No One Left Behind, Except for Me novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: Gate 41
Natalie's POV
On Monday night Doc drove us to the Minneapolis airport in his old station wagon, with the heater roaring.
Mikkel sat in the back with my two suitcases.
He had made a phone call to the Institute that morning, and he had not said a word about it since.
He had told the chair, in four minutes, that a complaint was coming and that every word of it would be true.
She had answered, "Come to Oslo. We will talk here."
At Gate 41, Doc put down my carry-on and cleared his throat.
"I'm not good at these," he said.
"You're doing fine."
"Three years you've been my best student." He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "I should have called the AD's office the minute you didn't text me from the hotel."
"You called Mikkel."
"I called Mikkel the second I heard Tate's voice on the phone. Something in how easy it was." He put the glasses back on. "I'm proud of you, kid. Don't tell anyone I said so."
I hugged him hard, and he patted my back twice.
"Natalie!"
I turned.
Heidi was running down the concourse with her bag bouncing on her shoulder, her bob blown flat by the wind outside.
She stopped in front of me, gasping.
"I took the bus," she said. "Doc told me the gate. I didn't want you to leave without it."
She pulled something out of her bag, folded small.
It was a navy jacket.
I knew it before she opened it, by the cuff.
"I sewed it on myself," Heidi said. "I'm not good at it. The stitches are bad."
On the cuff, in crooked white thread, someone had sewn a new strip of tape.
Cahill, 17.
"Reagan cut the old one off," she said. "I went to the equipment room and found the roll. It took me four hours."
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