Right as we got to the entrance of the Mickey D’s which had felt like a three and a half mile walk, some guy barreled into me. I fell to the floor and he kept going as if I was simply a fly. I turned to yell my very angry and highly inappropriate for an airport retort at him when I noticed he was gone.
“What was that all about?” T.J. asked me as he gently helped me up.
I was about to say that I didn’t know when I noticed a piece of folded paper placed neatly on my converse. No one said anything as I unfolded it. I sucked in a breath as I read:
The ship is falling down
Falling down
Falling down
The ship is falling down
My fair lady Aria
Take your words
To lock me up
Lock me up
Lock me up
Tell your stories
To shut me up
My fair lady Aria
That would’ve been bad enough, but I had to flip over to the back to make sure I had read everything. I hadn’t. There was more and it made more sense than the stupid rhyme did.
The ship will fall Aria, of that I promise. You and your pack will parish if you don’t follow my instructions. I will reveal myself to you at a later date, but I don’t feel like telling you now. Of course, I will share my own story with you after you and five of your pack members share their stories. I don’t care which of you tell your story or if you volunteer. If you don’t share a story revealing a personality trait I will cause the ship to crash. Not that you care Aria, but what will your parents say to Mattie? Okay they had gone too far! Insulting me was one thing, but my son? You have exactly one hour to before boarding to make up your mind. What will you do? I wonder.
This was too bizarre to be just some craze psychopath stalking the sidewalks. This person knew about werewolves and could very well be a kamikaze MIB agent. My throat ached reminding me that the wolf, Sabrina, wanted blood. I told her to check herself and went back to pondering what I should do.
Informing the pack of this task would help them prepare their stories, but that’s what the guy probably wanted. Rehearsed stories that wouldn’t do anything to really help the ship from falling. I made a conscious decision to not tell the pack until it was too late.
I took a deep breath and put the note back in my pocket before trying to locate them. I was about to send them a message telepathically when I found them and my first mate.
Brandon Gabriel James had dark blonde curly hair and soft green eyes. He was calm, cool, and collected even in the face of danger. He was also very stubborn when it came to doing any task presented to him. He was 16 years old. He was supposed to have been leader, but somehow I got the position. He was wearing a black jacket, red shirt, jeans, and a pair of very worn tennis shoes. He looked like he had been through a lot of stuff. Then again, it could have something to do with wreaking the space shuttle while I was in labor.
Brandon looked up at me, swallowed, and smiled. He trusted that I would do the right thing as leader and so, I felt a bit guilty when I took my spot at the table. Everyone else had already taken their places and were stuffing their faces. Thank goodness that Brandon had thought to order an excessive amount of food.
BLING! I heard my phone go off and quickly dug it out of my front pocket to check the message.
Hey, finally made itJ Whr u guys @?
It was from Clinton Jacob Miller. He was arriving fashionably late as usual. Actually, this tardiness was probably caused by his boyfriend and my dance teacher, Mr. Rein. Yes, there is quite an age difference and no one really cares.
I texted back:
Kewlo;) We @ McD. Good luck findn it btw
I was looking forward to seeing my favorite gay pack member. Granted, he was the only gay pack member, but that didn’t make me love him any less. He would probably look just as fashionable as Kara.
“Who texted you?” T.J. asked suddenly.
I almost jumped out of my chair. T.J. normally doesn’t speak that much. “Clinton,” I replied.
“Is he coming here any time soon?” Brandon asked, not unkindly.
This would’ve sounded harsher, but Chicago was home to my dance instructor and Clinton’s boyfriend. I simply shrugged back in reply. After all, it had taken us a good solid hour just trying to find the Mickey D’s.
“Flight 217 now boarding,” the overhead voice boomed to make sure everyone could hear it. “Flight 217 is now boarding.”
I stood up, grabbing a double cheeseburger and my luggage. The pack followed in suit some of them taking more than one food item to eat on the way. Hopefully, it would be easier to get to the terminal than it was to find the McDonald’s in the first place. With a highly developed sense of smell and hearing, one would think that we would be able to find almost anything within a specific time limit. Like say the three minutes that we had to get to the terminal and board the plane! However, having highly developed senses had its downfalls.
