:-:-:-:
The Denali Institute for Rebellious and Troubled Teenagers
Chapter Two
Edward POV - Vancouver, Canada. Sunday, August 7th 2011. 5:00pm.
"Everybody out," Garrett called as the brakes hissed and the bus jolted to a stop on the gravel. His tone was casual, but there was no mistaking the edge under it. "And don't even think of running. One, you've got no money, and two, you'd just wind up with us again after doing exactly what got you here in the first place."
The speech was recycled. He'd given it every time we pulled into a new motel across the country. Still hadn't stopped anyone from fantasizing about bolting.
Tyler stomped down the stairs, his voice already echoing across the tarmac. "We all still here, ain't we? Ain't like we can go home." He clutched that ridiculous pimp doll like it was his emotional support animal.
Alice followed him off in silence—just like she'd been the whole trip. She hadn't said a word. Tiny and unreadable.
I stood and stretched, joints popping, then stepped out into the open air behind them. Gravel crunched under my boots. Vancouver's evening sky was dull, low-hanging clouds tinged gray.
Lauren came after me. Loud as ever.
The group gathered like parolees waiting for instructions. Garrett stood beside the bus, arms crossed, while Demetri and Eleazar walked off toward the tiny airport office.
"We wouldn't want to get this far for nothing, would we, Mr. Crowley?" Garrett asked with a grin that was far too smug for someone wearing mirrored sunglasses indoors two days ago.
"Ty-ler. My name is Tyyyy-ler. Not Mr. Crowley." Tyler's face twisted into that annoyed-puppy expression he got whenever someone was meaner than him at his own game.
Garrett tilted his head. "Ty… Ty…" He paused, mock-thinking. "Nope. Not working."
Tyler growled, then squeezed the stomach of the pimp doll. It let out its usual high-pitched cackle: "I got papers, blunts, bongs, all the ingredients to make a hiiiiiigh nigga pie!"
Emmett barked a laugh and offered him a joint, which Tyler took immediately, muttering something profane as smoke curled out his nostrils and he narrowed his eyes at Garrett like he was trying to telepathically set him on fire.
Behind us, Rosalie let out a pitiful whimper and sagged against the bus.
"C'mon, dude, hurry it up! I haven't slept in a proper bed in, like, thirty hours!"
"Thirty-four," I corrected automatically, voice rough from disuse.
She groaned louder and tilted her head back to the sky. "This is just stupid. We're not robots. We need sleep."
Garrett just nodded, as if that were the most reasonable complaint he'd ever heard. "Well, you can sleep at the school."
"How long is the flight?" Leah asked, arms folded, eyes dark.
"Just under three hours," Garrett replied smoothly.
"Three?!" She recoiled, and for the first time I noticed how red her eyes were—fatigue or fury, I couldn't tell.
Garrett didn't flinch. "Then another three-hour drive up Mount McKinley."
A collective groan swept through the group.
Except Bella.
She stood still, quiet, like the wear and tear of the past few days hadn't touched her at all. Probably had a full night's sleep before they picked her up. Probably thought we were all dramatic.
Garrett looked amused. "Still think slashing the tires was worth it?"
I stared down at the gravel. Better than punching him in the face. He had a point. Leah, Tyler, Lauren and I had taken turns knifing the van's tires after picking up Jake in Colorado. A desperate, bleary-eyed attempt at sabotage.
It worked—for about twelve hours. Then we'd all been woken at dawn to watch the replacements being fitted, slowly. Painfully slowly.
"At least we learned how to change a tire," Jasper muttered darkly.
Jake scoffed. "You didn't know that?"
Jasper's eyes cut to him like a blade. "Well not everyone was taken into a dark shed with another guy as a kid."
Jake bristled, but before it escalated, Garrett stepped in. "You two can flirt with each other later."
Jake's fists clenched, but he didn't say anything more.
Demetri and Eleazar returned, gesturing toward the hangar nearby. We followed—slow, dragging footsteps over uneven ground—toward the massive tin shed and the single plane waiting inside.
If you could call it that.
The plane looked more like an experiment someone gave up on halfway through.
