Fly With Me

10. Arrested in My Pajamas

"And that's how it went down." I lean back in my chair and smirk at the bald man in front of me.

The man is rather portly and his knees crick as he stands. "You've only gotten halfway through, Ms. Sprile." He shoots a disdainful glance in my direction and sighs. "But I suppose that is enough for one day." Suddenly, a small smile is playing about the corners of his lips and he pauses at the doorway. "Would you care to see Mr. Nickson?"

I'm unsure of whether or not I actually want to see him, but find myself nodding anyways. "Yes, I would."

The man reaches his hand out and gestures for me to follow him. Carefully, I stand up--I am a little stiff from sitting for so long--and follow him out of the small room and down a long corridor whose ceiling is lined with bright, white fluorescent lights. It is not that long of a walk as the room where Brandon was being questioned is just down the hall. Quickly, I step through a narrow doorway into a room similar to the one that I had been in. Brandon is sitting at the small, metal table, his hands folded in his lap.

"Hey." I breathe out, moving to the table and sitting in the chair across from his.

"Hey," he replies. He looks tired, and I wonder if they were asking him the same questions they asked me.

We sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes, just reveling in being in the same room with someone we know. After nine hours of talking to a complete stranger about the past few weeks' events, I am tired out and--at this point--just want to pass out.

"So what did they ask you?" I ask finally, leaning back in my chair so that I'm balancing on only two of the four legs.

"Where I was. If I was in danger. How well you treated me when you had kidnapped me." Brandon smiles and looks at me. "Your standards of living for your captives are much higher than they're used to."

We laugh together and the sound rings throughout the room, filling the enclosed space with the pleasant noise. Neither of us know if we're still being watched or not, but in this moment it doesn't even matter.

The laughter scratches at the back of my throat, and my guffaws suddenly turn into a coughing fit. I double over, my eyes squeeze shut, and I feel like my body is trying to hack up one of my lungs. I press my fist against my mouth in hopes that it will muffle the awful sound that I'm emitting. Finally, the fit is over. Slowly, I draw my hand away from my mouth--just in case my body decides to spasm like that again--and see small flecks of red dotting its side. I frown down at the small drops, and use my other hand to wipe them away carelessly.

"Are you alright?" the boy across from me asks tentatively. He is half out of his seat, as if he is prepared to rush to my side to give me assistance if I need it.

I clear my throat quickly and nod, "Yeah, absolutely. Just a little tickle in my throat." I grin widely at him, hoping to reassure him of my healthy state. "Everyone gets little coughing fits now and then, right?"

"Well," just from the way Brandon pushes his glasses back up his nose, I can tell that a random fact is about to be spewed. "It's not unusual for such a thing to occur... Oh, about twenty-five times a day--about once every hour in the day." A sudden light appears in his eyes as he continues, "Coughing is actually the expulsion of unwanted debris and pathogens from the lungs. It's not a tickle in your throat. The unwanted materials are expelled at speeds up to--" He notices the flat look I'm giving him, and finishes his sentence much more quietly than he began. "six hundred miles per hour..." He grins sheepishly and shrugs. "Everyone gets little nerd moments now and then, right?"

I laugh at his mimicry of what I had said just moments before. "Well, it's not an unusual thing to occur..." I don't finish the sentence, but wink at him playfully, and we find ourselves laughing together again.
~~
All too soon, the next day rolls around and Brandon and I are separated to be questioned again. It's the same bald man as before, but this time he doesn't have his folder with him.