Jeb and I walked past a bank of computers, out of sight of the others. A door in the far wall led into a smaller, less lablike room furnished with couches, a table and chairs, a sink, microwave.

“Sit down, Max, please,” he said, gesturing to a chair. “I’ll get us some hot chocolate.” He said it casually, knowing it was my favorite, as if we were in the kitchen back home.

“Max, I have to tell you-I’m so proud of you,” he said, putting mugs in the microwave. “I just can’t believe how well you’ve done. No, I can believe it-I knew you could do it. But seeing you so healthy, so powerful, such a good leader, well, it just makes me so proud.”

The microwave beeped, and he set a steaming mug on the table in front of me. We were in a top-secret facility in the middle of Death Valley, officially called “freaking nowhere” on any map, and yet he managed to produce marshmallows, plopping two into my cup.

I looked at him steadily, ignoring the hot chocolate, which was making my stomach growl.

He paused as if to give me time to reply, then sat down across from me at the table. It was Jeb-my brain finally accepted the inescapable truth. I recognized the fine pink scar on his jawline, the slight bend to his nose, the tiny freckle on his right ear. This was not his evil twin. It was him. He was evil.

“You must have so many questions,” he said. “I don’t even know where to start. I just-I’m just so sorry about this. I wish I could explain-wish I could have explained two years ago, to you, if no one else. I wish I could explain what I’d give just to see you smile again.”

How about your head on a stick?

“But in time, Max, it will all come out, and you’ll understand what’s happening. That’s what I told Angel. I told her that everything is a test, even when you don’t know it. That sometimes you just have to do what you have to do and know it will all be clearer later. All of this has been a test.” He waved his hand vaguely, as if to encompass my entire experience.

I sat there, conscious that my sweatshirt was crusted with blood, that my face hurt, that I was hungry again- quelle surprise-and that I had never, ever wanted to kill anyone more, not even last summer when Iggy had shredded my only, favorite pair of non-Goodwill pants to make a fuse long enough to detonate something from fifty feet away.

I said nothing, had no expression on my face.

He glanced at me, then at the closed door. “Max,” he said, with a new tone of urgency in his voice. “Max, soon some people will come in to talk to you. But I need to tell you something first.”

That you are the devil incarnate?

“Something I couldn’t tell you before, something I thought I’d have time to prepare you for later.”

He looked around, as if to make sure no one else could hear. Guess he was forgetting all our surveillance lessons, about hidden mikes and heat sensors that can see through walls, and long-distance listening devices that could pick up a rat sneeze from a half mile away.

“The thing is, Max,” he said, tons of heart-wringing emotion in his eyes, “you’re even more special than I always told you. You see, you were created for a reason. Kept alive for a purpose, a special purpose.”

You mean besides seeing how well insane scientists could graft avion DNA into a human egg?

He took a breath, looking deep into my eyes. I coldly shut down every good memory I had of him, every laugh we’d shared, every happy moment, every thought that he was like a dad to me.

“Max, that reason, that purpose is: You are supposed to save the world.”

Okay, I couldn’t help it. My jaw dropped open. I shut it again quickly. Well. This would certainly give weight to my ongoing struggle to have the bathroom first in the morning.

“I can’t tell you much more than that right now,” Jeb said, looking over his shoulder again. “But I had to let you know the size of what we’re dealing with, the enormity, the importance. You are more than special, Max. You’re preordained. You have a destiny that you can’t imagine.”

Maybe I can’t imagine it because I’m not a complete nutcase.

“Max, everything you’ve done, everything you are, everything you can be, is tied into your destiny. Your life is worth the lives of thousands. The fact that you are alive is the most important thing anyone has ever accomplished.”

If he was expecting a gushing response, he was gonna wait a long time.

He sighed heavily, not taking his eyes off me, disappointed at my lack of excitement over hearing that I was the messiah.

“It’s okay,” he said with sad understanding. “I can barely imagine what you must be feeling or thinking. It’s okay. I just wanted to tell you myself. Later, others will come to talk to you. After you’ve had a chance to think about this, to realize what it could mean for you and the others. But for now, don’t say anything to the rest of the flock. It’s our secret, Maximum. Soon the whole world will know. But not just yet.”

I was getting very good at saying nothing.

He stood up and helped me from my chair, a solicitous hand under my elbow that made my flesh crawl.

We walked in silence back to the row of crates, and he unlatched mine and waited patiently for me to crawl inside. Such a gentleman.

Latching it behind me, he leaned down to give me one last meaningful look. “Remember,” he whispered. “Trust me. That’s all I ask. Just trust me. Listen to your gut.”

Well, how many times had I heard him say that? I wondered contemptuously as he walked away. Right now my gut was telling me I wanted to take his lungs out with a pair of pliers.

“You okay?” Angel asked anxiously, pressing her little face to the side of her cage.

I nodded, and met Fang’s and Nudge’s eyes across the way.

“I’m okay. Everyone hang tough, all right?” Nudge and Angel nodded, concerned, and Fang kept staring at me. I had no idea what he was thinking. Was he wondering if I was a traitor? Was he wondering if Jeb had managed to turn me-or if I had been in league with Jeb from the beginning?

He would find out soon enough.

Hours went by. In the dictionary, next to the word stress, there is a picture of a midsize mutant stuck inside a dog crate, wondering if her destiny is to be killed or to save the world.

Okay, not really. But there should be.

If you can think of anything more nerve-racking, more guaranteed to whip every fiber in your body up in a knot, you let me know.

I couldn’t tell the others anything-not even in a whisper. If it amused Jeb to pretend that closed doors and lowered voices protected one against surveillance, that was fine. But I knew better. There could be cameras and mikes hidden anywhere, built into our crates. So I couldn’t go over a plan, offer reassurance, or even freak out and say, “Oh, my God! Jeb is alive!”

When Angel whispered, “Where are Gazzy and Iggy?” I just shrugged. Her face fell, and I looked hard at her. They got away. They’re okay.

She read my thoughts, gave a tiny nod, then gradually slumped against the side of her crate, worn out.

After that, all I could do was send meaningful glances.

For hours.

My headache was back, and when I shut my eyes all these images danced on the backs of my eyelids.

At one point a whitecoat came in and dumped another “experiment” into the crate next to mine. I glanced over, curious, then quickly turned away, my heart aching. It looked enough like a kid to make me feel sick, but more like a horrible fungus. Huge pebbly growths covered most of its body. It had few fingers and only one toe, stuck onto the end of a foot like a pod. Senseless blue eyes looked out at me, blinked.