Fears

Chapter 18 |Ruby|

| Chapter 18 |

| Ruby |

"Oh, gosh," I said, staring up at the big building. I leaned forward to get a better view. We were inside the red truck where Darren had driven us to the Pilot Country Airport in Spring Hill, Florida, right near the hospital we had run from.

"You guys ready?" Darren asked, turning around in his seat up front to look at us. We all nodded and hopped out of the truck.

"We're goin' to Paris, baby!" Riley whooped, punching his fist up in the air. I laughed. He seemed in much brighter spirits than before. We walked in our little pack up to the entrance and went in, Levi holding the door for all of us. Kathleen skipped up in front of us and I smiled. She did a little twirl and her dress and pink hair fanned out around her. Darren walked up to one of the counters and addressed the man at it.

"Excuse me, when is the next flight to Paris, France?" He asked.

The attendant turned to Darren and looked at him, speculating. "May I see your ID please, sir?" He stressed the 'sir,' and I saw Lakota narrow her eyes. Darren reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out the fake ID that Lakota's uncle made him. The man picked it up off the counter and squinted at it.

"Darren Sawyer Thorne, is it? You're.... 19?" I resisted the urge to straight up laugh at the look he gave all of us.

"Yes," Darren confirmed, expertly and smoothly.

The Atendant sighed and said in a annoyed tone, "the next Paris flight is in thirty minutes. Are you interested in buying a ticket?"

"Yes, six plane tickets to Paris, please." The attendant raised his eyebrows.

"I'll need your passports." I grabbed my fake passport from my bag, as did the rest of the gang. We all passed out passports across the counter. He looked each of them over carefully.

"Alright," he drawled. "I'll have to inform you that each ticket will cost eighteen hundred dollars, so that'll come up to ten-thousand eight-hundred dollars." Now, he stared at Lakota incredulously as she took out three wads of money, in cash, and laid them on the counter. She quickly counted them, then handed the remainder to the attendant. He looked dumbfounded, but counted the money, which mostly consisted of one hundred to five hundred dollar bills.

After he finished counting, he grunted and handed us six Paris flight tickets, looking very disgruntled. We walked away, towards what looked like a little waiting room, and Riley did a little happy dance.

"We're in, baby," he whispered. We all silently cheered.
They were just calling the flight department when I noticed somebody at the door. My eyes widened.

"Guys," I whispered warily. "Suited men, at eight o'clock. I think they're the people from before. Put your heads down and don't make eye contact." I looked in their direction. Those were definitely the men from the hospital. Cold, dead fear ran through me. The six of us got up and hurried through the gates.

"There they are!" I heard one of them yell, "Get 'em!" I could hear heavy footfalls in the lobby behind me and I looked back as the gate attendant stopped them.

"I'm sorry, sir, you can't pass without a ticket," she said, and at that we hurried through the rest. Soon, the men were out of sight.

"You'll pay," We heard from behind, "You little--" and we were on the plane. We fell into our seats with a sigh.

"That was close," Kathleen breathed. We nodded tiredly. I checked our surroundings. Darren was shoving all of our bags into the cubbies above our seats. I got up to get my iPod. I was sitting in between Levi and Riley, thank God, and Kathleen was in between Darren and Lakota. She looked afraid.

"You okay, Kat?" I asked.

"Yeah, I just try to sleep before the plane takes off, but I can't," she told me. "Can I switch with you, Riley?" She asked. He looked tense, and nodded gratefully, unbuckling and going to Kathleen's spot next to Darren, and Kathleen crawled her way over to me.

"Do you--" she started. The flight attendant was telling the usual rules for takeoff. "Do you think you can sing to me?" Kathleen whispered. "I heard that you used to babysit little kids." I nodded slightly, embarrassed. After the attendant stopped talking, conversations around the plane started to pick up, and I tentatively sang to Kat.

In morning sun

the day will shine

but when it's gone,

we say goodnight

for when the moon does shine

that's when we say goodnight

She had a small, content smile on her face and I could see her dozing off. I sang, more quietly;

In lovely shade

the willow tree

keeps protection

while we sleep

and when the moon does rise

We will say...

I smiled and whispered the last word,

goodnight.

Suddenly, memories of the times I'd sung the neighborhood kids to sleep infiltrated my thoughts. Oh, how those kids loved for me to sing to them. Sometimes, rarely, we would get phone calls at night of parents asking me to get their restless children to sleep. I turned and saw Levi smirking at me with a sleepy expression on his face.

"You know," he said. "That stupid lullaby almost put me to sleep."

"My mom taught me that stupid lullaby," I said in a small voice.

"Well, it's great," he said. I smiled. Suddenly, a pained expression came across his face and he looked frightened.

"Hey, you okay?" I asked, laying a hand on his arm.

He shook his head. Levi looked nauseous. Claustrophobia, I thought.

I shushed him as he panted in his seat. After a few minutes of just trying to calm him down, I unwrapped the cord of my earbuds from my iPod.

"Here," I said, holding out one of the earbuds. He took it tentatively and put it in his ear. I stuck the other one in my right ear and turned it on. I hurried to play the music.

"Just calm down and listen to the music, Levi." I think I read somewhere that saying a person's name in conversation could have a certain effect on them. "Focus on that, and nothing else." Soon, after a minute or so, he drifted to sleep, and I did too.

~*~

I woke up to Kathleen laying on my shoulder, eyes closed and mouth hanging open a little, and me lying on Levi. He was holding my hand. I blinked, embarrassed. He looked down at me and smiled. I grinned groggily.

"Hey, sleepy head," he said. I grimaced.

"Are we there yet?" I heard Kathleen ask next to me, rubbing her eyes.

"We still have about six hours until we land in Paris, Miss," a young flight attendant informed us. She looked nice.

"May I have some water, please?" I asked. She nodded.

"Do you have any coffee?" I heard Darren ask, sitting up in his seat.

"Unfortunately, we do not, but we do have tea or hot chocolate, if you'd like that instead," she said cheerfully and smiled at Darren.

He nodded. "Yeah, I'll have some green tea, please." She nodded.

"Thank you," I said after her.

"Sleep well?" Lakota asked. I didn't know who it was directed to, considering she was the only one of us who hadn't taken a cat nap.

I simply nodded and grunted. "Mm."

Levi sighed and laid back down in his seat. Kathleen was up now and was messing around with an antique camera that she took from her bag.

My eyelids drifted shut once more.