Maximum Ride Fan Fiction ❯ After Armageddon ❯ Chapter Nine: Three Years Later ( Chapter 9 )

 

After Armageddon

 

 

Chapter Nine: Three Years Later

 

Liela

 

I swear that nothing beat that first flight feeling, even if I did nearly die. It was beautiful even compared to some of my more graceful flights over the next three years.

Yeah, you heard me, next three years. The main reason we're skipping such a large chunk of time is because, nothing interesting happened. It was same-old same-old. We ate, we slept, we flew, we blew stuff up, we got caught, we escaped: nothing new.

We did not find Rebecca either. And we did not find out any information about her or hear anything at all. I had had hope at first when Aaron told me about her that night before I was captured for the first time, but now I was ready to agree with Charlie: I did not think she was still alive.

It was a sad prospect and neither Charlie nor I have bothered to bring it to Aaron's attention. He adores his little sister and he cannot wait to see her again. He's always bragging about how sweet and kind and cute she is. To top it all off, he has got one tattered old picture of him and her when they were little. Like six and one. Sometimes I call him Maes after Maes Hughes from Fullmetal Alchemist because he can be so proud of his sister.

But whether we thought Rebecca was still alive or not, the three of us kept searching for her. Mainly because Charlie (not really wanting to tell his best friend that he thought his sister was dead so he should just give up and lose hope) followed the court's example in this case; Rebecca was alive until proven cold. But I think apart from that, the only reason we kept looking was because, we did not have anything better to do.

Face it. It was not like we could just give up and continue on with our daily lives. This was our daily lives. And I don't know if I liked that, but it was better than sitting around in a supposedly safe place wondering everyday if Itex was finally going to find us. (Although I guess we kind of lived like that anyway.) We all thought it was better to run and fight every chance we got and finding Rebecca just happened to be a goal we could aim for while we did it.

Yeah I know it's strange and doesn't quite make sense, but there was enough sense in it for the three of us, so we kept running and searching.

But then everything changed. And I know that sounds ridiculously corny, but its true. I still remember the day it started. (Which is amazing considering the last time I had seen a calendar was at Mom's house nearly six months ago when Charlie fractured his wrist. Apparently it was not as serious as some of the other stuff we've been through, but let me tell you it was a pain in the patootie having to take care of Charlie's hand and take care of the rest of ourselves while we were running from Flyboys.)

It had seemed so harmless at the time that I did not even realize what had just happened. It was the twentieth of March and the sun was just beginning to fall past the horizon, setting the shadows free as the slim moon rose higher. Three days before my world shattered into a million tiny fragments like a glass vase that someone dropped on the floor.

But I did not know that yet, like I said it had seemed so harmless at first, so as we sat around our measly campfire after our even measlier dinner, we were all laughing at the stupidity of one of Itex's new tries to catch us.

“They're just getting smarter all the time aren't they?” Aaron asked sarcastically next to me.

Charlie scoffed. “Yeah,” He said with a laugh as he cleaned up what little leftovers we had. “They're just so sophisticated with their laser eyes and sonic whatevers and their paralyzing thingamajiggers-“

“Too bad they decided to use nets instead.” Aaron said and we all three burst into near hysterical laughter again.

“Oh how could they be so stupid?” I asked once I could talk again. “I mean nets? Every genius in the world trying to solve this problem and their answer is nets?”

“Hey,” Charlie said sounding like he was trying to regain some seriousness and failing. “No one said that geniuses were very bright. They happen to be ridiculously smart, but once they're out of the lab-”

“Their common sense goes bye-bye.” Aaron cut in smiling.

We snickered a little longer, but after that things calmed down. I let myself relax against Aaron's shoulder taking in the surrounding noises as I closed my eyes. He wrapped an arm around me and lightly kissed the top of my head. I felt myself smile, but otherwise I did not move as I enjoyed the, temporary, peace.

Okay, I bet I can guess what all of you are thinking right about now. Aaron? You're dating Aaron? Well yes, yes I am. I do admit that in the beginning I really liked Charlie and it seemed as if he kinda liked me. But every time I tried to get closer to him, he freaked out and turned into a statue. This is not good when you're trying to ask someone if they want to go out. So eventually I stopped trying to get closer and he and I have formed a decent (if not strange) sort of friendship. If I still like Charlie beyond that, and I'm not quite sure if I don't to be honest, those feelings are buried beneath tons and tons of whatever else it is that fills my head.

Aaron on the other hand, acted completely different from Charlie. Being his usual open goofy self, he never bothered to try and hide his thoughts. However it was not until earlier this year that I had actually agreed to go on what passed for a date when you were a traveling mutant teenager who was running from the current world rulers.

Charlie dumped our dishes back into someone's backpack with a clatter, ruining the silence. I opened my eyes, not minding too much, and saw that Aaron was scratching at the back of his neck, again.

“Are you alright?” I asked sitting up. He had been picking at his neck since this morning and while this might not have been a big concern in normal world (which I was beginning to think was a myth) to us almost everything was a big concern. Hey, what can I say? We were overly paranoid. It came with the life, like some sort of packaged deal.

“Yeah,” Aaron smiled his usual self. “I think a bug bit me is all.”

“Wow, some bug bite. You've been itching it all day.” Charlie put in.

Aaron just shrugged. “Well isn't that what bug bites do? Itch crazy enough to drive you mad?”

