Michael (The Airel Saga, Book 2) - By Aaron Patterson Page 0,67
needed nothing else. We dug in greedily, forgetting the line of conversation for a moment. But it came back. I wouldn’t let it die.
“Do you think we can trust her?” I asked.
“Ellie? Ha,” Michael said, “Yeah, we can trust her.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I gnashed another bite of gorgeous tasting pizza in my mouth.
“It’s Kim you should be worried about.”
“Mff?” I asked through my food. It helped me mask my shock.
“Kim. Dude. She’s the reason…”
I swallowed. “What. Tell me.”
He simply shook his head. “Can’t we just enjoy ourselves for one evening, just the two of us? Why do we have to talk about this?”
“Because it’s important?” I was a little incredulous.
“More important than taking a much-needed time out? Come on, we’ve been running from—” He lowered his voice and came closer. “We’ve been running for almost a week now. Running, like common criminals. From…from all kinds of…of things. And people. Can’t we just have one night? A few hours?”
This time I sighed. I was exasperated but I took another enormous bite of my slice and began chewing it. All I could do was roll my eyes a little in expression of my frustration. “You’re worse than my Dad,” I finally said.
“Compliment accepted.”
“Oh, FRACK,” I said, which proved I was a Battlestar Galactica nerd.
He laughed at me and then took another bite. “I’m hungry,” he said.
It was one of those things people said as they were eating; it made no sense really.
I knew he was done talking about The Issue At Hand, and in that sense what had happened just now was the spitting image of any number of conversations I’d had with my Dad. When it was over, it was over. He could be so stubborn!
Still, though. Something Michael said about Kim rang true and deep.
There was something about her that just wasn’t sitting well with me lately, though I couldn’t place my finger on it. Why can he see it, and why can’t I? Was it just because I was so close with her? I ran over the hypotheticals in my head: the what-ifs.
What if you had a friend who…I mean, what if every evil thing in all creation was making a beeline to you, was bent on your destruction? What would be the best way to get to you?
A man on the inside.
I looked at Michael.
We’ve already been through this. The statement rang out in my head with an upturned questioning lilt at the end of it.
Who better to engineer ultimate betrayal, though? Who better than that person in whom there has been invested ultimate trust? I had seen a ton of movies, and in every one, the best friend was suspect number one. But this was real life, so was I just thinking this because of my movie habit?
Why is Kim here? I wondered. Why would she be so eager to come along on what amounts to the worst imaginable version of a perpetual car chase scene? I dug around in my feelings, searching for She, searching for El, searching for the truth, asking God for answers, reaching out once again for Kreios.
But there was nothing.
Part of me wanted desperately to defend her. Kim was my best friend from way back; nobody knew me like she did, and nobody could ever come between us. Not even Michael…. Again, it resounded in my mind like a question, and it was difficult to know who had said it.
I shook my head and dug into the next slice of pizza. I was really hungry.
“Hey…” I said after a moment. My wheels were turning, moving on to different topics. “So… tell me again how we know Kreios is going to end up in Africa?” I had been wondering this for quite some time. I couldn’t remember if it was Michael or Ellie who had said it first, and I had been meaning to get some clarification. Preferably from him.
“It’s just what I’m thinking is most likely to happen. A hunch. The Brotherhood wouldn’t have sent those twitchy little fast ones—the weird little fungus-covered ones—if things weren’t deadly serious. I think Kreios is in big-time trouble. I think he’s going after the roots of everything that is evil in this world. He’s aiming for one of the most prestigious—I mean one of the most insidious strongholds of demonic power in the whole world. When I was in the Brotherhood…I mean…I know stuff, okay? I have memories that aren’t even my own, because of James.” He paused, breathing, apparently thinking.