This Never Happened (Olympus Drive Chronicles)

Part 5 - The birds

So my wonderful nephew is not upset, considering he's the one who called 911 on his mom driving under the influence for like the 80,000th time in her life. That's only counting with him in the car that I know of.

"You look like a bum."

"Ah, I am a bum. Get in the car," I say, snapping my fingers at him

"Who's she?" Ian stands outside the station, clutching his backpack, dark hair messed up, clothes look like he's slept in them eight times. The police also thought I looked like a bum, fun fact. It took a couple of minutes of Isaac's custody lawyers to convince them I'm a competent human being who is alive.

"A friend of mine. Be nice," I growl.

"You smell like a bar," he gets in the back of the car.

"Hi, I'm Juno," Juno says, more nicely than is warranted.

"He's mad his dad's back in rehab," I say, to her, quietly, before we both get in. She nods a little.

"Are you leaving me with grandma?" he asks, arms folded, generally glaring at us.

"Not if you don't want to be dropped off at your grandma's," I say, "Want to come on an adventure with me? Watch me go on a quest, get my ass handed to me? Do stupid shit that we don't necessarily tell your dad about?"

"No, Uncle Hugh. I do NOT want to go watch you wait tables in BDSM drag," Ian says, icily.

"Okay, so we've gone over how I was actually a prisoner and that was not BDSM but we'll skip that because no. That is not where we are going," I say, "We're---Juno what are we doing?"

"Helping with a vulture problem, we're doing good deeds, you don't have to help; you can watch," Juno says.

"Why?" Ian asks.

"Because I don't want you to get hurt—,"

"Not why do I have to watch--- why are we doing it?" he asks.

"You remember how I died and went to hell?" I ask.

"Do I remember Dad saying he needed to have you committed, yes," Ian says, slumping down farther.

"Yeah that conversation all right---anyway in order to stay alive I have to do these things for these not nice people, Miss Juno is helping me," I say.

"Fine. Whatever. Did Dad call you?" he asks, looking out the window.

"The lawyers did," I know he was probably hoping they'd let his dad out to come and take care of him. "Your dad only has like another six weeks. We'll have some fun, all right?"

"Whatever," he mumbles.

Juno takes us to some sort of warehouse, I assume because that's where Dara told her to go and not because she's gonna just kill us. I should stop making those jokes. Anyway. We don't say a lot the whole ride. Ian is sullen. Juno tries to make light conversation with him but he's sullen and down right annoyed with me. I don't blame him. I do start to feel bad though. I realize the last actual private conversation Juno and I had we were not talking we were kissing, and we got interrupted and haven't actually talked since. And in my experience with girls (not guys, guys act like it didn't happen) girls like to be talked to after they're kissed. Anyway. Not a lot to do about that now.

"Grab a weapon out of the back," Juno says, parking.

"Me?" I ask.

"Not you," she hands me my baseball bat.

"Really?" Ian asks, looking at the assortment of knives in the back of the SUV.

"Really," Juno picks up a machete, "Just in case."