“Right, because radioactive debris is super healthy for the planet!” I sneered. “Wait, you didn’t really think this little confession was gonna save you, did you?” I loosened my grip a bit more.

He flinched, instinctively grasping at air, and I smiled faintly as I pulled him back. Gunther-Hagen’s eyes hardened, and his fingers locked around my wrists. “You still don’t understand. I don’t need to be saved. Humans aren’t supposed to be saved. My work will live on. My legacy—”

I cut him off. “Your legacy is dead. Jeb is dead. He’ll never make another Horseman.”

“Dylan is my legacy,” the doctor countered. “A truly evolved specimen, despite some remaining glitches. He and the female mate I created for him will help repopulate the earth with a genetically ideal species. You were never worthy of him.”

The thing was… that last part was completely true.

My expression must have faltered, because the doctor smiled. “You’re really very ordinary, you know, Maximum Ride,” he said sympathetically. “Weak. And soon, you and your kind will die out, just like your boyfriend did.”

He tapped the screen on his wrist. I couldn’t see the image, but I could hear that it was the video Dylan had shown me. Even above the howling wind, I heard Fang’s screams.

Too. Far.

“Nothing’s dying out, you disgusting supremacist,” I snapped. My arms quivered with rage as I held him in front of me. I felt the heat rushing to my cheeks as I said the words:

“I’m pregnant.”

89

THE CONFESSION HUNG in the air between us, and I instantly wished I could snatch it back. I hadn’t told anyone—until that moment, I hadn’t fully admitted it to myself. But I couldn’t hide from it now. Saying it aloud made it real.

More than that—from the doctor’s expression, I knew it had power.

“It can’t be,” the doctor whispered, his face twisting in horror. “Fang is dead.”

I remembered when the doctor had kidnapped Fang. He’d told Dylan that Fang had to die because his invincible DNA posed too high a risk. I’d wondered why they didn’t kill him that day, and realized the doctor was too power-hungry to destroy the key to immortality.

Wordlessly, I switched my grip to one hand and unzipped my hoodie with the other. The wind whipped open the fabric, and Gunther-Hagen’s gaze traveled down to where the T-shirt underneath pulled taut against my stomach, revealing the smallest hint of a curve.

“It’s over,” he murmured.

“Oh, it’s just beginning,” I said.

And that’s when he pressed the screen on his arm again. “Reactor, engage,” he commanded.

I inhaled sharply, wincing as I waited for the explosion in the distance, praying that Dylan had managed to save as many kids as he could.