City of the Dead by James Patterson & Mindy McGinnis

Author:James Patterson & Mindy McGinnis [Patterson, James & McGinnis, Mindy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473580268
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2021-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 37

“This is your worst idea ever!” I yell at Max, as she flies in front of me. “Everything is falling apart and you want to go on a field trip.”

“Not everything is falling apart,” Fang says. He’s on my right, gliding easily, pumping his massive wings once for every three times I exercise mine. “We’re together, after all.”

“Oh, boy, family camping trip!” I snap, glaring down at the endless trees below us. We’d left the city behind more than an hour ago, after I gave a quick update to Calypso and Rain, who flinched when I explained about leaving Moke behind.

“I had to,” I explained, but it didn’t feel good to follow up with the information that I was leaving again, and Calypso refused to hug me good-bye.

“This better be worth it,” I grumble, as Max begins to circle for a landing, aiming for a break in the trees below. Fang and I follow her down, and I give her a critical look once we’re all on the ground.

“I know you’re pissed,” she says, “but the truth is that I need fresh air and some time to think this over. This is a complicated house of cards, and if we play our hand wrong, people will die. Maybe a lot of people.”

“Okay,” I say, grudgingly. It’s nice to know that she doesn’t have a quick and simple answer to this problem. She looks tired, and for the first time I have to consider the fact that maybe she isn’t perfect. “So what are we going to do?”

“Make shelter,” Fang says. “It’s the first thing you need to know about being in the wilderness. You get wet, and you’ll be miserable for as long as you’re out here.”

“Um … which isn’t long, right?” I ask, following him into the trees. Max stays behind, resting on a rock, her chin in her hands. Fang points to a tree with a fork in its trunk about five feet up.

“You want to find something like this,” he says, kicking dead leaves around until he uncovers a fallen tree about twice the size of my arm. “Help me out with this.”

I bend down and pick up the other end, maneuvering as he fits it into the notch of the forked tree. He nods, like we’ve accomplished something. “Now, look around and find branches to cover the sides.”

“Okay,” I say dubiously, “but we’re not like, actually sleeping out here, are we?”

“Doubt it.” He shrugs. “That’s not the point, though.”

“What is?” I ask, tossing my hair from my eyes as I gather branches in my arms. “I don’t even know what we’re doing right now. Max said she needs time to think, fine. But she can do that in the city—which is where I belong. Why do I need to learn how to build a shelter in the woods? It’s not like I’m ever going to have a sleepover in the forest with Chammy and his pals.”

Fang shakes his head and begins leaning the branches he’s gathered against the propped tree, lining either side to produce makeshift walls.

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