Free The Autumn Aircraft: Avery's Recruits by J.M. Barber

out his fingers to help with the soreness caused by the day’s earlier drama. Devon wondered if he should learn to control his temper better.  If he ever did it’d have to wait for later.  The kid in front of him obviously wasn’t taking a hint.
                  “My sword ?” the kid asked, his face still blank.
                  Devon’s temper flared up then. “What, are you stupid motherfucker, get the fuck o— ”
    Devon lunged forward then with his arm cocked back for a punch, hoping to scare the boy enough to make him stumble back off the steps. He put all his force into the lunge too, moving to scare the kid enough to not just make him go off the steps, but to possibly shit himself as well.
                  But the boy didn’t move. In fact, he didn’t even flinch. Didn’t so much as blink. And though Devon had substantial weight on the boy—all muscle, in fact, he must’ve outweighed him by seventy pounds easy—he saw for the first time that the boy was taller than him, at least half a foot.
                  As Devon stood just two inches away from the boy’s face, ready to swing, the boy uttered nine words that for possibly the first time in Devon’s life, sent a genuine chill up his spine.
                  “Do you really want me to get my sword?”
                  The boy’s expression was no longer blank. And his dark blue eyes, suddenly full of terrifying clarity and haunting under his slightly furrowed brow, gave Devon the deep, unsettling feeling, that whoever this kid was, wherever he came from and whatever he was here for, it was the last person on Earth that he wanted to fuck with.  It was intuition that must’ve told him this. He didn’t believe in intuition, but it must’ve been.
                  Devon licked his lips nervously. Examined the boy for a few moments, his mind running over what he should do.
                  Hit the nigga, a voice was screaming in his head.  Hit the nigga.
                  The kid smiled.  “Go ahead.” He chuckled. “I want you to do it.  Oh, so bad I do.” 
                  Devon did nothing.
                  The kid nodded. “I see,” he said quietly. “So…” he raised his eyebrows. “You were only… talking then.”
                  Devon still failed to move.  Couldn’t force his limbs to move as the kid glared, unflinchingly at him,.  The kid’s eyes didn’t leave his and Devon needed them to. It was a crazy thought, but Devon thought that his bladder suddenly felt full.
                  “Good man,” the boy said suddenly, loosening up. He clapped Devon on the shoulder and forced his way past him.  He shoved hard with his shoulder too on his way past, making Devon stumble and feel even more unease.  Whatever was under that shirt, it wasn’t just skin and bones. The boy may have not been bulky, but he was hitting the gym, doing something.  There was no way he wasn’t.
                  Devon put a hand over his face, rubbed it down over his flesh—flesh that was perspiring, despite the cold—half in a panic about what he needed to do.  He couldn’t just let the boy walk through this place like he owned it. The asshole didn’t even live here! And he was getting away with it, his hands back on the straps of his gay ass backpack—large ass backpack that it was—and his attention no longer on Devon because…because…
                  Because he’s not scared of you. Not in the least.
                  The stairs were at the end of the hall on the right—the elevator didn’t work—and Devon wasn’t going to let him make it. He turned and ran at the boy, as fast as he could.
                  “You know what nigga,” he said, his muscled arms outstretched as if meaning to give the boy a hug.  “Changed my mind, go ahead and