“We’re pretty safe, unless the Erasers catch our scent,” the Gasman whispered to Iggy. The two of them were tucked inside a narrow fissure in the side of a cliff, up high. Scraggly bushes obscured the opening. The Erasers would have to rock climb to get them, or use the chopper.

Iggy kicked back and rested his hands on his knees. “Well, this is a total suckfest,” he said grumpily. “I thought with those two Erasers taking dirt naps, we’d be free and clear, at least for a while. They must have sent for backup even before they attacked the cabin.”

The Gasman ground dust between his fingertips. “At least we took two of them out.” He wondered if Iggy felt as weird and bad about it as he did. He couldn’t tell.

“Yeah, but what now? We’re kinda all dressed up with no place to go,” Iggy said. “There’s no way we can go home-they’re probably everywhere. What are we supposed to do with ourselves? And what if Max and the others come back just to fly into an ambush?”

“I don’t know,” the Gasman said in frustration. “I hadn’t thought beyond just blowing them the heck up. Maybe you should come up with a plan.”

The two boys sat in the semidarkness of the fissure, breathing the stale air. The Gasman’s stomach rumbled.

“Tell me about it,” Iggy said, resting his head on his knees.

“Okay, okay,” the Gasman said suddenly. “I have an idea. It’s risky, and Max will kill us when she finds out.”

Iggy raised his head. “Sounds like my kind of idea.”

Never in my fourteen looong years have I felt the slightest bit normal-except for my day with Ella and her mom, Dr. Martinez.

First, we ate a real breakfast together, around the kitchen table. On plates, with forks and knives and napkins. Instead of, like, a hot dog stuck on a barbecue fork, burned black over an open flame, then eaten right off the fork. Or cereal with no milk. Or peanut butter off a knife. Beanie weenies from the can.

Then Ella had to go to school. I was worried about the jerks from before, but she said her teacher was good at keeping kids in line, and so was the school bus driver. A real school bus! Like on TV shows.

So it was me and Dr. Martinez. “So, Max,” she said as she unloaded the dishwasher.

I tensed.

“Do you want to talk about… anything?”

I looked at her. Her face was tan and kind, her eyes warm and understanding. But I knew if I started talking, I would never stop. I would break down and start crying. I would freak out. Then I wouldn’t be Max anymore, wouldn’t be able to function, take care of the others, be the alpha girl. To save Angel. If it wasn’t already too late.

“Not really,” I said.

She nodded and started stacking clean plates. I fantasized about actually being friends with Ella and her mom long after I left here and went home. I could come back and visit sometimes… Yeah, and we could have picnics, exchange Christmas cards… I’m so sure. I was totally losing my grip on reality. I had to get out of here.

Dr. Martinez put away the clean plates and loaded the dirty ones into the dishwasher. “Do you have a last name?”

I thought. Since I didn’t have an “official” identity, there wasn’t anything she could do with the information. I rubbed my temples-a headache had been creeping up on me since breakfast.

“Yeah,” I said finally. I shrugged. “I gave it to myself.”

On my eleventh birthday (which was also a day I picked for myself), I had asked Jeb about a last name. I guess I was hoping he would say, “Your name is Batchelder, like me.” But he hadn’t. He’d said, “You should choose one yourself.”

So I’d thought about it, thought about how I could fly and who I was.

“My last name is Ride,” I told Ella’s mom. “Like Sally Ride, the astronaut. Maximum Ride.”

She nodded. “That’s a good name. Are there others like you?” she asked.

I pressed my lips together and looked away. My head was throbbing. I wanted to tell her-that was the awful part. Something inside me wanted to blurt out everything. But I couldn’t. Not after years of Jeb telling me I couldn’t trust anybody, ever.

“Do you need help?” My eyes flicked back to her face. “Max-with your wings-can you actually fly?”

“Well, yeah” I was startled into saying. That’s me: mouth-like-a-steel-trap Maximum. Yep, you have to use all your tricks to get me to talk. Jeez. That’s what I get for sleeping on a soft bed and eating homey food.

“Really? You can really fly?” She looked fascinated, alarmed, and a little envious.

I nodded. “My bones are… thin,” I began, hating myself. Shut up, Max! “Thin and light. I have extra muscles. My lungs are bigger. And my heart. More efficient. But I need to eat a lot. It’s hard.” Abruptly, I clammed up, a furious blush heating my cheeks. That, folks, was the most I had ever said to a non-flock member. But when I spill the beans, I spill big! I might as well have hired a skywriting plane to scrawl, “I’m a mutant freak!” in huge letters across the sky.

“How did this happen?” Ella’s mom asked softly. My eyes shut of their own volition. If I’d been alone I would have put my hands over my ears and hunkered down into a little ball on the floor. Fractured images, memories, fear, pain, all came crashing together inside my brain. You think being a regular teenager with growing pains is hard? Try doing it with DNA that’s not your own, not even from a mammal.

“I don’t remember,” I told her. It was a lie.

Dr. Martinez looked distressed. “Max, are you sure I can’t help in some way?”

I shook my head, irritated at myself, irritated at her for bringing all this up. “Nah. It’s all over, anyway. Done. But-I have to get out of here. Some friends are waiting for me. It’s really important.”

“How will you get to them? Can I give you a ride?”

“No,” I said, frowning and rubbing my hurt shoulder. “I need to, um, fly there. But I don’t think I can fly yet.”

Dr. Martinez creased her forehead, thinking. “It would be dangerous for you to strain your injury before it’s healed. I couldn’t tell the extent of it. But I could give you a better idea if we had an X-ray.”

I looked at her solemnly. “Do you have X-ray vision?”

She laughed, startled, and I couldn’t help grinning too. God, Ella had this all the time. A real mom.

“No. Not all of us have superhuman powers,” she said teasingly. “But some of us have access to X-ray machines.”

Dr. Martinez shared a vet practice with another doctor. Today was her day off, but she was sure no one would think it was weird for us to show up at the office. She gave me a windbreaker to wear, but I was still pretty freaked about seeing other people up close.

“Hi, guys,” Dr. Martinez said as we walked into the office. “This is a friend of Ella’s. She’s doing a report on being a vet, and I told her I’d give her a quick tour.”

The three people behind the counter smiled and nodded as if this was totally believable. Maybe it was. How would I know?

Two seconds after I walked in, I froze in the doorway, feeling the blood rush out of my face and a wash of terror sweep over me,

There was a man there.

In a white coat.

Dr. Martinez glanced back. “Max?”

I stared at her mutely. She gently took my arm and led me off into an exam room. “Yes, in here is where we see our patients,” she said cheerfully as she shut the door behind us. Then she turned and lowered her voice. “Max, what’s wrong? What’s the matter?”

I forced myself to take several slow, deep breaths, to uncoil the fists at my sides. “It’s the smell,” I whispered, embarrassed. “The chemical smell, like a lab. The guy in the white coat. I have to get out of here, okay? Can we just go now, really fast?” I looked for an exit, a window.