Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment

56

“I want my room to smell just like this.” Iggy inhaled deeply as the scents of flame-broiled burgers and hot french fries wafted around us.

“It would be an improvement,” I agreed, reading the menu board. My stomach felt like it was trying to digest itself. I was shaky with tension and adrenaline, and felt like I was going to come apart at the seams.

The fast-food restaurant was crowded and jarringly noisy. All of us felt nervous when we were around regular people. We shuffled into line, trying to be inconspicuous. As far as I could tell, no one here was an Eraser.

But of course Erasers looked pretty normal-until they started morphing and tried to bite your freaking head off.

“I don’t eat meat anymore,” Nudge a

Fang stepped up and ordered three double cheeseburgers, a chocolate shake, a soda with caffeine and sugar, three fries, three apple pies.

“Feeding a crowd?” the woman behind the counter asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Fang said sweetly.

Yeah, him and all his split personalities, I thought. I turned back to Nudge.

“Okay,” I said, reaching deep into my well of leaderly patience. “But you still need lots of protein.”

Iggy ordered the same thing as Fang, and I paid for him. Fang waited for him to get his food and unobtrusively led him to the most private booth.

“Um, let’s see,” I said, stepping up. “Could I have two fried-chicken sandwiches, two double cheeseburgers, four fries, six apple pies, two vanilla shakes, one strawberry shake, and then two triple cheeseburgers, only hold the hamburger?”

“You mean, just cheese on the bun? No meat?”

“Yes. That would be great.” I looked over at Nudge, who nodded.

I was about to faint from hunger, and smelling all the food was killing me. Standing beside me, the Gasman was shifting from foot to foot, looking eager. It seemed like a lifetime before we got our three loaded trays, paid, and joined Fang and Iggy in the back.

Another glance around showed happy families, kids blowing straw wrappers, women talking together, teens hanging out. I sat down warily, and Nudge slid in next to me. The Gasman squeezed in next to her.

Am I tough? Am I strong? Am I hard-core? Absolutely.

Did I whimper with pathetic delight when I sank my teeth into my hot fried-chicken sandwich? You betcha.

Nudge was tearing into her cheese bun things, Fang was on his second burger, Iggy could hardly breathe through all the food in his mouth, and the Gasman was wolfing fries by the fistful. We probably looked like starving orphan children. Hey! We were starving orphan children. For several minutes all you could hear were disgusting chomping noises. I had a sudden flashback to the fun, civilized meals with Ella and her mom, where we used napkins and good ma

Great. Now I was choking up and having trouble swallowing.

I’m not sure when it happened, but slowly I became aware that my neck muscles were tensing. I glanced at Fang, who was looking at me sideways while he ate his french fries. / knew that look.

Acting tres casual, I glanced around again. The couple of families who’d been sitting close by were gone. Now it looked as if a bunch of male models had suddenly gotten the munchies. They were surrounding us, tables of them.

All good-looking, thick-haired guys with big, pretty eyes and the voices of angels.

Oh, man. My stomach dropped like a wheelbarrow full of lead.

57

I gave Fang an almost imperceptible nod and glanced back at the fire exit door behind him. He blinked to show he understood. Then he tapped Iggy’s hand.

“Nudge,” I said under my breath. “Gazzy. Don’t look up. In three seconds, jump over Fang and out that exit door.”

Giving no sign they had heard me, Nudge and Iggy kept chewing. Nudge casually took a sip of her shake. Then, in a burst, she leaped up, sprang off our table, and practically crashed through the fire door. The Gasman was practically glued to her back.

I was so proud of them.

The alarm started clanging, but I was right behind them-and Fang and Iggy were on my heels. We made it to the van before the Erasers were out the door.

Inside, I jammed the key into the ignition and cranked the engine. Erasers were swarming into the parking lot, already starting to become wolflike.

I stomped on the gas and reversed fast, crying out when we felt the thunk of an Eraser being hit. Then I yanked the gear stick into D and we roared over the curb, right through the shrubs that lined the parking lot. The tires squealed as I careened out into traffic, causing a bunch of angry honking from other cars.

I cut right through a gas station on the corner, narrowly avoiding hitting several cars. On the other side, I roared back into traffic.

“Max!” Nudge screamed, but I had seen the semitrailer too, and swerved out of its way at the last second. Behind me, I heard the crunch of metal as the truck scraped a car. Then I was weaving in and out of traffic, wishing I knew how to drive better, wishing we had stolen something besides a van.

“It’s so bulky!” I cried in frustration as we teetered on two wheels again just turning a corner. Okay, turning fast. But still.

“It’s a van,” Fang said, as though blaming me for not stealing a race car.

We sped out of town-I had to get away from all this traffic. My adrenaline was pumping, my arms felt like corded cables on the steering wheel. We had to ditch this van.

“I’m go

“Okay!” the flock yelled back.

A glance in the rearview mirror showed three black cars following us, catching up to us. They were going a lot faster than we were. I had to buy time.

Gritting my teeth, I swung off road suddenly, right into a field of corn. We plowed through the dry stalks, wincing as they smacked the windshield. I tried to zigzag as best I could, and then a bit of light up ahead made me hopeful for a road.

I didn’t see anything in the rearview mirror, and the sound of crunching cornstalks was too loud for me to hear other engines. Had we lost them? And yes, here was a road! Excellent!

The van tumbled heavily out onto the road, with bone-jolting bumps. As soon as the front tires hit asphalt, I gu

Just as a sedan leaped out in front of us.

I hit it head-on at sixty miles an hour.

58

Note to self: Disable the air bags on the next car you steal.

The thing about airbags is that when you hit something at fifty or sixty miles an hour, they inflate with enough raw force to slam you back against your seat like a rag doll, possibly breaking your face. Which is what this one had done to me, I concluded, trying to stem the gush of blood from my nose.

“Report,” I called weakly.

“Okay here,” Fang said next to me. His neck was scraped raw by the seat belt, which had almost decapitated him.

“Okay here,” Nudge said from the backseat, sounding young and scared. I craned around to see her. She was pale, except where her forehead was bruised from hitting Fang’s seat. Her eyes widened with shock when she saw my bloody face.

“It’s just my nose,” I quickly assured her. “Head wounds always bleed a lot. Look, it’s already stopping.” A lie.

“I feel like, like pudding,” Iggy groaned. “Pudding with nerve endings. Pudding in great pain.”

“I feel sick,” the Gasman said, his face white, lips pale and bloodless.

Crash!