BAE BOY

3-11

I. Wanted. To. Kill. Him.

I admit it openly.

I wanted to kill the man. I'm sure you guessed who "the man" was, right?

Justice. Yeah.

I didn't know if Kendall had been hurt. But before he knocked me into that chopper so hard, I'd seen him put his hands on her. So he'd frightened my Kendall, who had just had the best day of her life so far and given me the best day of mine.

And I was so fucking pissed at him for it, so fucking enraged is a better word, that his soul must've felt it. Because he pulled that Uzi out of my face with this sort of contrite look on his face and said, "Just stay down! You hear me? Stay down!"

We glared at each other for a minute or two after that. Me, steaming like a volcano about to erupt and him trying to figure out what the hell to do about that. Also, I could tell that he was having some second thoughts. Or feeling something he hadn't expected to, and wasn't sure how to deal with it.

But we were both too caught up in the moment to really think that straight. It was pure, raw emotion. Lots of emotions, rushing through us so fast that we just hung there, staring like that.

And then he jammed the gun up against the back of the military pilot's head and started trembling and screaming, "Get this thing up! Get this thing in the air! Go!"

And I tried to wriggle out from under him, tried to put up some kind of struggle. But the way he had me pinned down and against the seats, I couldn't get my arms loose to grab him. Which probably would've been fatal for all of us, actually, if he'd spooked and started spraying bullets with that Uzi.

In fact, when Brian sort of lunged in his direction, he punched the butt into Brian's temple right quick--and hard--and Brian crumpled over, out cold.

Leaving us with only one pilot. One pilot with an Uzi up against his temple and a bat shit crazy gunman giving me the full Hollywood, "Don't even think about it" stare.

The pilot stayed pretty chill. Military man. So he was trained to do that, I guess.

He just tried the, "Dude, I can't just lift off like that," ploy.

Said, in a matter of fact sort of voice, "There are things you have to do and you do 'em in sequence or you don't lift off at all. So..."

Which was a lie. Because they'd done all that before we even came out of the building. The plan was for each chopper was supposed to load and lift off as quickly and smoothly as possible, given all the hubbub we'd already caused.

I mean, nobody was going to complain, probably, but I figured the commotion from the whole day was probably more than one neighborhood needed to deal with. And the cops and all the other people working the thing needed a break, too. The sooner things started to wind down, the better.

So they'd set those blades whirling 'way before we got there. We could lift off any time. But I was pretty sure Justice didn't know that. He hadn't been a pilot in Nam or anything. Just "cannon fodder," as he used to say. Crawling in the mud and blood.

And he was too fried on whatever he'd swallowed or snorted or smoked or shot up to process anything we said. The tics, the little uncontrollable blinks and grimaces and things--that scared me. And told me we were in for a real bumpy ride.