Now we were here, in supposed safety. I kept Nudge close to me, not trusting these guys for a second.
The tunnel opened up to a large hall, and Nino Pierpont had gone all out with the decorations. There were pillars and balconies, and the walls were elaborately carved shells. The ceiling hundreds of feet above was a skylight of thick glass, so dull light shone down and speckled the puddles of water, making them shimmer.
In one part of the complex, a lake had formed in a low spot when the ocean had receded after the tsunami. The result was an Olympic-sized natural swimming pool that was cut off from the danger of open water. I watched other Aquatics splashing around, flicking their fins happily.
“Max,” Nudge whispered. “Doesn’t it remind you of…?”
I nodded. This mutant kid utopia reminded me exactly of the paradise we’d first believed our island to be, and that’s what made me nervous.
Because we all know how well that turned out.
I found Rizal at the communal table, surrounded by elaborate platters of fish, more fish, soup with fish in it, and then for dessert, like, fish. I slid into the seat across from him. He looked mildly annoyed, but he didn’t ask me to leave.
“Let’s talk about the huge, kid-eating eels of death,” I said conversationally.
Rizal was distracted with his dinner and barely looked up. “Hmm?”
“The giant eely-snake things that turned Jonny Diamond into Swiss cheese?” I prompted.
“Oh, them.” Rizal shoved a large spoonful of stew into his mouth. “Lampreys.”
“Lampreys aren’t that big. So I’m assuming they’re weird, gigantic, mutant lampreys. At any rate, no one seems too bothered that those lampreys just reduced your number by six.” I stared at him impatiently.
“It happens,” he said, chewing. “We tend to lose someone every few days.”
“Every few days?” I repeated, gaping at him.
Rizal shrugged. “Generally, they only pick off the less advanced.”
“There’s always someone in the g
roup who’s a little vulnerable,” Jonny had said. That was supposed to be me, and would’ve been, if I hadn’t had the oxygen tank he’d insisted I take.
“Have some sashimi,” Rizal said, spearing some hunks with his knife and plopping them in front of me. “The eel is terrific.”
My mind flashed back to that horrible image of Jonny—the moment he stopped struggling against the lamprey. Nauseated, I pushed away the plate and left the table.
I needed to think—which meant I needed to fly.
Unfurling my wings, which had been folded up all day, I pushed off and rose up toward the glass ceiling. My feathers twitched as I tried to imagine myself flying in circles around these walls, day after day. I was already feeling claustrophobic.
Cruising high above the chatter, I went over everything Jonny had said earlier that morning. I needed something to make it easier to cope, a moral to take away from this, and my thoughts drifted back to the flock.
Like Iggy, Jonny had needed a resolution. Like Gazzy, he had been building tools to fight, instead of hide. And like Angel, he had been sure there was more to be done.
I’m not saying I was wrong, before—I’d never say that—but maybe I could understand a little better why my flock had insisted on leaving.
If there was a reason so many people I cared about had died, if none of us was safe, could I really keep looking away? Didn’t I owe it to them to hunt down the truth?
“Rizal says we shouldn’t go looking for trouble,” Jonny had said, and that was pretty much what I’d told the flock yesterday.
But if I lived by that rule, would I really be Maximum Ride?
32
“NUDGE, WAKE UP.”
I didn’t know why I was whispering. There were rows and rows of beds built into the coral wall, but Nudge’s and mine were the only two that were occupied. I guessed the lampreys had pretty much decimated the Aquatics. What was Rizal thinking?