From Low To High: Book 2

Chapter 4:

We have been driving in complete silence for about two hours now and the sun is coming up from behind the car, I take a quick glance at Jax and see he fell asleep sitting up in his seat. About two more hours go by and Jax finally woke up and I greeted him “good morning sleepy head” he just sits up strait and stretches for a moment before saying “hey you holding up okay?” I nod and pull into a small gas station off the highway “yeah I think I will do better once I know the details, I mean I haven’t even heard from them in over a year. Obviously they forgot about me or got busy or something” Jax gets out of the car and pumps the gas. I decide to get out of the car and stretch for a minute, after i’m done I walk over to Jax and give him a bear hug. As he stands there in my arms I realize what i’m doing and back up from the hug and stare at the ground, before I can say anything I find myself wrapped in his arms and I finally relax for the first time since we started the mission yesterday and I whisper “thank you”. While we finish our hug the gas pump clicks and we separate for a second time, while Jax puts the gas pump up I grab my wallet and head inside to pay. When I wander back to the car I find Jax in the drivers seat and a blanket in the passenger seat waiting for me, I hop into the seat and as Jax drives off I fall into a deep sleep. I wake up to a soft voice and my shoulders shaking “hey max, we are at the police station. We made it to Jocks town” I sit up and look out the front window to see the familiar gloomy town of my childhood “oh yay” i say with a small voice. I walk up to the front door only to be met by a voice i’ve heard before “Max, thank you for coming so quick! I am so sorry about your parents, they were just starting to get better too!” I look at the lady with the booming voice and ask why I was sent here. The lady introduced herself “I’m sorry, my name is Jessica. I am the head officer on this case, let me grab the files” Jessica steps away and a few seconds later returns with a small folder containing addresses and reports about the case. We are looking through the papers and I notice a file about animal control “hey what’s that about?” and I point to the stack of paper. Jessica pauses for a moment then says “your parents were animal breeders, it was their saving grace. After they got started with that job they turned their lives around and were in good spirits” I pick up the paper after the explanation and see most of the animals were a rare breed of which ever animal they were. I look at Jessica “can I see were they were living?” she nods and we head out of the station. I hop into the car “hey we need to follow the officer, we are going to their home” Jax just nods and starts the car. It only takes a few minutes to get there, as I thought it wasn’t the home I had grown up in. It was a newly built home with a huge yard and large garage. After we pull in behind Jessica I leap out of the car and run up the steps to burst into the door, As I enter there is a foul smell and smoke marks on the wall from the fire someone had deliberately started. After a few minutes of wandering I wind up upstairs in the main bedroom, the bed in burnt on the edges. I plop on the bed and just stare at the wall in front of me, all of a sudden I hear a small clicking noise from under the bed, then more... and more. Suddenly I am hearing a bunch of small chirps and clicking noises, I quickly jump off the bed and dive to the floor, to my surprise directly in front of my face are four young birds in a towel wrapped like a nest. I let out a small gasp and look around to see if the parents are nearby, no luck. I quickly snatch them up into my arms still within the towel “oh my, looks like you all need a home” as I stand there with them in my arms Jax walks into the room behind the officer “hey, I found these birds they’ve got sut all over them!” the officer makes a call on her wocky then turns to me “ma’am we couldn’t get near those birds because their parents would always attack us. How did you get them in your arms?” I stand there in surprise then turn my heads to the poor birds. I sigh and look back to the officer “their parents are nowhere around here” then she gives me a worried look “okay that means they’re probably around here somew-” before she finished her sentence she rushed to the side of the bed and gave me a horrified look, right then and there I knew they no longer had parents but to my surprise she picked up the bird to show me what I wish I would have never seen… The bird was decapitated.

