AN: So here's chapter 2. I am requesting at least one review for this chapter before I post chapter 3. I just want to know what you guys think and whether or not I should continue the story.
Chapter 2
We went inside the diner, and slid into separate red vinyl booths. I stared down at the scuffed tabletop, my back to him in quiet defiance. Neither of us seemed to want to talk to the other. He thought I was a runaway all because I wouldn't answer his questions and I thought…well I don't know what I thought of him. The first thought that came to mind was someone who didn't understand anything. This I figured was at least partially my fault, since I had been a bit elusive about the whole thing.
It was only a matter of time before one of us made the first move at communication and I figured it might as well be me. "I'm sorry." I said apologetically over my shoulder.
"I thought you weren't going to talk to someone like me." He replied.
"I didn't mean that. My mouth engaged before my brain did." I said.
"I may have crossed the line a bit calling you a brat, but you were acting snotty back there." He said. In one swift move reminiscent of cheesy action movies, he rose, taking one step before sliding in across from me, coming to rest with his right arm across the top backing of his side of the booth. I had to admit he may have been right.
"I just didn't want to talk about it and I was tired of you thinking I was a runaway." I replied, shoulders relaxing a fraction of an inch.
"Then what would you call what you are doing?" he asked trying to prove his point.
"I didn't run. I was told to leave." I admitted sadly, fingering the edge of the table absently.
"What do you mean?" he asked, obviously intrigued.
"Again, I can't talk about it. I was told not to." I said remembering what my foster dad had said.
"I don't think whoever told you not to tell has any right to tell you what to do. They already threw you out. And how are they supposed know exactly? They're in Alaska and you're on the east coast. Unless they have telepathy and mind reading abilities they never told you about, I think you're safe." He easily reasoned, staring at me as he spoke.
"Why do you care so much? It doesn't really matter why I left at this point, so why bother trying to figure it out?" I bit my lip, tensing up again.
"It was obviously important to you at one point." He queried again, frowning this time.
"Well wouldn't it be important to you if the people you thought were your parents kicked you out and told you not tell anyone why? I stopped trying to figure it out after two days." I said sighing.
"Are you eighteen or emancipated?" I shook my head no. "Well, then they do have some level of obligation to you." He said as if trying to find some kind of way to get me home.
"I was about to start my junior year. I don't even know what they did about school." I said noticing Dan had started to peer behind me, his expression darkening. "Were you even listening?" I asked annoyed that he wasn't paying attention.
"Look" he said pointing behind me. I turned to see a T.V. with my face on the news. As typical of any restaurant, I couldn't really understand what the person was saying, but the title Alaskan Runaway below my face gave me a pretty good idea. "You've gotta be kidding me." I said thinking my life couldn't get any worse.
"You know what; I don't think I'm in the mood for lunch anyhow. Let's skip lunch and get out of here before someone notices." Dan said and began to hurry me out the door.
Dan's reaction wasn't exactly what I imagined it would be. The whole time he had thought I was a runaway and newsflash that had confirmed it should have been enough to turn me in, but instead he practically agreed to fly me anywhere. Could this guy get any stranger?
He hurried me into the car and began driving back toward the hangar. "I don't believe this." I whispered to myself, this being the only thing I could think of saying at the moment.
"I do believe what you said back there. I don't know what those people have planned, but whatever it is it's pretty screwy." He turned to the right, the hanger coming into view.
"You mean that?" I asked surprised.
"Don't sound so astonished. I can tell you were being honest back there."
"So, what happens now?" I asked, looking over at him.
"I don't know. The father in me just wants to fix this by giving your parents a piece of my mind, but it also doesn't want to put you back in that house if they're going to do something like this again." He said raking his fingers through his hair. "It won't be too long before someone in this town notices these plates and calls it in." he thought aloud, pursing his lips in thought.
"I have a friend in Rhode Island I could stay with. You could fly me up there." I suggested.
"If you had a friend there then why did you come here?" he asked, looking unimpressed with my apparent lack of common sense.
"She was being transferred at the time when I left and she said she wouldn't be moved in for several weeks. She should be settled by now." I explained, feeling like an idiot myself.
"I don't like it very much, but it's better than nothing. We'll leave this afternoon." He said after thinking it over for a minute.
"That soon?" I asked, surprised he could get it done that quickly.
"Don't look so surprised, I just have to lay in my flight plan. It shouldn't take long to get clearance." He said as he pulled up in front of the hangar.
"Take your stuff to the plane. I'll be there in a few minutes to help." He said and walked inside, presumably to do as he said. I grabbed the bag from the back of the car and debated whether or not to grab my bow. I didn't even know why they decided to give it to me. I figured it wouldn't hurt to bring it along. If I didn't need it I could always sell it in Rhode Island.
After hauling everything to Dan's plane I waited several minutes for him to come outside. "It's all taken care of. Let me prep the plane and we can leave." He said grabbing my duffel and throwing it into one of the storage compartments in the back of his plane with ease. He grabbed the bow case next, giving me a strange look as he did, and put it in with the duffel.
