The Quest by Adrian Howell Read Free Book Online

again,” I muttered as I climbed out of the plane.
    Jogging back to the crowd of kids, I found them standing in a circle around Mr. Simms. The former Raven commander was still unconscious, his arms and legs bound together behind his back.
    I heard the engines sputter to life and said to the crowd, “Come on, let’s go. I’ll bring the Angel.”
    I levitated Mr. Simms in front of me as I followed the children back to the airplane. Mr. Simms was extra heavy because he was built like a grizzly bear, not to mention the fact that he had a large metal chisel tied to his arm. Did we really need to take along this extra weight? Back in the plane, I asked Terry, but she said simply, “We need him, Adrian. He can tell us a lot. Don’t worry. I’ll get us up somehow.”
    I shrugged. The weight issue was Terry’s problem this time. I knew nothing about flying airplanes.
    There weren’t enough seats for everybody, so we got the smallest ones to sit in the laps of the older, and somehow managed to pull everyone’s seatbelt on. We left Mr. Simms in the aisle. After checking that the door was properly sealed, I joined Terry in the cockpit, sliding into the copilot’s seat and placing Alia in my lap.
    “Don’t touch anything, okay?” said Terry, and Alia and I nodded.
    Throttling up the engines, Terry quickly taxied the airplane over to the very end of the runway before turning us around. She wanted as much distance as possible to the fence at the other end of the strip.
    Terry took two deep breaths, and then said, “Okay, here goes nothing. Hang on.”
    Terry used her hook to push both throttles to maximum. The engines roared in fury. The plane inched forward, and then very slowly gathered speed.
    “Come on! Come on!” Terry shouted at the plane, much as she might to me in the dojo.
    I looked at her anxiously. The airplane, though moving pretty fast, was still on the ground, and we were rapidly running out of runway. I knew we should never have brought Mr. Simms.
    Even in the darkness, I could clearly see the end of the runway now, and the fence and trees beyond. In but a few seconds, we would crash through the fence and die in a massive explosion.
    “Addy!” Alia cried in my head as I called out at the same time, “Terry!”
    At the last moment, Terry pulled back on the flight controls, and I felt Alia suddenly get much heavier in my lap. We were airborne! Through the cockpit window, I saw the tops of the trees actually brush up against the underside of our airplane as we flew over them.
    Within a minute, we had cleared the forest and were flying over farmland. Terry had left the landing lights on, illuminating the fields as we passed over them at dangerously low altitude.
    I asked nervously, “Um, Terry, why aren’t we climbing?”
    “Ground clutter,” said Terry.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Avoiding radar, Half-head. I don’t want the Wolves on us. Be on the lookout for high-voltage wires.”
    I looked around the cockpit at the many gauges until I found the altimeter. The needle was at fifty feet.
    Skimming the ground, our plane continued on into the night. Though we lost one brave boy on the road, we had managed to escape the fall of New Haven.
     

Chapter 3: A Changed Man
     
    Once we got used to the idea of Terry flying our stolen airplane at just above ground level, Alia and I got out of our seat and faced the passengers. Terry had insisted that I find out who they were and who we could rely on.
    It made psychological sense too. Most of the kids were obviously quite traumatized by what they had just lived through, and keeping them busy would help keep their minds off of New Haven, as well as how frighteningly close the ground looked from the windows. It was time to get acquainted with our charges. Including the baby, there were sixteen total.
    “I’m Adrian Howell,” I said uncomfortably as fifteen pairs of eyes focused on me. “I guess most of you know that already. We’re, uh, safe for now.”
    Some of the