The Long Way Home
By
E. S. Young
Chapter Fourteen: Father Dearest
Here we have the chapter I have been waiting to write and the chapter Lynné, Sands, and Liam have been dreading. Hence why it's taken so long to post it. -.o
Lynn: Like you were eager to get on a plane after YOU saw 'Final Destination.'
Sands: You never know who the fuck's piloting those things, either. It could be some drunken circus clown for all you know.
Lynné and Sidney: (exchange looks with raised eyebrows)
Sands: What? It IS possible. Think about it.
Liam: (weakly) I don't like planes . . . . o.o;;;;
- - -
"C'mon, sugar, you've gotta stand up."
'No, not when I just fell asleep. Get lost. Go on, now. Scram.'
Sands didn't know whether the words had been spoken or just thought. He heard someone let out a long, heavy breath beside him, which made him assume that he had said something.
"Sands . . ." That was Lyn. He could tell from the sound of her voice that she was concerned but that her patience was also wearing thin. In a few minutes she was probably going to snap and then things would get very amusing. Too bad he wasn't going to be awake enough to enjoy it.
"We're going to miss our plane."
"Don't care," he mumbled into his pillow, "I hate planes."
"I thought we already concurred that we ALL hate planes?" There was Liam's voice now. Lynné shot him a Look and he fell silent.
"We all hate planes but unless we want to drive back to the States and be an open target for the cartel and the CIA, we're taking one. And ours leaves in an our, so" – Sands felt a hand being hooked under his left arm – "upsy daisy."
The next thing he knew, the least likely person, Lyn, was hoisting him up into a sitting position. Ignoring the wave of dizziness that the sudden movement had caused, Sands glared at her and demanded to know how she did that.
Lynné shrugged nonchalantly, despite the fact that Sands couldn't see her, and handed him a T-shirt.
"Dunno. Use your imagination," she replied simply, to which Sands raised a hand in her direction and extended his middle finger.
"Where did you sleep last night?" he questioned took the pair of jeans Lyn offered him.
"Couch," she responded plainly. "Liam took one of the chairs."
"Oh," Sands said, slipping on a pair of worn jeans. "Which shirt is this?" he asked, holding it out warily.
Lyn shook her head as if to say, 'They're always cautious about things women pick out for them,' but she answered:
"It's the black one that says, 'Eyewitness of La Chuppacabra."
Sands groaned in annoyance but continued to pull on the shirt on anyway, careful to move gingerly because of his injuries.
"What?" Lyn asked innocently as she loaded her gun. "I always found that one rather amusing."
- - -
Liam let out a high-pitched, squeaky noise of terror as he gazed up at the ominous airplane. His eyes widened with fear; it looked as if there was no moving him for his entire body seemed paralyzed with fright. Sands wasn't looking nearly as petrified as Liam was, though he wasn't exactly thrilled about getting on a plane either. Lynné kept biting her lip distractedly but she seemed more together than both of the men did. Sighing tiredly, she placed a hand on both of her fellow agents' shoulders and led them towards the entrance.
"Oh, God," Liam muttered frantically, "I don't like this, I don't like this, I REALLY don't like – "
"We haven't even taken OFF yet," Sands groused, with an irritated look in the other agent's direction. Liam had taken the isle seat, wanting to be the furthest away from the window, Lynné had decided on the seat in the middle, and Sands was sitting in the seat next to the window because he couldn't see out of it anyway.
"That's the worst part," added Lyn. From what Sands could remember, his sister had always hated turbulence.
"Hello, passengers." The voice of a cheerful stewardess came over an unseen intercom. "We're about to take off and are expecting a little turbulence, so please buckle your safety belts and remain seated until we are in the air. Have a nice flight."
Liam's seatbelt was already securely locked. Lyn inhaled deeply for a few seconds before fastening hers, and, after a bit of fumbling, Sands managed to get his seatbelt buckled as well. He crossed his arms and sank back into his seat, his jaw clenched. Her face stony, Lynné unconsciously began drumming her fingernails on the arm of her chair, while Liam's nails clawed at the arms of his seat.