When I finally calmed down I was sitting on the porch with the birds still in my arms “what am I going to do with you guys?” I asked in a shaky voice. Just as I said that one of the birds crawled up to my chest and snuggled into my hoodie “okay, I know what you mean” I decided I will keep these birds and find homes for them myself! A few minutes pass by and animal control shows up “can I help you?” I ask in a timid voice, the animal control officer simply says “we got a call about a couple birds that were in a fire, but those birds you are holding are born black” I look at the man in shock then he speaks up again “are you planning on keeping the birds ma’am? We are aware of the situation with this house” I look at him and nod as a reply. He leaves after talking with the officer that had brought us here. I hear Jax coming my way from inside so I stand up and head towards the car before he can tell me I can’t keep them. I open the passenger side door and put the birds down almost forgetting I have one in my hoodie, I reach for the bird but suddenly hear a small whisper “so sleepy” and I pause to look around me but the only person there was Jax “hey did you just say something?” Jax shakes his head as I look at him out of curiosity. I proceed to pick up the bird and place him with his family “there you go sebastian” as soon as I say that I hear a loud angry moan from the other side of the car and I stare Jax straight in the eye as I say “I already told the officer I am keeping them! So you can keep it to yourself!” with that he stays silent. When I am done telling off Jax i look at the birds with a warm smile and I could have sworn the one I already named Sebastian gave me a nod, or he could have just been tired I really couldn’t tell. I asked Jax to stay with the birds so I can grab the things my parents kept of mine, I went into the house and saw the boxes labeled “Max” sitting in the entry way “I found those so I hope it’s okay I brought them out” I jumped as the nice officer spoke out to me “thank you, I really appreciate it!” I grab the couple small boxes and return to the car. When I reach the trunk I hear Jax scream from the front seat “DEMON BIRD” and see him fall out the side of the car onto his back with a thud. I couldn’t help but laugh at him as I walked over to help him up “what the hell was that about?!” as I stretched out my hand I saw Sebastian in the cup holder in between the two front seats. After Jax regained his composure he just shrugged it off and sat in the back seat “oookaaay? I don’t have any other business to attend to here, we don’t have family so I don’t need to take anything other than mine” Jax just nods at me while keeping an eye on Sebastian. I shut my door and have a couple more words with the officer then we take our leave. As we are exiting onto the highway to go back to new york I feel a warm presence on my shoulder so I glance over and see my little bird sitting there bright eyed and cheery “you finally awake little guy?” then I go back to the road. After about forty five minutes into the trip I start thinking of names for them all “okay your claire, you’ll be shark and this little one is bowey. Okay Jax it’s decided!” I pull over to a gas station and hop out of the large car to go in and pay for the gas but am stopped halfway by Jax’s hand grabbing my wrist “hey I don’t think you should keep those birds, I know you really like them already but-” then Jax stops talking for a moment and looks at my shoulder “Max… you have a bird on you” I couldn’t help but giggle at his comment then continued walking. After I leave the gas station I see Jax already filling up the car, I take that chance to walk around the gas station and take in the farm land view around us “aaahhhh, this feels nice. The sun is bright, I have a new friend hanging out with me and oh!” just then I knew exactly what I would do to make Jax okay with the bird situation. I look to my shoulder and start talking to Sebastian “sorry bud, your family is going to hangout with some other people. Don’t worry they are good friends of mine!” with that I start to head back. Jax is already in the front seat, probably sick of being stuck in the back. I get into the back seat and we head off once again “hey Jax! I have to make a few calls” he just rolls his eyes. I pull out my phone and dial Spek’s number then add on Sam’s and Kye’s, when they all pick up the phone we are on a group call and the first thing I hear is “hey are you okay? If you need anything at all just let us know” from multiple different voices. After they’re all done talking I speak up “Hey guys there is actually something I need help with” then I pause to see what they have to say “just tell us! Anything!” I start to get a evil grin on my face and reply “well, since you said anything! I need each of you to take care of an exotic bird until I can get on my feet again!” after I finish speaking there is silence for a minute then Kye speaks up “I needed a friend for when you are not over anyway!” I giggled at his comment and soon after the other two agree to take a bird. I hung up the phone after a small chat with everyone and took a picture of each bird, not including the little guy on my shoulder, he is mine. I sent Kye a picture of Claire, Spek a picture of Shark and Sam a picture of Bowie to show them each their bird. I looked up to see where we were at that point and we were about thirty minutes from the factory, where we all agreed to meet up suddenly I heard Jax “Hey… why didn’t you offer me a bird?” he said in a shy offended voice I’ve never heard from himbefore “um, I guess because you called them demons?” I said with a chuckle and Jax just looked away.