Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure

She must survive to lead. The calm is over. The storm is on the way, and the skies will break open with its force. Do you understand?

Not really, Gazzy thought, peering outside at the blameless blue sky. No menacing dark clouds, no swarms of locusts, no angry mobs. But he knew the Voice was right about one thing—he needed Max as a leader, and if her life was in danger, he was absolutely willing to protect her from weather or whitecoats or whatever else came along.

Gazzy stood up, ready to go find her, then hesitated. Don’t let Max out of your sight. Did the Voice really mean never ever let her out of his sight, no matter what? Surely Max would need bathroom breaks? What had the Voice said? Protect her with his own life! Well, of course, and that sounded like they would definitely need explosives before too long. But…

In the kitchen, Iggy was holding a mixer blade as cake batter dripped, unnoticed, onto his shirt. He had to protect Max? Even at the cost of his own life? He cocked his head, listening intently. He could hear nothing out of the ordinary—no vehicles or choppers on their way, no one shouting alarms. Total wasn’t even barking, not that he usually did. But for some reason the Voice needed his help. Right in the middle of this cake.

“Okay. She’ll survive without my help—she’s too stubborn to die,” Iggy muttered. “But I’ll protect her anyway.”

Good.

Harden your heart.

Why, hello there, Voice, I thought snidely. It’s nice to see you, too. How’s tricks?

There’s no time for jokes, Maximum. Time has run out. The end is here, Max. Now.

I stopped slashing wing holes in the back of a hoodie and frowned. The end? Like the apocalypse? No offense, but if I had a nickel for every time I’d heard that—

This is no time to be getting soft, to let your guard down, Max. You’re not as paranoid as you used to be. You’re not as strong.

Hey, I am just as paranoid as I ever was, I thought defensively. Our life here just happens to be on the calm and peaceful side of the spectrum. For once.

Listen very closely, Max. Your task, at the end, is to harden your heart.

Harden my heart? Like, further? Isn’t that what everyone has always complained about with me? Now it’s a good thing?

Lives will be lost. More than you can imagine. In order to survive, you must harden yourself against their suffering. Lose the softness. Become the fearless leader again.

I scowled at the implication that I’d ever been less than a “fearless leader,” but I had to admit, I was rattled—as much by the Voice, whose word I’d always taken as gospel, saying that the end was finally here as by the Voice, who had told me I had to save the world in the first place, telling me to put myself first. My mind recoiled at the confusion, and at the Voice’s hardness.

Its certainty.

I waited for the Voice to say something else, but it was silent—apparently my brain was only mine again. As messed up as that sounds.

Dread gnawing at my insides, I pondered my task: to harden my heart. Come what may.

42

EVERYTHING IS ABOUT to change. Dylan paused the video game he was playing. He looked around, but no one was near him. Prepare yourselves. Was this his… Voice? He knew Max, and possibly the other members of the flock, had heard it before, but this was totally new to him.

Um… what do you want? he thought. For a second, he was almost excited. It was like he was one of them—even more like Max—now that he had a Voice, too.

But his excitement quickly went cold.

You have a task ahead of you, Dylan. One that only you can perform. One that you must perform. Do you understand?

This sounded familiar. Dylan fought a wave of nausea as he remembered Dr. Williams describing the other task he had to perform—bringing Fang in for a life of torture. Now this weird Voice in his head was demanding something else of him that he supposedly couldn’t refuse….

What is it? Dylan thought with dread.

The answer wasn’t anything he would have predicted.

You must fully win Max’s heart. The survival of the world depends on it.

Dylan groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “Like I haven’t been trying!” he said aloud, exasperated. Is that all? Sure you don’t have any dragons I can slay instead?

A nice, solid, physical goal. That was what he needed. He was pretty confident about his physical abilities— flying skills, fighting technique, speed, strength.

But Max’s heart… Max was an enigma wrapped in a puzzle wrapped in a cipher. Or something. He’d been trying to win her over ever since he’d joined the flock. Every once in a while, it felt like he was making headway. Dylan’s face flushed as he remembered the few mind-blowing kisses they’d shared.

But then she would back off again, and he would be left wondering what he’d done wrong, and if he would ever, ever get it right.

Now the Voice, the not-to-be-ignored Voice, was saying he had to somehow step up his game and actually win Max’s heart. For the sake of the entire world. Dylan felt panicky. It wasn’t like winning Max’s heart was taking one for the team. It was the only thing he’d ever wanted.

But until now, he’d never been afraid of what would happen if he failed.

43

GOING ON A dream date is not exactly “hardening your heart,” Max, I thought to myself uneasily, remembering the Voice’s creepy warning. If being closed off were an Olympic sport, I’d have more gold medals than I could carry. But this whole heart-hardening gig simply was not happening.

Not now. Not tonight.

Because, despite my usual reaction to all things girly (eye roll, look of disgust, general feeling of nausea), tonight I was positively giddy and swooning. I couldn’t help it—I had seriously underestimated the effect a little romance can have on a girl.

Dream date.

Unlike the general population, my idea of a dream date would once have been simply defined as not eating roasted lizard or Dumpster scraps for dinner. But my first (second? Did the one at the movies count?) “date” with Dylan was certainly more than that.

Much, much more, in fact.

I stared up at the sight before me, jaw on the ground and eyes bugging. See, when Dylan came up to me after school and said “Follow me,” I thought, What the heck? I’ll just go ahead and follow the guy, let him show me whatever fascinating new discovery he’s made. I had expected him to demonstrate that he could fly backward or show me a cool rock formation he’d found—something like that.

Let me tell you: I was not expecting this.

“H-how did you…?” I stuttered. We were nestled within the branches of a huge fir tree, about thirty feet up. I felt the warmth of Dylan’s hand on my lower back, steadying me as I leaned backward and gaped up, still trying to take in all the amazing details of the house. My house.

“I’ve been building it ever since we got here,” Dylan said, smiling shyly at my speechless astonishment. “I went exploring the first day and found this tree, and I knew you liked tree houses….”

I grinned dopily at his perfect face, his soft, anxious eyes. I knew you liked tree