Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure

yelled, and Gazzy hung upside down by one foot, giggling maniacally.

“Ooh, I bet there are waterfalls, too,” Nudge continued, ignoring the boys. “Tropical paradises always have waterfalls! Don’t they?”

My mom smiled indulgently. “They do, and there are.”

“Tree house!” Gazzy yelled from above. “Oh, man! You guys, look at all the tree houses!”

The tree houses were camouflaged so well that I hadn’t noticed them at first, but he was right—now I could see their shapes forming a village high in the jungle’s canopy.

A village just for us.

“They have our names on the doors!” Gazzy yelled. “Nudge, this one’s yours.”

“Really?” Nudge bolted up there as fast as her wings would carry her.

Nudge’s tree house was the most chic-looking of all the tree houses: ultramodern, with sleek, clean lines. It was minimal—almost delicate—and seemed to be held together by nothing more than sap. “A canopied bed!” I heard Nudge exclaim from inside. This was followed by a “Gazzy! Off!” I snorted with laughter.

“I think that’s yours over there, Total,” my mom said, pointing to an enormous mansion of a tree house.

“Mine?” Total asked, gaping upward. “Oh, Dr. M! Look at those glorious arches, the Grecian lines! Plush, with understated elegance and seaside charm,” he gushed. “So classy! So regal! It’s so… me.”

Just at that moment we heard a bark—and it wasn’t Total’s high-pitched yap, but the joyful call of a much bigger canine. A wet nose peeked out from between some of the tree-house branches above.

“Akila!” Total was off in a flash to be reunited with his furry lady love.

Wow. They really have thought of everything, I thought.

Laughing, Angel, Fang, and I followed my mom farther down the path.

“This is you, Max.” My mom nodded up at a mammoth banyan tree.

My new home was almost impossible to see if you didn’t know it was there—the perfect hideout. At the top of the towering trunk, a canopy of leaves reached for the sun.

“It’s beautiful,” I said in awe.

“It suits you,” Fang said from behind me, his breath making the hairs on my neck stand up.

I looked at the brittle, gnarled roots snaking all the way up and around the trunk, creating a hard, protective layer for the tree’s core. Maybe Fang wasn’t so far off.

“How do we get in?” I asked.

My mom turned and smiled at me. “You fly.”

75

I COULD FLY in here, I thought breathlessly. Inside my own house.

The tree was completely hollow. The ceiling was made of thick protective glass, but it was all the way up top, near the banyan’s broad, glossy leaves. Strips of sunlight filtered through the canopy, reminding me of old, dusty churches with swallows darting among the rafters.

Angel stayed with me to explore the place after Mom had taken Fang somewhere—who knows where; maybe a floating tree-house hospital in paradise?—to remove the bandages from his quickly healing wounds. As we explored, all kinds of cool little details caught our eyes. The furniture looked like the tree itself had just grown naturally into rough, chairlike shapes, and tunnels from the main room led to elaborate balconies with comfy hammocks. It all looked kind of haphazard, but at the same time beautifully, thoughtfully designed.

Someone knows me very well, I thought.

I pressed a button on one wall and a metal ladder spiraled silently down to the jungle floor below. Mechanical. Fancy.

I soared upward, the wood circling around me in a blur, and found the latch to a door in the glass ceiling that lead to the roof. There was a small balcony high above the jungle’s canopy where I could see everything: the towering cliffs on the other side of the island, the sea lapping against the sandy coast… and, of course, it was an ideal spot for spying on my wayward flock.

The perfect perch. Angel and I sat there together for a moment.

I was dreaming of long days of swimming, cliff-diving, soaring above the most beautiful place I’d ever seen, so I was surprised to suddenly catch sight of Angel’s distant, unsettling look.

“What, honey?” I said gently.

She looked up at me urgently. “I want to stay here forever,” she said, gripping my hand tightly. “Max, I never want to leave.”

“You won’t have to, sweetie,” I promised her. I peered at the banyan’s sturdy silhouette and beamed. “None of us will ever have to leave again.”

I felt so much relief as I said it, knowing it was true. But Angel was still staring at me, like she didn’t want to let me out of her newly recovered sight. Her eyes were huge in her little face, and she seemed pretty spooked.

“Angel?” I said uneasily. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, but it came out as a stressed little squeak. “It’s just… nothing.”

I put my arm around her. “I know you’ve been through a lot lately, but that’s all over now. You can trust my mom. We’re thousands of miles from anyone who would hurt you, and totally off the radar. It’s safe here. Really.”

Angel let out her tense breath and smiled. “Thanks, Max.” She walked over to the doorway. “I’ll be at my tree house if you want to find me.”

As I gave Angel a quick good-bye hug, I noticed that a thick branch connected my home to another tree house. I shimmied across it, wondering which member of the flock’s butt I’d have to kick in the mornings, weighing the pros and cons of waking up to Nudge’s sugary pop music versus being downwind of Gazzy’s infamous morning emissions.

Instead, the bold, black letters staring back at me from the wooden plaque on the door caused a helpless little squeak to come out of my mouth: DYLAN.

Does. Not. Compute.

That name on the door was like a hard fist to my stomach, and I felt all the stuff I’d been so good at swallowing come back up: Anger that he’d almost killed Fang in front of all of us. Hurt and confusion over his complete freak-out. Shame for all the stupid, fluttery feelings I’d felt when he looked at me with those ocean eyes of his. Clearly he was not my perfect other half. Everything came spewing out like some sort of emotional vomit.

Romantic, huh?

And because the universe just loves to screw with my emotions, I felt a hand on my shoulder right then, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Was he…?

“Don’t worry, Max,” my mom said, striding past me.

I exhaled. The ladder—I’d left it down.

With one hard wrench, she pried the nameplate off the door and tossed it out of the tree like yesterday’s garbage. “That sign will be replaced.” Mom sighed.

“Uhhh,” I groaned, totally incapable of any other response. I clenched my jaw and concentrated on pushing every stupid thought of Dylan back down again.

“Fang! Up here! Come see your house,” Mom called from the balcony. She looked back at me with… what? Pity? “I’m sorry, honey,” she said, giving my arm a squeeze. “He wasn’t… expected.”

76

“THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE you need to know,” my mom said when we all met up again, and Fang’s eyes flicked to mine.

Was it all too good to be true?

“What?” I asked uneasily.

“Let me show you,” she said, and then she called the rest of the flock to join her.

After a short, brisk hike through the jungle, during which my anxiety steadily grew, the flock finally emerged