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37
The bell clanged jarringly, and rough hands pushed Angel forward. She stumbled, catching herself at the last second before falling onto coils of razor wire.
Angel wanted to cry. She’d been doing this all day-it was late afternoon by now.
She was starving and light-headed and every muscle ached-and still they made her run.
It was a maze, Angel knew that.
They had made it in a huge gymlike room in the School’s main building. They rang a bell and pushed her forward, and then she had to run as fast as she could to find the exit. Each time, the maze was different, the exit in a different place. If she slowed down, she got an electric shock so strong it scrambled her brain, or red-hot wires under her feet burned her. So, eyes blurry with tears, Angel ran forward blindly, taking this turn and that until she finally stumbled out the exit.
Then she would get a sip of water and a five-minute rest while they redid the maze.
Angel sniffled, trying to keep quiet. She hated this! If only she knew beforehand-if only she knew, she could run through fast and not get shocked or burned.
Angel sat up, a tingle of excitement ru
One of them wanted to let an Eraser loose in the maze, have it fight with her, see how strong she really was. One of them thought they should increase the heated wires so she always had to run on them, whether she was slowing down or not. Then he could study the effect of stress on her adrenaline levels.
Angel wanted them all to burn in h-e-double toothpicks forever.
One of them was designing the next maze, the creep.
Angel concentrated, trying to look as though she was resting. Someone gave her another sip of water, and she sucked it down fast. She could see the rough plan of the maze! It was in her mind because it was in the white-coat’s mind. Deliberately, Angel breathed in and out, looking spent, but she felt a new surge of possibility.
She got it. She knew what the next maze would look like. Blinking tiredly, Angel sat up, keeping her eyes unfocused. In her mind, she was reviewing the maze’s layout: a quick right, then another right, then a left, skip the next three rights and take the fourth one… and so on, till she saw the exit.
She could see all the traps, the dead ends, the paths that led nowhere.
She could hardly wait to blow their minds. This would be fun!
A whitecoat grabbed her, made her stand in front of the new maze’s entrance.
The bell clanged.
Someone pushed her.
Angel took off. Ru
She burst out of the maze’s exit, then collapsed onto the cool wooden floor.
Time passed.
Words floated to her: Amazing. Cognitive ability. Interpretive skills. Creative problem solving. Dissect her brain. Preserve her organs. Extract her DNA.
A voice said, “No, no, we can’t dissect her brain just yet.” The speaker laughed, as if it were fu
Angel blinked and swam toward consciousness. She made the mistake of looking up. An older man was there. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and was smiling at her. She got no thoughts from him whatsoever. He looked…
“Hello, Angel,” said Jeb Batchelder kindly. “I haven’t seen you in a long time. I missed you, kiddo.”
38
Nudge didn’t know exactly what Fang expected to see. Max, flying toward them? Max, standing on the ground below, waving her arms to get their attention? Max’s body, crumpled-Nudge shut that thought down. She would just wait. Fang was older and really smart; Max trusted him. Nudge trusted him too.
How far back had Max separated from them? Nudge couldn’t remember. She and Fang had been flying in ever-widening circles for hours. How did they know Max hadn’t passed them somehow and was waiting for them back at Lake Mead?
“Fang? Do you remember where we left Max?”
“Yes.”
“Are we going to go there?”
Pause. “Not if we can help it.”
“But why? Maybe Max is hurt and needs help. Maybe we need to save her before we go save Angel.” It was hard, keeping these missions separate. First Angel, now Max, then Angel again.
Fang banked to the left, tightening the angle as they’d seen the hawks do. Nudge followed him. Below them, the ground looked parched, with only occasional roads, cactuses, brush.
“I don’t think Max would have gotten hurt all by herself,” Fang said slowly. “She’s not going to fly into a tree or crash-land. So if she’s late because she’s hurt, it probably means that someone, a person, hurt her. Which means that someone knows about her. We don’t want that someone to know about us too. Which they would if we went to where Max is.”
Nudge’s jaw dropped.
“And if Max is late because she’s busy, then our going to her won’t speed things up-she’ll come when she’s good and ready. So for right now, we do a general look-see. But we’re not going all the way back.”
Nudge heard Max’s voice in her head: Think before you speak. So she shut her mouth and thought. She had no idea how Fang could not get Max, even if it meant they might get captured or hurt themselves. They all might get captured or hurt saving Angel, right? Why was Max different from Angel? Max was more important than Angel, Nudge thought, feeling guilty. Max took care of them, helped run their whole lives.
She snuck a look at Fang. Fang was good, if not very warm or huggy. He was strong and handsome and capable. But would he stick around to take care of everyone if there were no Max? Or would he take off and go live by himself somewhere and not be bothered with them? Nudge didn’t know what Fang was really thinking.
Suddenly, Nudge was brushing tears out of her eyes, swallowing down the lump in her throat, feeling her nose clog up. Oh, God. She couldn’t bear it without Max. Blinking, she tried to clear her vision, tried to think about something else. She saw a white truck down below and focused on it, forcing herself to wonder what it was carrying, where it was coming from. Like any of it mattered. She drew in deep breaths and held them, refusing to cry in front of Fang. She might have to start being very strong, very soon. She might as well practice now.
The truck headed toward an intersection that had signs marking a junction. Nudge blinked and looked as the signs became clear and she could read them. One said, California Welcome Center, 18 miles. One said, Las Vegas, North, 98 miles. One said, Tipisco, 3 miles.
Tipisco! Tipisco, Arizona! Where Nudge was from! Where her parents had been! Oh, God-could she still find her parents? Would they want her back? Had they missed her so much all these years?
“Fang!” she shouted, already begi
“No way, Nudge,” Fang said, flying closer to her. “Don’t get sidetracked now. Stay with me.”
“No!” said Nudge, feeling daring and desperate and brave. She hunched her shoulders and tucked her head down, feeling herself lose altitude. “I have to go find my parents! If Max is gone, I’m going to need someone.”
Fang’s dark eyes widened in surprise. “What? Nudge, you’re crazy. Come on, let’s talk about it. Let’s find a place, take a break.”
“No!” said Nudge, tears coming to her eyes again. “I’m going down-and you can’t stop me!”