True Bond by Bella Johnson

One Meeting

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No one but the driver, George, had accompanied him to the airport, sending him off with a don't get into any trouble, James. America can be a scary place.

He had found that funny enough to smile at before he joined the boarding line up for the plane.

A flirty flight attendant seated him in first-class. Every time she came by she batted her eyes at him like she wanted him to be mentally undressing her. The sad part, he was spending more time thinking about the fact that he'd managed to get away from Blackwell Manor for the summer.

She came to his side towards the end of the trip without him noticing. "Thirsty, Mr. Dray?"

He looked up to her and took the can of pop she was offering. "Thanks." If she knew his last name, she'd looked up his ticket information, and that meant she knew he was sixteen. But he knew he looked much older so he couldn't really blame her.

The flight attendant had walked away after he opened his drink and disappeared behind a blue curtain, so all he could see was her little red heels. As he focused his attention on that, the plane shook, and though he didn't react like the rest of the people around him with startled yelping, he didn't particularly like the new level of turbulence.

The plane dropped suddenly, and he slipped the pop into the near drink holder and allowed one of his hands to grab the armrest as the speaker buzzed on above his head.

"Good evening. There is a storm building on the northeast coast and our landing plans for Philadelphia are being rerouted to a safe alternative in Norfolk, Virginia..."

He didn't hear the rest of what the captain said because the turbulence had gotten worse. Thinking about his parents, he wondered if it had been like this right before their private jet had plummeted out of the storming skies.

When the plane landed, he deboarded with a bunch of rather angry and grumbling passengers. He wasn't one of them, not after he had seen the newsreel about what was happening. There was a hurricane forming, grounding all flights until further notice. He'd have to wait it out in a hotel and would be late for his football camp, but it also meant he'd be without the bodyguard his aunt and uncle insisted on, which was a good enough excuse for him.

He waited to use a phone as his cell phone wasn't working. The waiting line was long and slow due to the entire airport needing to call out. For twenty minutes it hardly moved a foot ahead, but when he finally did get a turn, his fingers hovered above the numbers in deliberation.

"James?" His aunt sounded annoyed and tired.

"Flights have been grounded. There's a hurricane."

Her tone changed in a matter of milliseconds. "Oh, good God, are you alright?"

"I'm fine." He rolled his eyes. "I'm going to get a room in a hotel."

"Which hotel?" she barked in-between whispering to his uncle in the background. "We'll put you up in a hotel, in one of the suites. We don't want you in some dingy room they're going to offer. Which airport are you at?"

He glanced around for a sign and found one. "Norfolk International Airport."

"Where in hell is that?"

"Virginia," he answered, ready to reassure his aunt, but a scent filled the air around him, drawing his attention. His eyes searched for something, but he couldn't guess what. A magnetic pull tugged at him as he searched for the unknown source of his peaked senses.