"Nice flight?" Lyn muttered furiously as the engine started, making the plane shudder. "Nice my Aunt Fanny." Her teeth were rammed together with such intensity they threatened to crack.
"Oh, God," he murmured under his breath. "Oh God, oh God . . ."
"Shut it," hissed Lyn, "You're not making this any better for me."
Sands said nothing but kept his teeth ground together until he heard the familiar dinging sound that gave the okay for passengers to unbuckle their seatbelts. Breathing a small sigh of relief, Lynné told both of the men that the worst part was over for her.
"How can you say that? It's all horrible," Liam moaned fretfully.
"I'm with Fusco on this one," Sands agreed. "The entire ride sucks."
"That's right," Lyn said with realization, "you never did like planes for some reason, why?"
Sands exhaled, trying to find a way out of answering her. There was none, he knew that. But his reason for the hatred he had towards planes was so stupid, so pathetic and dumb. Lyn's eyes were boring into him, that he knew and he was somewhat grateful he couldn't see her expression.
"Sands?" she asked, sounding slightly amused, "Why don't you like planes?"
He sighed again in exasperation, but finally responded to her question.
"Planes are nauseating enough, all right? But they're worse if I'm headed for a place I'd rather not be at."
"So you get air-sick?" Liam asked, sounding surprised.
"Yes," Sands admitted shortly. "There ya go. Now both of you leave me alone unless you WANT my breakfast all over you."
Needless to say, Lynné and Liam backed off.
"Christ, if that was a little turbulence," Sands muttered, putting a hand to his head, "I don't wanna know what a lot would be like."
"You and me both," the other two said in unison. Lyn smirked coyly up at her partner and Liam returned the grin with a small smile of his own. Sands turned his head in their direction, his eyebrows quirked bemusedly, but said nothing.
The plane Andréez Martinez had provided soared through the air without any problems, but it traveled slowly. It made its tedious journey out of Mexico and over the Gulf of Mexico, and Liam had yet to give himself a heart attack, Sands hadn't thrown up, though there were a few close calls, and as for Lyn, her seat now bore marks made by her fingernails.
Eventually, Liam and Lynné fell asleep and only Sands remained. He could not remember the last time he had felt so horrible. He felt as if someone had taken a baseball bat and bashed every inch of his body with it.
'Which is a lie. I was just shot four times and had my eyes ripped out with a homemade dentist's drill.'
Because he had swallowed the bile that had rose up so many times, his throat burned and felt ripped and raw. The airplane had caused him to feel woozy and unstable, and the liberal amounts of blood he had lost didn't help.
'Oh, Christ . . . if I make it through this, it'll be a fucking miracle.'
Suddenly, the urge to expel the contents of his stomach emerged again. Moaning quietly, Sands leaned back in his seat on the plane and waiting for awful feeling to pass. It WAS an awful feeling to experience: Unsure whether he was going to lose little food he had eaten or not, and how it seemed as though his very organs were trying to escape his body instead of his breakfast. Yeah, awful pretty much summed it up.
"Y'know what I just thought of ?" he heard Lyn say. Sands quickly covered up how startled he was; he had thought she was asleep. Very carefully, he opened his mouth to speak – upchuck wasn't Lyn's color.
"Hard to tell, what?"
He knew she was grinning wryly when she answered, "Alaska."
Her brother let out a short laugh. "That was how many years ago?"
"Ohhh, I dunno. I was about fifteen, I know that," she said. "Why did Dad decide to go to Alaska for vacation, that's what I wanna know."
"Well, he was never one for vacations, was he? WE were on vacation –"
"– us and that drunken woman he married and her two snotty kids –"
"– and Dad was there on business," Sands finished. "That's how it always was; probably how it still is."
"Don't know, don't care," Lyn said simply, and she leaned back in her chair.
