Max- Shot in the Wing

  And Fang. I didn’t know what he was doing, kissing me and then flirting with Dr. Stupendous and then making hot, dark eyes at me.

  It was enough to make a girl nuts or more nuts —

  Pssshh!

  It took several seconds for the pain neurons to fire all the way from my right wing to my befuddled brain. And since I was conditioned to try not to scream out in surprise or pain — it’s a survival thing — I was still staring stupidly at the weirdly big hole even as I started to spiral awkwardly down to earth, way too fast.

  I’d been shot. I was plummeting to the ground. And I couldn’t stop.
...

  FOR THOSE OF YOU studying animal physiology, I’ll confirm that there’s a very good reason flying creatures always have two wings. One wing doesn’t cut it.

  By the time I’d processed what had happened, I was about ten seconds from a flat, crunchy death. I sent all available power into my unharmed wing and desperately tried to get some lift, managing to look like a dying loon, rising awkwardly a few feet, then sinking, all the while spiraling down like one of those copter toys.

  This was it. After everything I’d ever been through, I was going to die suddenly, with no warning, and alone. I’m a tough kid, but I’ll admit, I closed my eyes when I was about thirty feet from the asphalt of some parking lot.

  I felt sorry for whoever would find me. I hoped the flock would know I was dead and not just missing, so they wouldn’t have to look for me. I thought about everything I had left unsaid to virtually everyone in my life, and wondered whether that had been a good —

  Boing!

  “Aiiiieee!!!!”

  Interestingly, though I’m silent as the grave when shot or snuck up on, I discovered that I squeal like a little girl when I’m facing imminent death and then find myself bouncing hard on a trampoline.

  The impact jolted my hurt wing, making me wince and suck in a breath, and then I was bouncing again, not so high, and again. I pulled my injured wing in tight, feeling warm, sticky blood clotting my feathers.

  A couple more bounces and I managed to stand up, looking around me wildly. There were about a hundred of the New Threat guys, standing around the trampoline, watching me bounce, as if I were a mouse and they were all cats, honing in on me with bright eyes.

  “Mr. Chu wants to see you,” one of them intoned in a telephone operator’s static voice.

  They tipped me off the trampoline and immediately surrounded me, eight deep, not taking any chances. I couldn’t fly. There were too many of them for me to realistically break free. This is probably how most humans feel all the time.

  It sucks.
...

 I WAS PUSHED into the back of a truck, fenced in by so many armed guards that I couldn’t see anything.

  My family had no idea where I was.

  My right wing had a big hole in it, and one of its bones was probably broken.

- MAX: A Maximum Ride Novel, chapters 11, 12 and 13