Michael (The Airel Saga, Book 2) - By Aaron Patterson Page 0,58

a hand to her.

She slapped it away in contempt. “Shut your face, jerk. I’m not talking to you.”

He rolled his eyes at her, letting her see the gesture. “Okay, whatever. You’re ridiculous. I’m going to go pull these other two off each other; you coming?”

She looked him in the eyes. “Not with you.”

He smirked and shook his head. “Well, then…follow along behind.” He made his fingers walk through the air at her.

She spit at him as he left.

“Hey,” Michael called to Ellie and Airel, “is the catfight over yet, or are there still tickets available?”

If I was ever ready to kill, this was the time. I actually scared myself a little, because I felt perilously close to how I had felt in Kreios’s little training hut when he was explaining how to use my emotions.

“Now, listen—” Ellie started to say.

I was about to overflow with hatred and I had to get ahold of myself. The first thing I had to do was get out of Ellie’s face, walk away.

I turned, breathing deep and slow, and put my hands on my knees like an outfielder. “Breathe,” I commanded myself, trying to avoid the idea nestled in the back of my mind that said Ellie was going to personally assault me without warning again.

“You’re quits, then,” she chided from behind me.

I ignored her. “Breathe,” I said again, and took a deep one. Or someone will die, I added. I could hear Michael cracking off smart somewhere behind me. I breathed again. Okay, something is seriously not right here. One minute we’re at each other’s throats, the next…we’re all buddy buddy?

I felt in over my head again. Unlike most people, I knew precisely what that was. I knew precisely what it felt like to die. To drown in death itself; to fly free. Or was that really what it was to be free? Because when I died, something wasn’t quite right then, too, wasn’t there? Yes. Something like unfinished business. I knew what that made me: a ghost. At least it did if I failed whatever test still lay before me.

This was like the Whack-A-Mole game. Smack one test down and up pops another one somewhere else; it was maddening. It was like trying to hide smoke. It just seeped through any tiny crack, leaving me smelling like a stale campfire.

I kept thinking of what She had told me right before I first met Ellie. Something about “One to guide me.” Do I ever need that. I was overwhelmed. Life? Death? I didn’t know much about whatever happened to us when we moved past what we could see and feel here…but instinctually there was a point, I knew, where truth became absolute. And there were no more arguments.

“No more arguments,” I said, thinking, boy, wouldn’t that be nice.

“All right, then,” I heard Ellie say, her voice much softer toward me than I thought I deserved.

I stood erect. “Deal,” I said, without turning. I looked off to the horizon, the line of mountains lumping itself along from one side to the other in my field of view, making me think of the scissors-like shoulder blades of a dog as it walked.

“Hey,” Michael said from behind me, “You guys okay?”

Michael. On my mind a lot, that’s what he was. Not that I could help it much; when it was love…Love. Betrayal…I didn’t even want to think of those words. But they were there, just under the oil slick, just under the surface, and they wouldn’t go away. I could wrap my mind around why he had done what he had done, rationally, but my heart still hurt about it. What if things had happened differently? What if his father had never stepped in? Would I have been his next kill?

Gravel crunched under my feet as I shuffle-paced in circles, wrestling with Things Bigger Than I.

Ellie was talking on her phone now. I figured she was calling about hotel rooms. I prayed she was calling about hotel rooms. She caught my stare and raised an eyebrow at me. What’s she thinking? I thought about trying to read her thoughts, but fear got the best of me and I didn’t. Would she get into my head and read me like a book?

My gut ached with stress as more questions poured into me. Just how did the Brotherhood find us? I trusted Kim to be cool. If anyone was innocent, it was her. But what about Ellie? And what about Michael? Have I been foolish to trust him