Sands, after adjusting his sunglasses carefully, followed suit.
- - -
"You could've gone to Harvard or Yale, both schools accepted you, but no. You had to chose some go-nowhere little state college instead."
"Why do you care what college I attend as long as my grades are high?"
"I'm just saying I think you could have done better."
"And you've been saying that for the past three years," Sands informed the man at the wheel. "Get with the times, Dad." He pulled a cigarette out of his jeans' pocket and searched his coat for a lighter.
"Oh, I've seen the times, son," his father said, not tearing his eyes away from the road for one second. "And, quite frankly, I'm glad I'm not a part of them. Just look at your hair! And don't smoke that damn thing in my car!" He made to snatch the cigarette away but Sands quickly shoved it back in his pocket.
"Don't bring my hair into this," he said tersely, pushing a long, dark strand of hair behind his ear. It fell to his shoulders by now; he liked it and his dad hated it, which didn't bother Sands in the least. If he and his father ever agreed on anything, it meant the world was coming to an end.
"Well it's getting out of hand," his father continued angrily. "You look like one of those hoodlums I see wandering the streets every night."
'Shit, hope he didn't recognize me. '
Nah, you kidding? He doesn't notice people's faces, just the state of their clothing.
'And now, apparently, their hair.'
"And you should think of setting a better impression for your sisters –" his father scolded, but Sands abruptly cut him off.
"Don't go confusing titles, Dad," he said tensely, "Lyn's my only sister."
"You're stepsisters, then," said his father as if his little slip up was nothing.
"Oh? So Lyn's a lost cause?" Sands asked, with curiosity that fooled no one.
"Well, your sister's always been a little . . ." He trailed off into an uncomfortable silence. "She's not all there, Sheldon," he said finally, "We both know that."
"Wellll," Sands drawled, "maybe if you'd paid a little more attention to her when Mom died. . ."
"Don't start on that –"
"Why?" Sands demanded. "You don't seem to want to talk about your dearly departed wife, Dad, why not?"
"That was a long time ago –"his father began.
"Don't you have any feelings you need to express?"
"No, and I don't see what this has to do with –"he started to say, but Sands pressed on.
"I'd' have thought you would've wanted to vent a long time ago. Guess I was wrong," he said with a shrug. "Y'know . . . I don't think you were all that heartbroken about Mom, I really don't."
"How, how DARE you say such," his father sputtered angrily, though he seemed beyond anger now.
"That's it, isn't it? Come on, you can tell me. It'll be a little secret just between us: father and son.
"Oh, but . . . I'm really not your son, am I? Biologically, yes, but you don't really consider me your son, do you? No. Cuz I'm not like you, I'm not the younger version of yourself that you envisioned when Mom had me.
"Then you guys had another kid, and YOU planned on it being a the boy you always wanted. You got your hopes up. But guess what, Dad? It's a girl! Put away the blue cigars and bring out the pink ones, cuz it's a Lynné, not a Robert Junior."
Throughout Sands little talk his father remained silent. He was gripping the wheel of his flashy, expensive BMW so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. His face on the other hand, was a complete contrast of his colorless hands. It was now a boiling red color, letting his fury with his son show.
Despite how enraged his father looked, Sands smirked in satisfaction. After two years of studying the human psychiatric system, twenty-year-old Sheldon Jeffery Sands was almost an expert at getting under people's skin. He had always been rather gifted in that area, but several courses he was taking in college had really enhanced his abilities. Give him another two years and he could probably pass as a psychic, as well as a master manipulator.
Suddenly, the car began to slow down, and in a matter of minutes his father had pulled the vehicle over. Thick flakes of snow were beginning to fall softly on the already flurry-covered terrain. With a quick glance out the window, Sands turned to his father, his expression a mixture of confusion and curiosity.
"Why are we stopping?"
"Get out," his father said sternly, his expression steely.
"What?" Sands asked, his voice hollow and disbelieving.
