I felt everyone looking at me as I bolted out of the galley and up the stairs to the deck.

“Max? Are you okay?” Sue-Ann called after me, but I didn’t answer. Instead I ran down the deck of the boat, feeling its engines churning beneath my feet. Just as I was about to slam into the metal side railing, I jumped out over the water and unfurled my wings. I stroked hard, down and then up, over and over, rushing into the cold night sky. Seconds later the Wendy K. was just a tiny steam-emitting dot on the blackness of the ocean, and I felt like I could breathe again.

Okay, Max, what’s going on? For once the voice in my head was my own. I didn’t answer it. Instead I just wheeled through the sky, catching the occasional updraft and coasting. I breathed in and out deeply, thinking about this mission, thinking about Fang and Brigid, and Fang and me, and me and the flock.

I almost forgot to keep checking all around me for Flyboys. Almost.

Maybe a month ago, my mom had taken a computer chip out of my arm. (She’s a vet. How appropriate.) I’d been all dopey on anesthesia, and I’d said some stupid stuff to Fang. He’d thrown it back in my face several times since then. And lately he’d kissed me a couple times, and I didn’t know where he was going with that. I was torn between (1) wanting to give in, to just let those emotions flood out and see what happened between us, and (2) sheer terror.

Now he seemed to be making cow eyes at a doctor who was seven years older than him.

And the one thing that stood out in my mind as I wearily made my way back down to the boat in ever-diminishing circles was:

Fang had never said that stupid stuff back to me.

Chapter 34

34

WHEN I GOT BACK to the boat, all seven scientists were waiting on the deck. Three of them had night-vision binoculars trained on me. I made a short running landing and pounded to a stop. I walked toward them with my wings still outspread, letting them cool off.

“What’s up?” I asked with a sudden clutch in my heart. Had something happened? Had the boat been attacked? Was the flock okay? I thought I’d kept it in my line of sight, but I knew that I’d been so wrapped up in my own personal soap opera I could have missed Shamu leaping over the boat with a red ball in his mouth.

“We were just . . . watching,” Paul Carey said softly.

“Is something wrong?” I pressed.

“No, no, nothing’s wrong,” said Melanie quickly. “We just — we’ve never seen anyone fly before.”

“Oh. No, I guess you haven’t.”

“Is it . . . wonderful?” Melanie asked.