"Boys and girls!" a voice boomed. An older man with a wiry gray beard and ill-fitting clothes waved his arms like he was signaling an emergency. "Welcome to my plane of pain!"
He had a thick Russian accent and eyes that glittered just a little too much.
I didn't have the energy to be alarmed. Or insulted. Or anything, really.
"Find a seat and get comfortable," he said.
The plane's interior was somehow smaller than the van. Hard plastic chairs. No real aisle. And a smell like old coffee and cleaning chemicals.
We crammed in, buckled up, and immediately began accruing spine damage.
"Lock and load!" the pilot shouted. "You kids have all got wills, right? No? Well that sucks for your friends! Ready? Ready? Right, let's go!"
A loud bang erupted behind us. The whole cabin jumped.
"Um… is that normal?" I asked, looking around.
"Nope!" the pilot called cheerfully as the engine rumbled to life.
"Wait! We're flying anyway?!" I shouted, clutching the armrests.
"Yep!"
The plane lurched forward, and the wheels began to roll with a metal-on-metal screech that felt like it was echoing inside my skull. We weren't even fully airborne and already I could see the end of the tiny runway, the edge dropping off into water.
This fucking lunatic was going to kill us.
And weirdly, no one even protested.
We just held on.
As usual.
Emmett POV
I glanced at the door, half-assessing my chances of making a dive for the handle and hurling myself out before the plane nose-dived off the edge of the runway and into the black stretch of ocean waiting just beyond. Honestly, a few cracked bones and maybe a mild infection sounded like a pretty sweet deal compared to drowning in a tin can.
Suddenly, the blonde girl next to me—Lisa or Lexi or something with an L and a screech—latched onto my forearm in a death grip, digging her acrylics in like I was the goddamn armrest. If I hadn't been mid panic spiral myself, I might've shaken her off.
Another shuddering bang rattled the back of the plane, and then we lurched forward. The nose tipped up without warning, and just like that we were staring into the bruised blue of the sky.
The pilot—who was very clearly high on something—let out a deranged laugh from the seat directly in front of me. He bounced like a toddler on a sugar high as the plane somehow clawed its way higher into the air.
Then another bang, followed by a sickening tilt downward.
The plane pitched forward sharply and the ocean rushed up to greet us like a mouth ready to swallow. My eyes went wide. The girl next to me let out a shriek so high-pitched it probably killed a seagull somewhere.
"HA HA!" the pilot barked. And then, just like that, we leveled out.
"That got it!" he said, as if we hadn't just stared death in the face.
I inhaled hard, jaw locked, and forced my eyes shut for a beat. If we were meant to fly, we'd have wings, I told myself like a shitty mantra.
When I opened them again, I yanked my now nail-embossed arm away from Screechy Barbie and folded it across my stomach. It throbbed like hell.
Even Demetri, sitting across the aisle from me, looked a shade paler than his usual corpse white. He didn't show it in any obvious way, of course. Probably wouldn't have flinched if the plane actually did nosedive. But the stillness of him was too tight.
"Hey. Hey, dude." Tyler's voice came from behind me, followed by the familiar thunk of him leaning on the back of my chair.
"Yeah?" I didn't turn, still laser-focused on the horizon.
"I was just thinkin'... about what the pilot said earlier. About, like, wills and all that shit. And if I don't make it out of this alive, I want you to find some hoes for Smokay to live with."
I blinked once.
"Dumb ones. With big tits," he added.
I nodded once, stiffly. "Okay. I might join him with the dumb hoes."
Tyler slapped my shoulder, hard enough to jostle me. "'Kay. It's good to know he'll be taken care of."
He sounded genuinely reassured, which was... something, considering Smokay was a doll.
Eventually, the plane evened out into what passed for a steady rhythm. There were still dips and jerks, but at least the engine wasn't coughing up a lung anymore.
I eased into it slowly, heart still thudding but no longer in full fight-or-flight.
Sky above, ocean below. For now, anyway.
And as long as those two things stayed in their respective places, I figured I could keep breathing.