He went about preparing the plane for departure while I waited inside. After about ten minutes or so he revved the engine and got into the pilot seat. He put on his headset and motioned for me to put on the other set. "Testing one, two, three. Can you hear me okay?" he said into the mike.
"Loud and clear." I responded.
"We're gonna have to make a stop along the way. This plane simply doesn't have the fuel capacity to make it all the way." He mused aloud, looking over his instruments.
"That's okay; I just need to get there." I said. I had already figured from the plane's size that it wouldn't be able to make it. It was just one of those little Cessna planes that I had seen a lot of bush pilots fly around Alaska. A short while later we were in the air and gaining altitude.
"So, tell me about this friend of yours." Dan questioned after several minutes of awkward silence.
"We've been friends for several years now. She just turned seventeen before her dad got transferred. He's in the Airforce so they get moved around a lot. The longest they ever stayed in one spot was while they lived in Alaska." I explained to help pass the time.
"Are you sure her family will just welcome you in on such short notice like this?" he asked skeptically.
"They've done it before. Obviously the circumstances were different, but they've never turned me away in the past." I explained fidgeting nervously. I didn't really want to say much more beyond that. The truth was that I spent more time at her house and Jesse's than I did at home. They're parents never gave me judgmental glares every time I walked in the house like mine did.
"Let's hope they'll still be inviting after that news bulletin." I barely heard him say. For some reason I felt tired all of a sudden.
"Get some sleep kid. You look like you could use it." He said in a fatherly manner. I opened my mouth to protest, but with one look from him I decided against it. I leaned back in my chair and dozed off to what I hoped would be a good sleep.
It was dark in this realm of sleep. All around me was nothing but black which made it even more depressing. I assumed this was just another one of those dreamless sleeps I was going to have to get through until someone or something appeared in the middle of the darkness.
As it got closer I could tell that it was a person dressed in a long, flowing white robe. "Who are you?" I asked the unfamiliar figure.
"That will come later." The figure murmured her voice soft and reminiscent oftinkling music.
"Why are you here then?" I asked hoping it would answer this question.
"You have a difficult journey ahead of you. That is, if you want to know who you really are." She said.
"What are you talking about?" I asked perplexed. "As you grow older it will become clearer. Every so often you will be challenged. Each time will prepare you to make the ultimate sacrifice for knowledge." She answered cryptically.
"Do I even have a choice?" I asked.
"You may desire to continue with your life in ignorance of who you are and your ultimate purpose, or you may desire to seek the answer." She replied. "The choice is yours and none others."
"What if I decide I don't want to continue on this journey?"
"I am certain you can guess the answer to that question." She responded. That was true. I could either do it or not; there was the option of turning back after whatever she was talking about had begun.
"Do you even dare try?" she challenged. "Or will you continue on the alternate course of action available to you as any mortal?" If any of this was true, then there was a chance I could find my real family and find out why they gave me up.
"I will try." I answered solemnly.
"Then let it begin." She said simply, fading out of view and disappearing along with my dream.
Everything began to shake violently and someone began to call out my name. I woke completely seconds later and realized that the shaking was coming from the plane flying through a storm. "Jaden, wake up!" he yelled again.
"What's going on?" I yelled over the storm and beeping plane.
"I don't know. This storm came in from nowhere! If we don't get out of here soon, we're gonna to be in some serious trouble." He replied, fumbling with the controls as he spoke.
The plane rattled under the storm's power as lightning came close to hitting us several times.
"Can't we call for help or something?" I asked trying to be somewhat helpful in an area I knew nothing about. "It's no use. I've already tried. The storm is interfering with all transmissions." He said. Minutes later we flew through the ominous clouds into a clear zone.
"It looks like we're clear for a minute. Let me try the transmission again." He said, reaching for the radio. As he did so, I could feel the hair on the back of my neck raise, and I had a bad feeling of what was about to happen. I reached out and tried to stop him, but it was too late. As he touched the radio, lightning struck the plane causing him to reel back from electric shock. He blacked out leaving the plane pilotless and me practically dead.
"Dan? Dan?!" I said nearly yelling at him. No answer came, but it was obvious he was still alive from the movement of his chest indicating he was still breathing. It didn't look like he was going to wake up any time soon, so it was up to me to make sure we didn't crash.
It was at that moment I was glad my uncle and brother were pilots. Throughout the time I had spent with them they would constantly talk about planes and their functions; they even made me do several simulations on one of the training simulators, so I had an idea of what I was doing. I switched controls from pilot to co-pilot as the plane took a nose-dive and tried to pull the nose up of the descending plane. It didn't work very well though and the aircraft continued its dangerous descent. As we got closer to the ocean I was able to make out a land mass that looked somewhat like a small island. It looked as good of a landing spot as anything else at this moment, so I headed for it as best as I could.
My only problem now was slowing down. "Come on you piece of junk. Pull up." I ordered the plane. The nose came up slightly as it neared the island, and I started celebrating too soon. Something fell from one of the overhead compartments that had apparently opened during the storm and hit me in the head, forcing me into unconsciousness. Murky darkness consumed me, and I knew no more.