Max- Tsunami

  A mega-tsunami.

  I instinctively tried to flap, but a searing pain shot through my mangled, bleeding wing. Panic froze my heart. This was it.

  There would be no more.

  I felt a sob of self-pity building in my chest, but Fang held my face in his hands and looked at me urgently, his eyes locked on mine.

  “I love you, Max,” Fang said, and those words, the ones I’d been waiting to hear forever, towered above all the chaos, making everything else fall away. Whole universes were built and destroyed by those words. There were tears in his eyes. “God, Max, I love you so much.”

  I know, I thought. I’ve always known.

  Then Fang’s stormy eyes grew blacker than I’d ever seen them as they looked past me, at our fate. I turned to see the wave swelling toward us, seconds away, the white foam of its mouth howling higher and higher. But I wasn’t surprised, or scared, or even angry. I accepted it like a friendly wind, come to fly me home.

  It’s okay, I thought. And it was.

  Fang kissed my eyelids, my cheeks, and then my lips one more time, whisper soft. Then he clutched my head to his chest and we took one last deep breath, wrapping ourselves in each other’s arms for eternity as the warm water crashed over the cliff and swallowed us whole.

  I love you, too, Fang.
...

  I can feel the air as I push and poke, think I can taste the sound of what blue feels like—a whale’s warbling echo.

  Or is that singing?

  Of course my angels sound like strangled whales.

  It’s wonderful feeling weightless, free. Almost like flying, but without even having to move—floating toward an easy, carefree eternity of being rocked like a baby, free of all burdens and responsibility. I actually sigh with relief.

  Wait a minute. I just sighed. I’m… breathing?

  Underwater?

  I’m alive?

  “Max,” I hear a voice call from above. What a magical sound that is.

  Hmm? I think. Voice, is that you pestering me again? Do not disturb. Busy floating. Call if you want to talk rainbows.

  A disembodied hand grasps mine and pulls me upward.

  Are you there, God? It’s me, Max.

  “Max!” The voice is clearer, immediate.

  The water cradles me closer. Am I moving at all? Is this real?

  My eyes trace slowly, lazily up the hand that’s entwined with mine, the squared fingers tan and vaguely familiar. And strong. Like the arm and shoulder the hand is connected to. The face finally registers just as we break the surface.

  As does shock.

  Thrashing, I stupidly suck in a huge breath through my nose, instead of using the gills I developed long ago. The harsh air rips through my lungs, and I double over, coughing and choking out water.

  “I told you I would come back for you,” Dylan whispers, rubbing my back.

- Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure, chapters 84 and Epilogue 1