Michael (The Airel Saga, Book 2) - By Aaron Patterson Page 0,88

over my shoulder to Michael and Ellie, signaling them to grab our stuff and come along. The last thing we needed to do was draw attention to ourselves. I wanted to get us out of there like yesterday. Please, God, just let us get on the plane and get out of here.

Kim skipped along holding my hand like a six-year-old playing double-dutch. Her ridiculous backpack knocked obnoxiously from side to side as we left the building.

“Jeez, Kim. Settle.”

“OHMYGOSH I had the most weirdest dream, Airel. You totally have to hear about it,” she grabbed both of my hands and took a breath. “See, there was this guy walking down the street, and all along the sidewalk there were these ladders leaned up against the buildings, but he was like totally walking along, like, UNDER ALL OF THEM, and I was like holy crap that is a lot of bad luck he’s rackin’ up, HAHAHAHAHA!” she bent over cackling raucously at her funny joke.

I looked around desperately for a way out of this.

“Oy!” Ellie called from behind us. “Over here!” She was pointing to an old brown pickup truck sitting at the curb idling. A large man stood by the door with his arms crossed, smiling. “Pile in!” Ellie said.

Before I could move, Kim sprinted for the man, going boldly right up to him and introducing herself with plenty of posturing.

Gall, he must be twice her age. Gross. The man walked her politely to the passenger side door like a gentleman and saw that she was seated before closing it.

As he was walking back around to the driver’s side, our paths crossed and he introduced himself. “Hex,” he said with a gregarious engaging smile and a crushing handshake.

“Airel,” I said, withdrawing my hand to brush my hair out of my eyes. I looked behind him to see Ellie and Michael tossing our bags into the bed of the truck.

“Don’t mind this old banger,” he said, gesturing to the pickup. “Necessity produces strange bedfellows.” His smile was broad, revealing a wall of gleaming white teeth.

“Okay,” I said, a little confused.

“That’s Hex,” Ellie called to me as she hopped into the back.

“Yeah, we met,” I said, skirting around him toward Michael, who then traded me places and introduced himself, getting his metacarpals crushed in turn.

“He’s my pilot.”

“Oh, cool,” I said. Michael then came back and, like a gentleman, helped me up and in. I let him think I needed that, for him. I grabbed one of the wheel wells as a seat. Rusty chains and bits of straw littered the bed of the truck.

“He makes instant friends wherever he goes,” Ellie went on. “Quite useful, really. He could get a perfect stranger to write him into their will, I swear. That’s how he got us wheels to the ramp today.”

“Nice work,” said Michael.

I couldn’t help but smile. It was a perfect sunny day, the birds were singing, it was still early, and we were riding open air in the back of a farm truck to the airport, getting ready to fly to someplace totally exotic, somewhere I had never dreamt of. I was excited. It was easy to let Kim’s weirdness slide for the moment. Besides, she was sitting up front with Hex and chatting his ear off.

Then it occurred to me: the mood Kim was in, we were sure to get kicked out of whatever restaurant we decided to patronize for breakfast. Not that there’s much choice here… “Um, hey, Els? Where are we headed?”

“Brekkies,” she said.

“Yeah, not a sit-down place though?” My face communicated the worry I felt as I jerked my head toward my slightly insane BFF in the passenger seat.

Ellie only laughed and pointed in the direction Hex was driving us.

I looked and saw my old childhood buddy: the golden arches of McDonald’s.

“Thank God for Mackers,” she said. “And drive-through windows, right?” She laughed, and I couldn’t help but join her.

Maybe everything will turn out right in the end. Maybe, after all, it really will. I suffered myself a smile as I reached across to hold Michael’s hand.

CHAPTER XI

“THIS IS A G550. Top of the line,” Hex said motioning to a big private jet as we all dismounted the faded brown loaner truck. “It’s in a class of its own, really.”

“Cool,” I said. I didn’t have a clue about aircraft. Nor did I have much desire to have a clue about aircraft. All I knew was that it looked very fast and very expensive, as if it had come