A World Apart

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

Logan

The hairless rat has managed to assemble an army of twelve people behind him, jumpsuits and club attire compiled together in an angry mob. I can only imagine the lies Merle must have told to rally them together, painted Ava as a malicious dictator, indifferent and uncaring of her kingdom. Discounting Merle I'd be more than happy to include them on our passage to Canada.

If there are enough seats.

Parked on the tarmac somewhere outside the hangar, I haven't actually gotten a glimpse of the plane, unless it's the same one we saw on our venture through the woods. The one Maisie mistook for a bird. Even if there aren't enough seats though, that could be it. My grand sacrifice. Giving up my spot for someone else in need. Offering them refuge and in return granting myself a nobly earned respite from the world. 

In the line of people, a woman steps forward and shouts at us, and it sounds unlikely they'll be willing to accept help of any kind. 

"You were going to abandon us! Leave us for dead while you all flew off into the sunset!" she seethes. 

I hold my arms up, palms facing outward defensively. "We didn't even know if people made it out of the city," I reason. 

"Bullshit!" a man spits. "You ran Merle off the road so you could hog all the plane seats!" 

Ah, the first of Merle's lies exposed. Sketching himself as a victim, cruelly discarded for the sake of a lighter aircraft. I can assume he failed to mention his offer of picking the keys off our corpses so that he could have the plane wholly to himself. 

"He tried to run us off the road!" Joey exclaims. The argument has unsettled Maisie to the point that she has retreated to hide behind Joey's shoulder. 

A few of the people share looks with each other as they consider this. Maybe there's enough doubt there to fuel a fire, turn them against Merle so that this doesn't have to end in a fight. If it does, I don't see us winning, they far outnumber us. Besides, there should be more than enough vacancy on the plane to house everyone. 

"After they told me they didn't want to take any of us with them!" Merle says. 

It's enough to earn a few angry looks, even earns a few nods of ascent, but thankfully some of them still possess common sense. 

"Why wouldn't Ava give you a seat on the plane?" a man asks, "she wanted as many people at Club Calamity as possible." 

The tide seems to be turning in our favour, when a prisoner comes crashing in with a tidal wave. 

"Because they're selfish pricks! They pointed a gun at us when we needed a lift in their truck!" 

OK, that's a valid argument against us. I'm not even sure how to respond except to point out that the circumstances are wildly different. But even that's a poor excuse, too weak to even bother offering. There's no shade to be found in the negative light it casts. No talking our way out of the corner we've been backed into.

"Look, we're all here now," I say, picking my words with a careful precision. "The prison was an unfortunate mistake, there wasn't enough room for everyone on the truck, but there's plenty of space for all of us on the plane."

I hope, but I neglect to add that part. Instilling even a drop of doubt now would surely invoke a tsunami of people battling for priority on the plane. Though I'm not sure my little speech has done much good regardless, a sea of unconvinced faces stare back at me.