Jacob POV
I noticed it out of the corner of my eye—Alice, the tiny one with the black hair. Her face had gone white as a sheet, like the blood had drained out of her entirely in a single breath. Her lips pressed together tightly, trembling, and her throat moved with a hard swallow. Then she bit her bottom lip like she was trying to hold something in.
Ah, shit.
I shifted in my seat, leaning halfway into the aisle as the turbulence knocked us sideways, and scanned for anything—a bag, a box, hell, a cup. Anything.
The plane gave another rough jolt, and Alice made a low gagging sound beside me. Not loud. Just quiet and awful.
"Hey!" I barked toward the front of the cabin. Garrett looked over his shoulder from where he was sitting up front, arching an eyebrow like I was mildly inconveniencing his life. "Dude, you'd better have a bucket or a bag—fuck, a bottle even."
He eyed me for a second, half amused. "You don't look too sick."
"Nah, but if this one pukes on me, we'll be re-enacting The Exorcist." I jerked my head toward Alice, then shot him a more desperate look. "Come on, man."
Garrett craned his neck up, finally catching sight of her. His face shifted instantly.
He jumped up so fast the whole plane shook with the movement, and a second later he was shoving a small plastic trash can across my chest toward her.
Alice hesitated. For a second I thought maybe she'd manage to hold it back. Then the plane bumped again and—nope. She snatched the bin like her life depended on it and hurled into it with a wet sound that made my stomach flip.
"Urgh…" I groaned, recoiling, nose scrunching against the smell. I turned away fast, pretending I was real interested in the clouds out the opposite window.
"You're not gonna pass out, are you?" Garrett asked gently, crouched beside her now.
She didn't respond—not with words anyway. But he seemed to get whatever unspoken answer she gave him.
"Don't look at it," he told her softly. "It'll make it worse. Let me know if you get lightheaded or shaky." With that, he stood and walked back to his seat, leaving me alone with Barf Girl.
Awesome.
The stench was creeping into the recycled air around us and my stomach tightened in protest. I bit the inside of my cheek and took shallow breaths. This was gonna be a long-ass flight.
"Do you think you could stop acting like she's a fucking disease?" a voice snapped from my left.
I turned, and—yep. Edward. Of course it was Edward. He had that smug, indignant look on his face like he'd just descended from Mount Olympus to lecture the peasants.
"What?!" I snapped back.
"She threw up," he said, raising an eyebrow like he was daring me to argue. "She didn't start skinning fucking roadkill next to you. Try not to make her feel worse."
"What the fuck is your problem?" I could feel my body coil, ready for a fight.
Edward didn't flinch. "The way you have to keep making our lives even more difficult."
I laughed, short and sharp. "This coming from the idiot who slashed the bus tires? Yeah, that definitely made things easier for everyone."
His expression darkened. "We're pretty high up right now. Why don't you jump out and try to kill yourself again? If the fall doesn't do it, I'm sure something'll eat you."
It was like all the air got sucked out of the room in one beat.
"GIVE IT A FUCKING REST!" Demetri roared from the front.
Everyone froze.
The guy barely spoke. That was Garrett's job. Demetri was the muscle. The threat. So hearing him yell? That landed different.
"I have absolutely had it with you guys fighting!" he bellowed. "One more word and I'm going to stick a GPS device up each of your asses and you can fucking swim to shore!"
Dead silence.
Edward and I both looked at him, wide-eyed. Nobody else moved a muscle.
Demetri glared at Edward like he was aiming a weapon. "Masen, seeing as you have no problem with vomit, you can switch seats."
Edward opened his mouth, then shut it again.
Demetri's tone dropped into something quieter, but no less threatening. "If you have a problem with that, then you can shut up and keep your suggestions to yourself."
"You can't talk to me like that," Edward muttered weakly.
Demetri's mouth curled into a smile that looked about as friendly as a shark's. "I can talk to you any way I like. You think it's your God-given right to talk to anyone like you do—well guess what, I have the same right. Got a problem with free speech? Get the fuck out of America. But while you're here, you're going to do as you're told. Switch. And. Shut up."
Edward didn't argue again.
He stood stiffly, muttering something under his breath, and stepped over me to take my seat beside Alice, who hadn't looked up once since vomiting her guts out. She looked like she might cry. Or sleep. Or both.
