MAXIMUM RIDE: THE FINAL WARNING

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Chapter 1

A Different Forest. Not telling you where.

Okay, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that funerals suck. Even if you didn't know the person, it's still totally sad. When you did know the person, well, let's just say it's much worse than broken ribs. And when you just found out that the person was your biological half-brother, right before he died, it adds a whole new level of pain.

Ari. My half-brother. We shared the same "father," Jeb Batchelder, and you can believe those airquotes around "father."

I'd first known Ari as a cute little kid who used to follow me around the School, the horrible prison/science facility where I grew up. Then we'd escaped from the School, with Jeb's help, and to tell you the truth, I hadn't given Ari another thought. Then he'd turned up, Eraserfied, grotesque, oversized wings retrofitted onto his back, his seven-year-old emotions all askew inside his chemical-enhanced, genetically modified brain. He'd turned into a monster, and They'd sent him after us, with various unpredictable gruesome results.

Then there had been that fight in the subway tunnels beneath Manhattan. I'd whacked Ari's head a certain way, his neck had cracked against the platform's edge . . . and suddenly he'd been dead. For a while, anyway.

Back when I thought I had killed him, all sorts of sticky emotions gummed up my brain. Guilt, shock, regret . . . but also relief. When he was alive, he kept trying to kill us, the flock, I mean. Me and my merry band of mutant birdkids. So if he was dead, then that was one less person gunning for my family.

All the same, I felt horrible that I had killed someone, even by accident. I'm just tender-hearted that way, I guess. It's hard enough being a homeless fourteen-year-old with, yeah, wings, without having a bunch of damp emotions floating all over the place.

Now Ari was dead for real. I hadn't killed him this time, though.

"I need a tissue," Total sniffled, nuzzling around my ankles like I keep one in my sneakers.

Speaking of damp emotions.

Nudge pressed closer to me and took my hand. Her other hand was over her mouth. Her big brown eyes were full of tears.

None of us are big criers, not even six-year-old Angel, or the Gasman, who's still only eight. Nudge is eleven, and then me, Iggy, and Fang are all fourteen. Technically, we're all still children.

But it takes a lot, and I mean a whole lot, to make any of us cry. We've had bones broken without crying about it. Today, though, it was like another flood was coming, and Noah was in back of us building an ark. My throat hurt so much from holding back tears that it felt like I'd swallowed a fist of clay.

Angel stepped forward and gently tossed some forget-me-nots onto the plain wooden box at the bottom of the big hole. A hole it had taken all of us three hours to dig.

"Bye, Ari," she said. "I didn't know you for very long, and I didn't like you for a lot of it. But I liked you at the end. You helped us. You saved us. I'll miss you. And I didn't mind your fangs or anything." Her little voice choked, and she turned to bury her face against my chest.

I stroked her hair and swallowed hard.

The Gasman was next. He had a fistful of ferns, and he sprinkled them onto the coffin. "I'm sorry about what they did to you," he said quietly. His spiky blond hair caught a shaft of sunlight and seemed to light up this little glen. "It wasn't your fault."

I snuck a quick glance over at Jeb. His jaw was clenched, his eyes full of pain. His only son lay in a box in the ground. He had helped put him there.

Bravely Nudge stepped closer to the grave and tossed some daisies onto it. She tried to speak, but started crying. I drew her to me and held her close.

I looked at Iggy. As if sensing it, he raised his hand and dropped it. "I don't have anything to say." His voice was gruff.

Next it was Fang's turn, but he waved me to go next. Total had collapsed in sobs on my shoes, so I gently disengaged him and stepped over to the grave. I had two wild irises, and I let them float onto the coffin of my half-brother.

As the flock leader, I was supposed to come up with a speech. There was no way to sum up what I was feeling. I had killed Ari once, then watched him die again as he saved my life. I'd known him when he was a cute little kid, and I'd known him as a hulking Eraser, half-human, half-wolf. I had fought him almost to death, and I had ended up choosing him over the best friend I'd ever had. I'd hated everything about him, then found out we shared half of our human DNA.

I had no words for this, and I'm a word queen. I've talked my way out of more tight spots than a leopard has, but this? A funeral for a sad, doomed seven-year-old? I had nothing.

Fang came up behind me and touched my back. I looked at him, at his black eyes that gave away nothing. He nodded and sort of patted my hair, then moved forward and dropped some goldenrod onto the coffin.

"Well, Ari, I'm sorry that it's ended like this," he said so quietly I could hardly hear him, even with my raptor superhearing. "You were a decent little kid, and then you were a total nightmare. I didn't trust you—until the very end. I didn't know you much, didn't care." Fang stopped and brushed some overlong hair out of his eyes. "Right now, that feels like the biggest tragedy of all."

Okay, that so did me in. Mr. Rock, being all emotional? Expressing feelings? Tears spilled down my cheeks and I covered my mouth with my hand, trying not to make a sound. Nudge put her arm around me, feeling my shoulders shaking, and Angel held me tighter. Then everyone was holding me, total flock hug, and I put my head on Fang's shoulder and cried.