Battle Of Hearts

Chapter 3: skipping class

"No, why can't we just-" I was saying when I heard a knock on the door.

"Um, Emery. I don't think you're in JROTC. Are you lost?" I ask whispering the last bit

"No. I just need you and Mace. We're leaving. The school knows, cmon" My slightly taller, classmate whisper shouts. Mace is already giving me a weird look from the table we were sitting at. I walk back and shrug at him.

"Is Emery really trying to get us to skip class with him?"

"He said he got permission from the school, let's just go man"

"Fine, fine." Mace groans before standing up and walking to the door, waving bye to the teacher. Were about halfway through the hallway when I finally spoke up.

"Dude. Where are we going exactly? You gave us no context"

"Trust me, you'll be happy in 3 minutes." He shot a glare at Mace, "no counting." His mouth was half open with a finger in the air. I couldn't help but laugh at him. He mumbled something about punctuation and I could hear him mumbling 1,2,3 and so on from a few feet ahead of him.

We reached the stairs far past 3 minutes and he unlocked the door and led us to a white van, the kind that should have "Free candy" written in black spray paint in it. But instead it said something about strawberries and there was already a girl inside. Her head was down so it was hard to tell who it was.

Emery opened the trunk and Mace bowed as I got in. I got a closer look at the girl, Mikayla? Holy shit, I swear if I get roped into her weird book fantasy, I'm dying. Seems like that's not negotiable though.

She looked up from her book, brown eyes shining before sticking the bookmark in.

"Hey! I told you I wasn't lying, although I wasn't expecting you to be a demigod." She shrugged as I took the seat opposite of her and Mace climbed into the back.

"Mika! Do you understand this?" Mace said before kicking his feet into the spot between us, showing off his blue dunks.

"I've got a vague idea, but Emery would probably explain it better" She said before going back to her book, turning her body so we were both facing Mace's shoes.

He spent a whole 40 minute drive explaining everything to us, Mace was fully shell shocked, I thankfully understood a good 60% of what he was saying thanks to Mikayla's rants. She seemed to be half listening, asking questions every 8 or so minutes to clear up a misconception she had, or how to pronounce a name. We pulled into a parking lot, the one of the nearby airports. It was rundown, but thankfully pretty empty.

"None of you are part of the big 3, right?" he asked, resulting in a shrug from all 3 of us.

"Oh gods, this is why you're supposed to get claimed at 13. " He muttered pacing back and forth. "It's fine, its fine, its fine" He said breathing then looking at all of us. "Here are your tickets, when they get called, come find me Mace, I'll be in the boys bathroom. He said pulling a silver coin out his front pocket and hobbling to the bathroom.

I rocked back and forth on my feet, the air was stiffening, and relaxing, and stiffening. Mace and Mikayla looked at eachother, then me, then back. Gods, this was difficult.

Our flight got called, and he sprinted to go find our friend. Leaving me with Mika.

"Why can't you just talk to him?" I say, as Mace walks towards the bathroom

"I don't know, why didn't you say anything?" She said, popping her hip and tiling her head, the way she did when she expected to fight

"Cut the sass. You guys were practically burning a hole into my head, I didn't know what to say!"

"Sorry, sorry. But c'mon, you're supposed to be the mediator and stuff." She said, throwing her hands up by her side

Mace returned with our friend, and now guide and we walked to the gates.