I exhaled, ran a hand down my face, and leaned back in my new seat.
Jasper POV
The tension was back. Not that it ever really left, but it had flared up fast this morning—like the room had a pressure valve someone kept tapping just to see when it would blow.
Edward and Jacob were already sniping at each other again, same low-grade hostility masked as passive remarks that didn't fool anyone. Emmett looked like he wanted to hurl himself out the window just to avoid being caught between them. And in the row directly in front of me, Lauren was making these infuriating little high-pitched squeaks every time she shifted in her seat.
I dragged my palms down my face and tried to center myself. Deep breath in. Hold. Out. Repeat.
Didn't help.
By the time I pulled my hands away, the edges of my vision were still fuzzy, and someone was staring at me. Not subtly.
I turned my head slowly. "Can I help you, Tyler?"
He didn't miss a beat. "Nope. You just look like one stressed-out motherfucker and I can't help but stare at the freakshow. Human curiosity and all that."
I blinked at him. Not mad. Just… vaguely entertained. There was something about the way he said human curiosity that made me smirk, just a little.
"You wanna guess why?" I asked, voice flat but not unfriendly.
He tilted his head, lips skewed to the side thoughtfully. Then he nodded once. "Might have some'n to do with the other stressed-out motherfuckers we locked up with."
"Seems like the most likely cause," I agreed, exhaling slowly. "What about you? Not stressed?"
Tyler shook his head in a dramatic no. "No chance, my brother from another mother. Uhh—a white mother," he clarified, patting his chest like it was a badge of honor. "Ya see, I've got everything a teenager might want or need right here in my bag. I don't need to worry about all the bullshit around me."
He reached down and hoisted his backpack into his lap like it was something sacred. "I've got weed." He thumped the top for emphasis. "And I've got the only sane bastard here—Smokay. I don't believe you've had the pleasure."
With exaggerated ceremony, he fished out the purple-suited pimp doll he'd been toting around since leaving home and set it on his lap. Then he extended the doll's plastic hand to me.
"Give him some love."
I hesitated, glanced at Tyler's expression to make sure he was serious. He was. Of course he was. So I reached out and took the doll's outstretched hand.
Tyler immediately snatched it back like I'd insulted his grandmother. "Fool, you don't shake a pimp's hand," he barked, scandalized. "You slap it. Then slide your fingers off each other's. Respectfully."
He held the doll's hand out again, this time with gravity. A lesson.
I slapped it, slid my fingers away.
"Now," Tyler said, eyes narrowing like this was a sacred rite. "Fist bump."
I knocked my knuckles against the doll's.
"Snap your fingers—real smooth like—and pull that hand back to your shoulder."
I obliged.
Tyler leaned back, satisfied. "That is how you acquaint yourself with a pimp. Try it again, and this time don't embarrass everyone here with your used-car-dealer energy."
I repeated the motions. Slap, slide, bump, snap.
He grinned when I was done. "There you go. Was it good for you?"
"Always," I said dryly, but the smirk I gave him was genuine.
"So how long have you had Smokay?" I asked, because at this point we might as well commit to the bit—and honestly, it was the easiest conversation I'd had all day.
Tyler exhaled slowly, like I'd asked him about a war he'd fought in. "Hard to say, man. The days just start runnin' together. Pretty soon your voice has broken and you're growin' hair in new places, your fingers can wrap all the way around the bong, and you realize—'Hey, my guy, you been in this room all year.'"
He tilted his head, eyes distant. "I remember sittin' there one day and my momma comes in with a birthday cake, sayin' it's my sixteenth. Last I knew it was November, and here this bitch is tellin' me it's July."
He paused like he was about to drop something deep.
"But hey," he shrugged, "the cake sweetened the deal. By the time I was done with it I didn't care what month it was."
His face tightened, lips pulling into something close to solemnity. "I had a mad case of the munchies that day."
I snorted, nodded in understanding. "Fair enough."
Honestly, it wasn't the worst way to pass the time.
A little delusional? Sure.
Borderline concerning? Absolutely.
