Vivid (BoyxBoy) {Pipe Dream: Book I}

Chapter Twenty-One: Kite Flying

Chapter Twenty-One: Kite Flying

I was dosing off, leaning against Lady on the floor, when the next thing I notice I'm roughly being pulled to my feet, half dragging as Hanna pulls me along.

"Our ride's here," She grins at me, as I stumble after her, Lady not far behind.

What ride? I shift to pull back from Doc but she had me in a vice grip. "What's going on?"

"We're going to HQ directly. They were so interested in you that they are even willing to pick us up."

"What happens if I go?"

She shrugs, "It beats staying here, doesn't it? 'Sides, I think you'll enjoy this!"

Enjoy what?

She pulls me along the corridors to a heavy steel door and opens it to the outside. Something that I haven't seen in a while as the sun practically blinds me.

Squinting as my eyes try to adjust, I came face to face with something that belonged in a sci-fi movie. "Is that-?"

"-An airship, yes."

I'm probably ogling so much that I'm expecting my eyeballs to roll out any minute. It was black and sleek with electric blue along the wings. It took up the helipad in its entirety, that it somehow landed on without me even hearing the damn thing.

"Ok, let's get that tongue back into your mouth and you onto the ship," Hanna pats me on the back as the hatch on the airship drops down like a ramp and someone comes half-way down the giant thing that looked like it could take a tank or two aboard. "Yo, Hanna. I was told you needed a lift?"

He looked like a pirate. Even had the eyepatch to match. Though instead of a wooden pipe, he was smoking a cigarette, little disappointed to be honest.

Fenir picks that moment to come up behind me, "Took you long enough."

The pirate chuckles, breathing in deeply before letting it out as a cloud, "Hey, you could always walk. Where's the van?"

"Round front, Rain will drive it in."

"Eh? You letting the pipsqueak drive it? Last time I tried, you chewed me out. Talk about favouritism..." Pirate-man must have spotted me, as he flicks the cigarette butt to the side, he skips down from the airship's ramp and comes face to face with me, the weird ornaments that hung from his belt clink together like bells as he did, "This the kid? And his pet?"

I look up at the tanned pirate, expecting to see a parrot on his shoulder.

He grins at me and I notice a few interesting tribal tattoos along his arms that went under his shirt, "I like those eyes, boy. A little defiance never hurts eh?" He then thought on something, "Where are my manners? Lieutenant Vincent Osiris Black, at your service. Call me-"

"Oz, less talking, more 'getting on the ship and getting ready for taking off'." Fenir snaps, "You can talk the boy to death when we're in the air."

"Aye-aye, capi-tan. Just being polite." Oz pulls back from me, "Well, welcome aboard the Hollow Kite." He motions with his wrist while bowing towards me before standing straight and getting aboard himself.

"Come on, champ," Hanna, taps my shoulder as she walks towards the giant-ass sci-fi airship. This was more what I was expecting to find. But this city didn't show any indication it housed anything like this.

I stop at the foot of the ramps, looking beyond the airship, I could see the ruined city, still paralysed by the standstill of time after the Hexers had taken over. The Fence, still standing in some places where everywhere else was skewered by the long black crystal obelisks. But beyond the fence...was Anne and Cody. Somewhere. And Markus.