Hawk - James Patterson Page 0,46

circus entertainment outside, I was just here in the goddamn Infirmary! Knowing where I was helped because I knew where I had to get to, and how to get there, but the location was still a bummer.

I couldn’t fly out—I’d have to run.

Below my hand with the IV drip, I felt the thin, soft tubing that was delivering the sedative. With two fingers, I very slowly pinched the tube shut.

“Why can’t you just cut the nerves and whatever?” McCallum asked.

“Because.” The doctor now sounded irritated. “We don’t know what will happen if I cut the nerves and the arteries. It could kill her. Plus, you want the wings grafted onto someone else? We’ll need those nerve endings!”

Well, that was a relief. If I died I wouldn’t have to live without my wings. Maybe I was imagining it, but did I already feel a little more conscious?

“So what?” McCallum said. Without his usual continuous shouting of threats and verbal abuse, he sounded so different. Like a real person. That was a disturbing thought, that a real person could think and behave like McCallum.

“So then you would have wings that we’d try to keep viable with ice and saline, and a dead person. Voilà. How impressive is that? But if I can get these wings off without killing her, then you have wings, plus a penitent person. That would be much more compelling, much more of a lesson.”

McCallum was quiet. The only sounds were the tiny pump not pumping drugs into my IV and the clatter of more metal surgical tools on a metal tray.

“How long will this take?” McCallum asked.

“I have an image of her back right here,” the doctor said. “I’m going to study it for a few minutes and come up with a plan.”

“I’ll check back in five minutes, then,” said McCallum. “And I have an idea—we can broadcast the whole operation. Everyone from the Council to the lowest Ope will see it!”

“Why?” That was the nurse, and everyone seemed surprised that she spoke. “I’m sorry,” she said immediately.

“Why?” McCallum’s voice was soft, like the subtle hiss of a snake. Then he roared. “Because she’s a Freak, and we can make an example of her! Because I’m McCallum! And I say so! Five minutes!”

The screen went blank, then was quickly replaced by a vid of three kittens singing a song about loyalty and honor. It was such a catchy tune I almost started tapping my foot along.

“Goddamnit.” The doctor’s voice was so low that his nurse probably hadn’t heard it. But I have birdlike ears, and I heard it. I managed not to gasp or twitch when his hands smoothed the skin between my wings at the top of my shoulders. I hadn’t been touched in prison—my reputation made sure of that—so it was hard to lie still and feel someone else’s hands on me. He pulled my wings open a little bit so they were out of the way and rubbed their upper joints, feeling where the bones separated. He was really gearing up to do this.

How awake was I? Was I strapped down? I didn’t feel it.

Get up, Max, I told myself sternly. You are Maximum Ride and you will get off this goddamn table and run, you hear me?

Do. You. Hear. Me?

CHAPTER 42

Hawk

I’d never done anything like this, but it was awesome. We just tucked our wings along our sides and dive-bombed down to the cold concrete of the first floor of the prison. The explosion had also ripped open a bunch of the cells on the third floor, and prisoners were running out, free. They gawked at our wings, but were too thrilled at their newfound freedom to ask questions.

On the first floor. I raced toward Fang’s cell, with Gazzy and Iggy right behind me. Nudge was shooting guards left and right with a dart gun. “We try to keep the body count low,” she had explained to me. “Part of our personal growth.”

“This is it!” I said breathlessly as we reached the intersection of cells. I grabbed the bars of the cell as if I could just yank them out. Then the three of us stood there silently while chaos erupted all around us.

The cell was empty.

I felt Gazzy looking at me, and Iggy turned his head in my direction.

“This is where he was,” I said lamely. “This is where I saw him.”

“Damnit!” said Gazzy, wiping sweat off his brow. “What now?”

“You lookin’ for that murderer?” The skinny, dirty prisoner in the next cell