When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [70]
“How do you know that?” I asked. I didn’t doubt Max, but I was curious. I was pretty sure she’d never been on this road before. I lived near here, and I don’t think I was ever on it.
She shrugged, then peered deeply into my eyes. She could be smiling, then suddenly turn very intense and serious. “Can’t you feel the dairy farm where you used to live?”
“It’s far away,” I said. “I’d need a map to find it.”
“I feel the School,” Max said. “I know exactly where it is. I can see the way there in my mind.”
I understood what she was saying, and it hit me hard. I felt an uncomfortable lump in my throat. Like pigeons and house cats and migrating animals who can find their place of origin through either inertial navigation or God knows what, Max could home!
Chapter 73
PULL OVER,” she said before Kit made the actual turn.
Kit did as he had been asked. There was something in Max’s voice that couldn’t be ignored.
“Now, listen to me,” she said. “You can’t go any farther than this. If they catch you, I think they’ll kill you. I’m serious.”
“This is definitely serious stuff,” Kit said to her. “And that’s exactly why we’re going with you, little one. This is a serious gun,” he said and showed Max a handgun. It was a semiautomatic and it looked deadly.
“I have to come, Max. It’s my job. It’s the reason I came here to Colorado.”
“I can’t leave either,” I told Max. “I won’t leave you and Kit. It’s not going to happen.”
Max finally nodded. She didn’t like it, but she could tell we weren’t going away. For better or worse, we were in this together.
Kit pulled on the steering wheel and we turned off the main road, which wasn’t exactly U.S. One. Now we were on something called Under Mountain Pass, a twisty service road that shot up into the foothills of the Rockies. The School was here someplace. Max seemed certain of it.
“Take a right,” Max said suddenly. “Then you can let me out.”
“It’s not going to happen, Max,” Kit insisted. “We already went over that.”
“You’re awfully stubborn, Kit.”
“Look who’s talking.”
The road deteriorated and became an unmarked stream of dirt track that gave no clue as to where we were headed—neither by signage nor by buildings. It was appropriately desolate and eerie, though.
Every turn in the road was a driving challenge for Kit. Eyes glowed out at us. Deer and other forest critters wisely waited before sprinting to the other side. As we drove higher and higher into the mountains, Max finally began talking about where she had come from.
“The School moved a few times while I was growing up. I know it was in the state of Massachusetts, then out in California before we moved here. I went to classes every day, and it was okay at first. My teacher was Mrs. Beattie. She was a doctor, too, but she said we didn’t have to say ‘Doctor’ before her name. She really loved Matthew and me, and we loved her. We’re geniuses on the Stanford-Binet tests. We were told to take no credit for being smart, though, or being able to fly. We were made that way. We were just lab specimens after all.”
I heard Max’s breathing intensify. She was clutching my hand so hard it nearly went numb. Even though she had told us to turn back, I knew she hadn’t totally meant it. She was too frightened to do this alone.
“Let me out,” she said, suddenly grabbing higher on my arm. “I have to get out. I have to! Please, Kit? Right now! I promise not to fly away. I swear I won’t.”
I reached over and pressed Kit’s arm. He braked the car on the narrow shoulder of the road.
We were in the middle of nowhere—surrounded by nothing but tall fir trees and sharp outcroppings of rock, and the loud buzzing of cicadas.
I opened the Jeep’s door, and Max scampered over me and out.
She was quick and athletic, and so strong for her age. Almost everything she did was amazing to observe. I prayed she wouldn’t fly and leave us.
Max climbed up to the roof of the Jeep. We heard her footsteps pounding above us. Then a furious whooshing sound as she beat her wings.
“What’s she doing?” we said, almost in