I watched Gazzy’s face grow even paler and saw the despair in Nudge’s eyes, and I realized that the Voice wasn’t just in my own head this time. Every member of my little flock had heard the same thing.
70
I DIDN’T EVEN have time to launch into a full-fledged freak-out over the Voice’s message before my thoughts were drowned out by a distinctive chopping sound that was quickly getting louder and louder.
“Is that a helicopter?” Nudge asked, peering out a window. “There’s a helicopter now?”
The chopper was super close—almost right on our roof, it sounded like. I hated leaving Fang for even a second, but I hurried over to the window. Outside, the treetops were bent almost double and dead leaves were flying everywhere. The house windows were starting to shake when the whirring sound of the blades slowed and stopped.
“I seriously can’t deal with this right now,” I muttered. For the first time, I really didn’t know if we were up to any new challenge. My flock was bloody and beaten up, Fang was still out cold, and Dylan was gone. If this was some new threat, I didn’t have a Plan B. Or a Plan A, for that matter.
I needed a break. But leaders don’t get breaks.
“Okay,” I said, straightening my shoulders even though inside I was screaming. I pushed a strand of blood- soaked hair out of my eyes. “I’m going to go see what’s up. If I’m not back in ten, I’m either dead or asleep on my feet. Stay with Fang—keep him safe. Do
With that, I walked woodenly back outside. It was fully light out. I stepped over the fallen Erasers and past Jeb, who was still lying next to the porch, unconscious. I didn’t have enough energy to feel anything toward the man who had created me, the man who had betrayed me in the worst way imaginable—more than once. I’d been awake since about three AM, and most of those hours had been spent locked in fatal combat. I was too exhausted to feel anything but despair.
The chopper had landed on a piece of flat ground right next to the house. I squinted but couldn’t see through the tinted windows, so I stopped and waited to see what fresh disaster was about to emerge.
The chopper’s small door opened.
I braced myself.
My mother, Valencia Martinez, stepped out.
That did it. My knees gave out, and I crumpled in an ungraceful pile on the trampled grass.
71
“MAX!” MY MOM cried, and her voice washed over me like a warm breeze. She sprinted toward me, her arms open, her face twisted with concern.
“It is really you?” I asked, blearily looking up at her as she lifted me from the ground. She nodded and smiled her warm, familiar smile.
After a quick embrace she pulled back and gently placed both of her hands on my shoulders, her worried eyes appraising my blood-spattered clothes and dirty face.
“Let me look at you,” she said. “What happened to you?”
“Jeb,” I said bleakly. “Jeb happened. And Ari. And his Erasers. And Dylan… He attacked Fang—they were
“Oh, honey,” she said, hugging me tight. “I’m so sorry. I tried to get here sooner….”
“It’s not your fault,” I said, still crying. I hugged her back with all I had, breathing in her warm, homey scent.
“I’m not so sure about that, Max,” she said quietly, her voice wracked with pain.
I pulled away, wiping my nose on my dirty sleeve, and stared at her blankly. I couldn’t process what she might have meant; I was too wrapped up in the joy of having her back.
Mom looked at me solemnly, seemingly prepared for the worst. “Where is Fang?” she asked. “Is he alive?”
I nodded, pointing toward the house, and she dashed off.
The next hour was a blur of my mom checking on Fang and then helping the rest of us get patched up as best we could. Gazzy and Nudge both needed stitches, and I was so glad that my mom was a trained medical professional. For animals, but still.
“Fang will be fine, I think,” she said, and I breathed another sigh of relief. “He has a concussion, so he needs to take it easy for a while. But he should wake up soon. Everything else looks worse than it actually is.”
I nodded. With Fang sorted out, I finally asked the other burning question that had been on my mind: “Mom, what happened to you? Where have you been all this time?”
Her eyes flicked to Angel and filled with something it took me a moment to recognize. “It’s… a long story,” she replied hesitantly. It was shame she had in her eyes, I realized. Angel blinked, looking down, and said nothing.
My heart froze as I remembered what she’d told me:
“No,” I said, drawing in a sharp breath. “No, Mom, not you…” I felt like I was trying to swallow a whole ice cube.
“Please believe me when I tell you this, Max,” my mom said tentatively. “I was brainwashed. Jeb brainwashed me as effectively as the Doomsday Group did Ella and Iggy. You remember how quickly that cult spread, like a pandemic. I… I never thought I’d be a victim of that kind of thing, and it still seems impossible to me that it happened. I’m a doctor, a pragmatist, not some unhinged fanatic! It’s a mystery that I’m going to investigate for the rest of my life. But, honestly, Max, I don’t have time to deal with that just now. All I know is that I have to get you kids to safety right away—”
“Not so fast, Mom,” I interrupted, crossing my arms over my chest and shaking my head in disbelief. “If you were brainwashed, how do I know you’re not ‘under the influence’ anymore?”
She looked at me intently, her eyes pleading. “I know it’s hard to believe, Max. But after Jeb left, this… spell, or whatever it is… disappeared. Wore off. I don’t know. Jeb just knows me too well. He’s an incredibly smart and powerful man, and apparently he’s figured out how to use his power to control me. I somehow fell into believing again in a man I once thought could change the world, stupidly following him into the darkness.”
For the first time, my mother seemed imperfect. And a hundred percent human.
“When Jeb left the lab,” she rushed on, “I suddenly saw the true horror in everything and everyone around me at the facility. I knew Jeb was insane at that point. But I also gained valuable information as… one of them. I knew 99% was beginning, so I left the lab and immediately notified Pierpont that we had to get to you and the flock. To implement the final steps we’d been working on together for so long.”
The rest of the flock was crowded around me, shocked into silence. My face was hard, giving nothing away as I listened. I didn’t like the sound of the words “final steps we’d been working on together for so long.” It seemed like this new development came with more secrets, more lies. The stuff my life was made of.
“I promise you this is the real me, Max.” Mom swallowed, looking at me levelly. “And I promise you, all of you, that I’m back now. I know what’s right, what’s true, and I’m on your side.”
None of us answered her or so much as breathed, but I could feel the eyes of each member of the flock on my face as they waited for my next move. Whatever I said, they would follow my lead.
“Angel, check her mind,” I said faintly, still trying to harden my heart against the possible outcome. “See if she’s telling the truth.”
My mom closed her eyes, openly accepting the mind reading.
After what seemed like multiple eternities, Angel said, slowly, “She’s being honest. Dr. Martinez isn’t with the 99% Plan anymore. She’s a good guy.”
