed. I couldn’t bear to find definitive evidence that we’d lost Angel. Not again. Not after we’d had so much hope.
Reluctantly, I came up beside Dylan. My eyes followed his gaze to the slick metal operating table in front of him. There were four clamps on it, in the corners, for restraining limbs.
Caught in one of the clamps were two soft, downy, white feathers.
“No,” I choked out, my knees buckling.
Faintly, I heard the flock gathering behind me: Nudge’s intake of breath, Gazzy’s moan of pain, Iggy’s hiss, and Fang’s teeth gnashing together. But I couldn’t stop staring, horrified, at the feathers in the clamp.
You’d think it couldn’t get any worse, after that.
But it did, of course. Because right then, we heard the sweet, sociopathic voice that would give us all nightmares for the rest of our lives.
“May I help you?”
54
IT TOOK ME about zero point three seconds to recognize the man standing before us: Mark. The once manic leader of the Doomsday Group. Someone I hadn’t seen since Paris, since Angel disappeared. I was pretty sure he was responsible for that whole bloody nightmare.
“Hello, children,” Mark said languidly. His entire body was covered with horrible burns, and his clothes were scorched and torn to the point of falling apart.
“You,” Gazzy spat. His voice was shaking. “You’re the one from the tunnels! You hurt me and my sister!”
We were all glaring daggers at Mark, but despite his burns and the excruciating pain he must’ve been in, his expression was one of dreamy bliss, and that was what truly scared me, what made the hair on my arms stand up and my blood run cold. Angry people I can deal with; I can handle rage with a quick fight. Insane people are much more terrifying. They’re totally unpredictable.
“Just say the word,” Fang said to me under his breath. My hands clenched into fists as I prepared to kill the man who had taken Angel from us, to tear him limb from limb. Dylan readied himself beside me.
“I’m not a threat, children,” Mark said, still wearing that crazed, happy expression of his. He took a step forward and the six of us stepped back instinctively. “This was all for you. At last, it’s begun.” Mark paused, looking bemusedly around at the destruction, at the burned wreckage, as if not really understanding what had happened. “It’s begun,” he repeated. Another beatific smile. “My work here is done. I’ve saved the planet. Saved it, protected it for the select few. And you, my friends, will benefit.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded. If there’s anything worse than a psychopath, it’s one who thinks he’s doing his evil deeds for a good reason. “How has all this”—I waved my arm to encompass our surroundings—“saved the planet? How was what you did in Paris protecting the planet?” I was shrieking in his face, rage dripping from my every word.
His eyes were peaceful. “You’ll see,” he assured me. He glanced down at his burned arms, the flesh flayed open and raw. He didn’t seem to be feeling anything. He looked up, his eyes coming to rest on one shattered window. Its wire-embedded glass had been twisted outward by some explosive force. Mark examined it: a novelty. Then he turned back to us. “You’ll see,” he repeated. “The contagion has been unleashed. Now all will come to pass. And you’ll thank me for it.”
“Not likely,” I said, advancing toward him. “The only contagion I’m aware of is you and your insane cult. Now, if you don’t tell us where you took—”
“Take care of the earth, my children,” Mark interrupted, still smiling.
And then he threw himself out the window.
We have lightning-fast reflexes, but none of us got to him in time—it had happened so fast, with no warning. Horrified, we ran to the window and looked out. We weren’t up very high, but he’d landed on a pile of broken concrete. Shafts of rusty rebar stuck up at different angles, one of them directly through Mark’s throat.
He still had that pleasant smile on his face, but his eyes stared blankly into nothing.
“Unhhh,” Nudge groaned, and then vomited on the floor at my feet.
As I rubbed her back, I felt warm hands on my shoulders, and for a second I couldn’t tell if it was Dylan or Fang. Then Fang moved into my line of sight, scowling. It was Dylan who stood behind me.
I stared down at Mark’s body and felt bile rising in my own throat. “Well, that’s… that,” I said shakily, moving away from the window.
“So, we continue searching for Angel?” Dylan asked quietly.
I nodded. “We always continue searching for Angel.”
55
WE SEARCHED THE whole place, and my heart sank lower with every empty room. Not that the roo
ms were actually empty. They were full of the stuff of nightmares: bloodstained operating tables, cabinets full of horrifying tools, jars of specimens that made my stomach turn. Only Iggy would avoid having these appalling images seared into his brain. The rest of us would carry them forever, like scars.
Nudge reached out and took my hand, held it tightly as we looked at another huge jar holding a preserved experiment. Oh, God.
“Evil. So evil,” I muttered, feeling heartsick.
This had to be where Angel had been kept captive, ever since Paris. I didn’t say anything to the others, but a black fog was starting to shroud my aching heart. How could she have survived this? And if she had survived it, how would she ever recover? Not just physically, but emotionally. We’d already been through more than anyone should have to go through. What if she’d finally been pushed over the edge? What if she could never come back?
After yet another horrifying sight made me gag, I leaned against the wall and rubbed my eyes, which stung from the lingering smoke and chemical fumes. My throat was scratchy and dry, and it ached from the effort of suppressing my cries of shock and horror.
“She’s not here,” Gazzy said tonelessly, sitting down on a broken beam. “Or if she’s here, she’s part of the ashes.” His voice broke.
“Let’s start over again, from the first building,” Dylan said, squeezing Gazzy’s shoulder. He sounded tired but determined.
“No,” said Fang. “We should take to the sky, do recon, and see if they left tracks—whoever escaped, I mean. She could be with them.”
“You think some people escaped?” Nudge’s face was drawn.
Fang nodded. “Someone always escapes.”
This had all been for nothing. My baby was still gone.
Don’t give up, Max.
My Voice was very, very faint. It had never before sounded like it was talking to me from as far away as the moon; I almost thought I’d imagined it.
Then I saw something through the dust on the floor. I pushed aside some charred beams and uncovered a metal trapdoor, maybe two feet by two feet and padlocked from the outside.