35 Years

35 years. That’s how long I’ve lasted. After all the countless-well, you get it, all those close calls with certain death and the mumbo jumbo about my “expiration date,” life sorta died down for me. I’m not the hopelessly romantic type, but I couldn’t help the small twangs in my chest at the thought of seeing Fang again. If you haven’t already been filled in on my history with Fang, well, too bad. All I’ll tell you is he left the night of Total and Akila’s wedding, with only a note left. Now it wasn’t one of those crabby one paragraph sob notes about why he had to leave and all, but it was just so much deeper, to sum it up.

Another twang. I pulled out the aging note. My eyes scanned over the last few lines.

If in twenty years we haven’t expired yet, and the world is still more or less in one piece, I’ll meet you at the top of that cliff where we first met the hawks and learned to fly with them. You know the one. Twenty years from today, if I’m alive, I’ll be waiting there for you. You can bet on it.

Goodbye, my love,

Fang

Hot tears burned in my eyes. I blinked them away, furious at myself for getting so worked up over a dinky letter. He’d probably forgotten all about it, while I’ve been practically counting the days on my calendar.

Calendar, you say? Well, ya. The flock has decreased to a sub-total of one: little old me. Once the whole mutant parade of Save the planet! Kill the humans! eventually died over, we finished off the original problem of whack-job scientists who thought cutting us winged kids open and experimenting on us was just another day in the office. You kill the roots, you kill the plant. A little while after that, the flock went their own ways. Total and Akila went off to start their owns lives (personally, I’m looking forward to what the litters look like, considering Total has wings), Iggy and Ella, my half-sister, are getting pretty serious, or so I’ve heard, Nudge designs clothes (she has her own line and everything), Gazzy, also known as the Gasman for reasons you don’t want to know, works on advancing weapon technology. And my Angel, my little baby, didn’t make it. While we were in Paris to stop the mutants from blowing everything to bits, Gazzy went to go disable the bomb, and when it exploded, Angel got caught up in the explosion. All that was left of her is a pink torn up, bloodied sneaker. I still have it hidden away.

I don’t know what happened with Fang, I guess he just grew up. Unless he had…expired. My eyebrows squinted together as I pushed the well-worn thought away.

And with me, I became a writer for some hot shot magazine. Who would have thought, me, Maximum Ride, a writer? Well, Leya Range, now. I changed my name, dyed my hair to some strawberry related color, and moved to New York where I might have an easier time blending in, if you know what I mean. Went the whole nine miles to avoid anymore problems with psycho scientists. Stayed off the radar. Just acted like…a human.

There’s a little something you should know. I’m only 98 percent human. The other 2 percent, well, it resulted in wings. Ya. Wings. 13 feet across, tan with white streaks and brown speckles. You get the picture.

Right then I landed on the cliff, ending my warp drive that had increased overtime from 250 mph to 300 mph. Not a big difference on paper but a hella big difference when escaping from danger. But the thing is-that danger kind of went away for good after I tuned 20 or so.

My love life-you ask? Yea…I’ve managed to keep myself out of anything serious for two reasons. The first was out of fear that somebody would figure out my secret and contact the scientists and the second was that the dull ache in my heart for the hope of seeing Fang again never went away.

I stumbled on a rock and that really set my nerves off. I felt my heart pounding in my chest. Jeez this whole live a normal life thing really softened me up. My eyes flickered around but I saw nothing but cave walls. One of Fang’s skills was to blend in completely with his surroundings if he held perfectly still.

“Fang?” I called out, my head on a swivel.

I heard no response. He must not be here yet. Minutes soon tuned into hours as I waited for Fang to fly into the cave. Any minute now. Sunset came and went until the sky tuned pitch black. And I waited in that pitch black until the sky began to lighten again and birds began their morning song. The day was officially over.

That’s when it hit me.

If in twenty years we haven’t expired yet…I’ll meet you at the top of that cliff…I’ll be waiting there for you. You can bet on it.

The words rang in my ears. The words that I had read over and over again until they were imprinted in my head. Fang would never break his promise to me-I knew that. There was only one explanation for why I was still alone on this cliff.

Fang had expired.

My body froze in response to this realization. Fang was…gone. I forced myself to stand up. My stiff legs walking me to the opening of the cave. Something snapped in me and I began pounding my fists on the rock walls again and again. Sobs broke from my chest and I sank to the floor, cradling my bloodied hands to my chest. I was so numb to the pain, I didn’t even care.

C’mon. Pull it together Max-you knew this would happen sooner or later. I coached myself.

Attempting to compose myself-and completely failing-I took a running leap off the cliff. For a second, I let myself free fall, letting the ground race closer and closer, until I snapped open my wings and pushed them down hard, then up, and then down again until I stopped falling and began to raise higher.

Being too caught up in my thoughts of grief, my ears didn’t pick up the familiar whistle of a bullet coming my way.

A searing pain erupted. My eyes slowly looked down at my chest, where dark red blood began spurting from my tightly pulled jacket. It soon came to my realization that I was losing altitude-and fast. I wasn’t going forward anymore, but instead, down. My wings flailed around me wildly. I tried to get my brain to focus on flapping, but a jumble of panicked thoughts overran any thought I had.

The ground raced up at me faster and faster as I got tunnel-vision. I barely felt it as my wings slowly began to close in defeat. My eyes slowly began to-hold it.

Excuse me? Sorry but Maximum Ride and defeat simply do not mix. I forced my eyes open, ignored the pain in my chest, and stretched out my wings to catch myself. The air filled up my wings as I steadied myself in my downward plummet.

The bang of a gun filled my ears.

I frantically tried every maneuver I knew to dodge a bullet and I thought I was in the clear until pain burst from my upper right thigh.

Being trained to survive-I plummeted down the last 40 feet to the ground with my wings softening my fall. As I fell, the grey spots in my vision tuned to black until I couldn’t see. Right before I hit the ground, I blacked out.

…

My eyes opened a slit and I slurred back into consciousness. I recognized an all too familiar room. Crates were stacked in rows. Dog crates. Most of the crates were occupied with terrified creatures, hunched over in their cages. Looks like the few scientists left alive regrouped and rebuilt the School. I struggled with this, fear encompassing my body. I forced myself to man up.

I needed to escape. I had spent too many years of my life in this hell to end back up here. Just as I was making a list of all the exits and tools I needed to fight, one of the scientists walked into the room.

Except I recognized this scientist. This scientist wasn’t supposed to be a scientist. Dark, hard eyes met mine.

This scientist was Fang.