But compared to the fight brewing two rows up, this was practically therapeutic.
Tyler POV - Anchorage, Alaska. Sunday, August 7th 2011 - 7:40pm.
"Grab hold of something—we're coming in for a landing!"
The pilot's voice crackled through the cabin like it was trying to punch its way out of a blown speaker, and for a second, I genuinely thought this might be it. The big finale. I glanced around for something more solid than the questionable seat I was strapped into, but the chair was all I had. So I grabbed the side like it might give me some kind of protection and wrapped my other arm tight around Smokay, the stuffed bear I refused to abandon even if we crash-landed and burst into flames.
The plane tilted forward, and through the front windshield, I caught a glimpse of ground rushing up to meet us. Shadows. Trees. The vague outline of a runway.
Everyone in the cabin sucked in air at the same time. No one screamed, but it was close.
I held my breath.
Please, Jeebus, I'm too young to die. I haven't even hit my prime yet. There's still chaos to be caused and questionable decisions to be made.
The plane rattled like it was about to shake itself to pieces. We dipped suddenly. My voice left me in a high-pitched squeal I refused to claim as mine.
"We gon' die!" I shouted, then immediately followed it up with a wordless screech that honestly might have come from one of the girls—but also, probably me.
The wheels hit the runway with a bone-jarring screech, lifted off again for half a second, then slammed back down hard enough to jostle my spine into a new alignment. There was metal groaning, a sideways skid, and a couple more lurches before the tires finally caught traction and the whole damn thing rolled to a shuddering stop.
We sat there in stunned silence for a beat, everyone probably taking stock of their internal organs.
Then— BANG!
The cabin door flew open and Emmett didn't hesitate for even half a second. He leapt out like it was a sinking ship, hitting the ground with a grunt and taking off without waiting for the rest of us. Demetri and Jacob followed, both hitting the tarmac like it owed them money.
"Ahh—we'll go and get the van. You guys good to get yourselves off, right?" Demetri called over his shoulder, already walking toward the nearby terminal.
"Been doin' it for four years," I called after him, throwing up a salute.
No response. Typical.
I looked toward the edge of the runway and spotted a mobile staircase parked off to the side. "Pussies," I muttered under my breath, then turned and hopped down from the plane in a move that was definitely not graceful and definitely not pain-free.
My hands hit the ground before my feet did, and I stood up with a groan. Shaking it off, I jogged over to the stairs and wheeled them over to the open cabin door like the unsung hero I was.
The others made their way out with more dignity than I had, offering half-hearted thanks as they filed down. Jasper came last, holding Smokay in one hand like he was already regretting life. Fair.
Just as I turned to grab my duffel, the undercarriage compartment popped open with a mechanical hiss and half the luggage came tumbling out like a busted piñata.
"MY BAG!" someone shrieked, and I flinched as a blonde girl sprinted past me like someone had just told her One Direction was inside one of the duffels.
We all watched as she practically dove into the pile of bags.
"Women and their motherfucking purses," I muttered to Jasper, who just let out a long-suffering sigh and nodded, both of us shuffling toward the mess to grab our things with slightly more chill.
It wasn't long before Demetri rolled back up in a van that looked suspiciously identical to the one we'd just spent the better part of a week being slowly driven insane in. This one, at least, didn't reek of fast food and shame.
We all climbed in without fanfare, automatically taking the spots we'd unofficially claimed in the last van like the dysfunctional little troop we were.
The first hour passed in almost eerie silence. Just the sound of tires on asphalt and the occasional sigh.
Then—BANG!
"GUNSHOT!" I screamed, instinctively diving below the window and dragging Smokay with me like we were in the middle of a drive-by.
"Flat tire," Garrett's voice called from the front seat like he was announcing the weather.
I slowly sat up, looking around for holes in the glass or anyone bleeding out.
When I realized we were all intact, I let out a shaky breath—then glanced out the window.
Snow.
And not the romantic, twinkly Hallmark kind either.
"I pity the motherfucker that's gettin' out in that," I muttered, watching as snow slammed sideways against the van like it had personal beef with us.
Yeah. Welcome to Alaska.