"Get out. If you're not my son, then I don't see why I'm carting a stranger around. So get out."
Sands stared at him, his expression disbelieving. Though he had to admit, if someone had pissed HIM off enough while he was driving down a deserted road, he would have thrown them out of his car, too. But still, this was fucking Alaska. His father hated him, but . . . ALASKA??
The next thing he knew, his door was being opened and his denim jacket was being grabbed. In his outrage, Sands hadn't noticed his father get out of the car and go around to the passenger's side. The man was now hauling him out of the BMW and chucking him into a snow bank.
"Three miles 'til our hotel," his father called from his seat inside the warm car. "You do the math, smart-ass. See ya later."
And he drove off, the wheels of the car kicking up snowflakes as he did. Sands stared after the car in disbelief as it quickly disappeared in the gathering snow and darkness. Seeing that he had no other choice since his father obviously wasn't coming back for him, Sands dusted off the snow that had stuck to his clothing after being pushed into a bank, and started walking down the road.
In the short time he had been out in the weather, his nose and fingers had already started to go numb, and his ears were soon stinging with cold. Blinking through the snowflakes that were clinging to his forest of eyelashes and thrusting his hands into the pockets of his jacket, Sands trudged through the thick, Alaskan snow, counting on the desolate highway to lead him back to the hotel.
"If I die of hypothermia out here, Dad, so help me GOD if I don't come back to haunt you . . ."
- - -
"D'you mind if I put on the news?" fifteen-year-old Lynné asked. Having just stepped out of the shower, she was wearing baggy flannel pajama pants and a black shirt. Dragging a comb through her long, damp hair, she explained, "There might be something interesting on."
"Doesn't bother me," her roommate and stepsister of fourteen years replied with a shrug as she unpacked her things.
Lynné had to admit that Grace wasn't a bad stepsibling. She was better than Catherine, who acted very much like her mother, Melinda, only she wasn't a drunk.
Not yet.
'Too true.'
Her father had remarried only a year after her mother had died in the car crash and soon there was someone to take up the role of mother in the Sands' household. Melinda was a tall, bony woman with brassy blonde hair that only the most expensive hairdressers could touch and ocean-blue eyes that Lyn was convinced were contact lenses. Along with her came two daughters. Catherine, the eldest of the pair, shared many traits with her mother. Conniving, sneaky, and always complaining was Catherine in a nutshell. She always had to know the newest bit of gossip that was flying around and, whenever she thought you weren't telling her something (as she often did), she would prod you until you either told the truth or made up some story just to get her to go away.
But Grace also came with Lyn's new 'family' and she wasn't too terrible. Grace DID like to know the latest story, but unlike her older sister she didn't spread it around if it was a secret. She was a very good person to talk to, though Lyn never went to her for help, but Lyn was never one to talk about her supposed feelings. Yeah, despite the fact that she never missed an opportunity to cry her eyes out, Grace was all right.
'And hopefully she won't turn into a drunk.'
A sudden knock at the door interrupted Lyn's thoughts, but Grace got up to answer it, so Lyn didn't turn her attention away for long. However, Grace's sudden scream brought her back to Earth.
"What?" Lyn demanded, getting up off her bed. "What is it?"
She stopped short when she arrived at the door. The shivering figure of Sands was nearly frozen through and had its jacket pulled up over its head in an attempt to protect itself from the frigid weather outside. The snow that had fallen on him was now melting, drenching his hair and clothing, which did nothing for his all but frozen body.
"Oh my Christ," she gasped. "What happened?"
"D-don't ask q-questions, j-j-just let me i-in," Sands stammered. Lyn quickly grabbed her brother's arm and pulled him into the room, past Grace whose green eyes had already started swimming in an ocean of tears. Lyn forced him onto the nearest bed and Grace, after taking a moment to collect herself, picked up the room's phone and dialed the front desk.
"Hello, um, d'you think we could get a few more blankets and some hot tea for room 207?" she asked into the phone.