“I guess so,” I said getting an uneasy feeling about something, although I was not sure what yet. “But I've never had one itch that bad before, not even when I got chiggers from the stupid little shack.”

I blamed Aaron for that one, which is unusual because Charlie is usually responsible for everything.

Aaron snorted. “Chiggers don't count, they don't actually bite you. They just get under your skin and bug you.”

Charlie and I groaned. “Oh that was terrible Aaron.” Charlie told him.

“Much to pun-ny.” I agreed. “And besides, Chiggers have to bite you to get under your skin.” The guys groaned. “Hey, at least I didn't plan that one.” I told them once I had realized that you could take that last part two ways.

“True, but it was still pretty bad.” Aaron told me, smiling to show he was teasing like he usually was.

And with that Aaron had successfully steered the conversation away from bug bites to really bad puns. I have wondered if maybe he already knew what the bite really was. If he did, he never gave anything away. Not even Charlie knew until later. Aaron was so good at smiling that it had become a mask, impervious to either Charlie's or my own scrutiny. So while we may have thought that something might be wrong, neither of us did anything. The three of us just kept on talking as the moon climbed higher until finally one of us, me I think, caved into the natural need for sleep.

 

*******

 

The next day, the three of us picked up our stuff and left, just like every other morning. We were headed toward yet another School (they were everywhere nowadays) that we thought might have some kind of information about Rebecca. Hopefully some tangible evidence that she was actually alive like a file or better yet, her living breathing body.

Aaron was walking slower than usual, so I had slowed down to match his pace. Charlie, who hated doing anything slowly unless it was absolutely necessary, was ahead of us, making sure there was not anything that was not supposed to be there. Flyboys for example or bombs.

“Are you sure you're alright?” I asked again as I lost sight of Charlie's dark clothes in the greenery, not for the first time I might add. “I really think he's going to leave us behind this time.”

Aaron only laughed a short rough sound that I had not heard before. It sounded like he was out of breath. But of course that could not be why; we had run farther and longer that this lots of times and he had never been breathless before.

“Yeah right,” Aaron said not noticing, or possibly not caring, what he sounded like. “The day Charlie willingly leaves us or any of his friends is the day I will let anyone call me Bunny Boy.”

“If you don't hurry it up that will be today Bunny Boy!” Charlie called back to us sounding impatient, but not too irritated.

“What'd you just call me bird brain?” Aaron called back. I smiled as Aaron sped up. Bunny Boy and bird brain were old insults, ones that no else were allowed to use, not even me.

“You heard me.” Charlie said as we caught up to him. He had actually stopped and waited for us. I thought it was strange, but as we kept walking, now at a slower pace, I realized that he was worried too. Aaron was acting strange - alright so Aaron always acted strange but this was different. This was not meant as one of his usual jokes.

We stopped for lunch early. Charlie and I could have kept walking for who knows how long, but Aaron looked like he was ready to drop with exhaustion. Usually we take turns looking for things we need or things that are trying to kill us. It does not always work that way because the other two always are on the watch too and sometimes they will see something that the guard dog missed. Anyway, yesterday had been Charlie's turn as watch dog which meant that technically, it was Aaron's turn today. But since he was so worn out, Charlie took over and went to look for anything eatable that would help make the food we had brought with us last longer.

“Is your neck still bothering you?” I asked when I noticed that Aaron was scratching at his neck again.

He sighed. “Kinda, but,” he added much too quickly, “it's not that bad.”

“If it's not that bad, then why do you keep messing with it?” I asked standing up so I could see his neck.

He flinched away and covered his neck with his hand. “No, no, no, no, no.” He said moving so that he was facing me. “It's fine. It's just a bite. There's no sense in worrying about a bug bite, no matter how annoying it is.”

“Then why can't I see it?” I asked with a frustrated sigh.

“Because,” He said keeping his hand over his neck. “If I let you see you're only going to worry and fidget and try and to slap some creamy stuff on it that'll only make it burn but not really help.”

I gave him a disbelieving look. “Wha-? Oh let me see that.” I tried to wrestle his hand away from his neck, but he stubbornly kept it in place. I got behind him so that if I actually got his hand away I could try to get a glimpse of his bug bite. I pulled harder and, slowly, his hand started to come away from his neck. I am afraid I did not see any red bumps, or anything red actually.

All I saw were a bunch of black bars and some numbers.

I instantly let go of Aaron's hand and stumbled back a step. “What? What's the matter?” Aaron was saying as he felt his neck feeling around for something that had not been there before. He kept asking, but I could not find it in me to answer him. In fact the first thing that I managed to get out of my mouth was a scream.

“CHARLIE!”

I do not thing that I have ever seen Charlie move that fast. He came crashing through the forest probably thinking that one of us had died, which I am afraid was not that far from the truth.

“What?!” Charlie and Aaron were both asking. I still could not answer them in any coherent form. I barely remember Charlie trying to get Aaron to explain what happened and Aaron trying to get Charlie to explain what was happening. I do however remember the clear look of horror on Charlie's face when he saw the bars and numbers that I did. I watched as he figured out the same thing I did.

“What?!” Aaron was still clueless. “What the heck is wrong?”

Charlie found his voice first. “You've got a barcode, Aaron.” He said so calmly that I knew he had to be starting to panic.

“What?” Aaron asked again in complete disbelief.

I heard a sob and realized with alarm that it was coming from me. I tried to make myself stop crying, but I could not.

Because one of my best friends was going to die.