“I so didn’t need to hear that,” Kara informed us from the back of the pack. After all, she was the one who had packed the most “essentials”.
I rolled my eyes as Brandon replied, “Don’t think about it just move.”
We were moving alright. If we wanted to we could move all over the spaceport and back three laps by the time boarding was done. That being said, that would not only expose us, but harm others as well. I became aware that a high pitched ringing sound was coming from my phone and not from some weird video game fifty feet away.
“Hello?” I asked as I put the phone up to my ear.
It was Clinton sounding almost panicky. “Where are you guys?”
I narrowly missed being run over by a woman with two kids in a stroller. I glanced around, “I don’t know to be honest.”
“Well, hurry up. I can’t hold the flight attendant’s attention much longer,” he didn’t snap when he said it, but he sure made it sound urgent.
I rolled my eyes, “Clinton, I’m doing the best that I can right now. Look, can you give me directions or something, please?”
Taylor, who had stopped running along with me to make sure nothing happened to me, suddenly perked up. “He may not be able to give you directions, but I know someone who can track his location.”
“What?” I asked.
“Huh?” Clinton asked in my ear as Taylor ran on ahead with just a wave of his hand.
“Sorry, Taylor was talking to me. Anyway, can you help us out?” I asked.
I knew the answer before I asked it. He sighed, “No. I’m not a technological genius. If I was I would’ve changed my grades.”
“And move to Chicago?” I asked smiling.
He laughed, “Now when you put it like that…”
“May I borrow your phone, please?” Brandon asked suddenly standing right next to me.
I shook my head and mouthed, “I’m having a conversation with Clinton.”
He rolled his eyes and simply plucked the phone from my clutches. I didn’t even have time to gasp before he was fiddling around with it. He did things so quickly my eyes could barely follow. Finally, he gave me the phone back with Clinton still on the line.
“Whoa! You know for a minute there, it sounded like you could’ve made a song out of that tune,” he informed me as I put the cell back to my ear.
Another mom tried to run me over with yet another stroller. I was getting tired of not being able to see those things coming. “What did Brandon do?” I asked as I flipped over a person a good head taller than me.
“He just tracked my signal using his own phone. As long as we stay on the line, he should be able to-” suddenly Clinton’s voice went dead.
I stopped and glared at my phone. “WHY CAN’T MY LIFE STOP MESSING WITH ME?”
“Uh, Aria,” T.J. stage hissed from where he stood a good three feet away from me.
I sighed, “What is it now, T.J.?” I asked.
“Inside voices please,” he joked.
I rolled my eyes. Sometimes T.J. was the comic relief in the tragedy I called life. I picked up the pace. I had a feeling that the abrupt end to the phone call had little to do with my battery and more to do with MIB agents crawling around the place.
Has anyone else found the irony in the Men in Black agents hanging out at a spaceport? Beth asked communicating to all of us telepathically.
I laughed out loud on that one. It was ironic, but I knew why they were there. It was because we were. Although, they could also be there because of the psychopathic guy who gave me the note. They were also probably the reason for why my phone call with Clinton ended so abruptly.
“Excuse me!” a security guard shouted as we raced past him.
Great, they have a no running in the airport policy.
We slowed down to a walk. I played with my hair wishing that the pink stripes from last year were still in. Just so that away everyone would know the rebel I was and that I didn’t really care what the rest of the world thought.
“Are you guys lost? I think that’s the third time you’ve ran past,” he asked. For once the security guards were on our side.
I sighed, “Yes, sir, we are.”
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
Brandon answered, “Gate 217.”
“We’re trying to go back to school,” Beth explained as if the security guard wouldn’t know that.
The security guard nodded. He moved out of the way, revealing a map. Of course there was a map, why hadn’t I thought of that?
“Thank you!” we chorused like the school kids we were.
Brandon quickly scanned the map, planning our route. “Okay guys. You ready to meet up with Clinton?”
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Author here :)
The guy in the picture is Goran Dragic who would portray T.J. because T.J. is actually very athletic and I figured why not have a professional basketball player protrey him? So yeah. If you guys didn't recongize the actors' pictures in Conquering Love leave a comment in the chapter that has their photo and I'll reply to you :) Hope you guys are enjoying the story. This one's rather short because it was an assignment.
Thanks for reading!