"Cof-ffee," Sands corrected.
"TEA," both Grace and Lyn said sternly.
"Have them up here as soon as you can," said Grace. "Okay . . . thank you."
"Don't tell me you were out there in that," Lyn said as she took Sands soaking denim jacket from him and replaced it with about four blankets.
"Ok-kay," he responded, his teeth chattering, "I won't."
"Oh," Grace cried in despair and sitting down beside him, "Sheldon, what happened to you?"
"D-don't c-c-call me th-that," Sands told her as sharply as he could in his condition.
Lynné wrapped another blanket around Sands' shoulders and quickly began to relieve him of his black biker boots.
'His feet must be freezing,' she thought worriedly.
After pulling off the socks, Lyn was breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that Sands' toes weren't blue, a sign that he didn't have frostbite. Shrouding her brother's feet in another two layers of blankets, Lynné took up a seat on the bed as well.
Through his shivering, Sands looked at each of the girls he was sandwiched between. From Lyn on his right to Grace on his left, he saw that both of them were wearing looks of concern. This caught him as strange; he couldn't remember the last time a person had worried about him, let alone two people.
"G-got into a f-fight with Dad," he told them, still shaking uncontrollably. "Ab-bout the usually st-tuff, you know."
Grace, her face now blotchy and tear-stained, looked slightly perplexed, but Lyn nodded in understanding.
"M-must've pissed him off more than I u-usually do, cuz he threw me out of the c-car and d-drove off."
Placing a hand over her mouth, Grace just managed to stifle a gasp of horror, while Lyn's eyes merely widened in surprise.
"How far did you half to go?" asked Lyn.
"Th-three miles," Sands told her, drawing the blankets around him tighter.
"And you walked?" Grace asked in a hushed voice.
Sands nodded shakily and flexed his fingers, trying to get the feeling back into them. Every time he moved he felt thousands of ice-cold needles being driven into his skin, so he quickly abandoned that plan.
"Three m-miles, s-s-six hours," he told them. Lyn was shaking her head back and forth, her face contorted with fury. Her expression was not unlike their father's had been several hours ago.
"God, Dad . . . that –"Lyn started to say, but she never finished her insult. For the second time that night, a knock at the door broke rang throughout the room.
"That'll be room service," Grace said quietly. "I'll get it."
She rose from the bed and went to the door, her light-blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders as she did.
- - -
An arm reached across the first two seats in the isle, the seats sleeping occupants took no notice. The fingernails on its hand were highly polished and ended in white tips. Clearly, whoever owned the arm favored French manicures.
The arm stretched towards the third and final seat. Its hand was groping for the last person in the row of seats. At first glance, one might think that the hand wanted nothing more than to have its fingers wound around that person's neck, but no. Instead the hand went for the pair of dark sunglasses that were perched on the bridge of their owner's nose, completely obscuring anyone's view of the person's eyes.
"I'm sure he wouldn't want to be asleep wearing these," the arm's owner assured themselves as they reached for the black glasses that hid Sands' eyes (or lack thereof).
Suddenly, a second hand shot out and caught the grabbing arm by the wrist. The stewardess gasped in shock and stared, wide-eyed, down at what had taken a hold of her.
"And I'm sure you'd be wrong," Lynné Sands informed her, throwing one of her humorless smiles the stewardess's way.
"I was just –" the bleached-blonde woman started.
"– doing what you thought was best, I know," Lyn cut in. "But that wasn't your place, and I suggest you don't try it again any time soon. You never know what might happen." She released the stewardess's wrist and thrust it back at her. "Now, if it's not too much trouble –"she pointed to somewhere off in the distance "—piss off, Blondie."
- - -
The end of another chapter. Actually, this isn't the last chapter that's gonna take place on the plane. The next one does, too. Although, it's really not on the plane per-say, but it kinda is. Okay, it is and it isn't, that make sense? Ah well. It'll be up very soon, so R&R !
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