CHAPTER 1
Aubrey Bergstorm and her family waited patiently in their seats on an airplane. She glanced at her watch; it said 12:30 pm, they are going to depart soon. Behind her, Mr. and Mrs. Bergstorm were chatting excitedly to each other, probably about Scotland, the place they were going to spend the rest of their summer. According to Mrs. Bergstorm, they are going to stay in a fancy hut on a beautiful island for a month.
"You will love it," She said back at their house in Canada.
Aubrey stroked her light brown hair and played with her long eye lashes. Whenever her mother said she is going to love something, she always ended up with something she didn't really love or seeing something she wasn't supposed to see.
When she was seven, her mother took her to the zoo. And of course, Mrs. Bergstrom said the very same sentence: "You will love it". When they arrived at the zoo, Aubrey immediately ran to the tiger cage. She had always been fond of tigers. Her personal library at home had a special section where she kept all her books and CDs about this majestic creature. She rushed to the tiger cage and jumped on a platform crowded with tourists. She was pushed this way and that like a piece of strawberry in a blender as she peered at the male and female tigers below. Suddenly, she felt a searing pain at the back of her neck and the next moment, she was tumbling down the slope towards the tigers. All the tourists stopped whatever they were doing and were gasping and pointing their fingers at her. Of course, they were expecting a gruesome kill, a teenage boy even took out his video camera and started recording. To everyone's surprise, all the tigers bounded up to Aubrey and nuzzled her like a bunch of well-trained puppies. She was on the news and people at school were asking her about how she did it for weeks. Coming to think of it, Aubrey still couldn't figure out why all the tigers behaved weirdly. She felt as though the tigers had a special type of relationship with her, something that had existed for a long time.
She was lost in thought when her fifteen-year-old brother seated next to her nudged her painfully in the ribs.
"What?" she snapped and moved away, but there wasn't much space to move around. Even though she was in business class flight that her family could afford to pay, the big chairs were just a little too small. Aubrey sighed; having a brother who is three years older is not fun. Especially if the brother was called Trevor.
"Look at that guy over there." Trevor jutted his nose towards a pale dark haired man with sun glasses who was looking directly at them. The young man caught sight of them looking and turned his attention back towards his book.
Sun glasses? Aubrey thought, In the middle of the night? On an airplane?
"What do you think he wants?" Aubrey asked, worried. She was almost kidnapped once while walking alone in a park. Her dad was a famous news reporter and her mom owned the best-selling café in the whole town. Aubrey often caught a few women taking pictures of her dad while he was drinking his morning coffee in his wife's café. Therefore, her parents told her to be self-conscious. Trevor, on the other hand, was strong and took taekwondo classes since he was five. He was not a target.
Sometimes she wondered why her parents didn't allow her to take taekwondo classes like they did her brother. Her mother told her that she was very week when she was born and at first they thought that she would never survive for more than a few days. Even after she survived the first five years of her life, they still wouldn't risk letting her over exercise.
"Do you want my seat? We can trade." Trevor offered, "I mean, the man can still see you, but at least it would be better than where you are now."
"Thanks." Aubrey mumbled as she stepped away from her seat to leave room for her brother.
"Excuse me, but you are not allowed to change seats at this moment." A stern looking flight attendance spoke.
Aubrey jumped, she wasn't aware of the woman as she quietly sneaked up behind her. Aubrey whipped around. The flight attendance reminded her of her old math teacher. She had her dark hair tied up in a bun and a fancy-looking pair of spectacles drooped low over her long, thin nose.
"Hey," Trevor spoke up and flashed his perfect rows of white teeth, "You look amazing in that uniform."
At first, the flight attendance looked as though she was slapped across the face. However, after a few seconds, she flushed the shade of a lobster, squeaked her thank you, and hurried away.
"Nice one." Aubrey told her brother as she glanced at the flight attendance who was surrounded by many other flight attendances. They were all giggling in way that Aubrey found disturbing.
Trevor shrugged. "I'm used to it, you know, I do that to every girl in my class when I need something." He looked at her, "You should do that sometimes with the boys because you are adorable in your own way."
Aubrey snorted, "I really don't think so," She paused to buckle herself as a flight attendance announced it was time for departure, "I have everything I need." Aubrey felt the airplane move forward and the same ringing sensation in her ears as the wheels left the smooth ground. After a moment of discomfort, the airplane stopped moving upwards and headed forward instead, and Aubrey gladly cleared her ears.
Aubrey and her brother went to a rather famous school in Canada, and Aubrey strongly doubted her brother's fabulous idea. Most of the boys in her class usually spend their recess playing sports rather than sit and flirt with the girls. The remaining boys who do flirt with girls are the ones the Aubrey would try her best to avoid.
She turned around as her mother passed her a piece of steaming cream tart, one of the few of her favorite desserts.
"Thanks mum," she muttered, licking the hot, melted butter on her thumb.
Trevor was looking at her tart hungrily. "That tart looks very sweet," he looked up and gave her a wink, "Just like your face."
Aubrey chuckled as she bit into the creamy snack. The butter melted on her tongue. "Nice try. It might work on all the other girls in the world but it won't work on me, I assure you. Too bad the dentist said no desserts for a week."
As Trevor was mumbling about something that wasn't worth hearing, Aubrey stole one more glance at the man with black sun glasses. What she saw almost made her heart stop.
The man with the sunglasses was staring at her, again. Worse, this time he was examining a piece of paper in his hands, then looking up at her, as though comparing her face with whatever was on the paper. Their eyes locked and for a brief moment, Aubrey felt an unnatural chill ran down her back before the man turned his attention towards the steaming food that a flight attendance just placed in front of him.
Aubrey might not be as strong as her brother, who was noisily munching on a piece of sugar-free bread next to her. But she was profoundly bright.
According to what I saw, the man has a photo of me, She thought, this is bad.
"Trevor…" She began.
"Huh?" Her brother turned around, sugar-free bread crumbs on his forehead. Mrs. Bergstorm had apparently forced him to stash some bread in his bag pack in case he got hungry.
"Um…never mind." Aubrey mumbled. What was she thinking, asking for help from such a useless brother?
"Oh, alright." Trevor spoke through mouthfuls of his second piece of sugar-free bread (this time with butter).
"How are you even my brother?" Aubrey asked, almost at her limit. At least he should ask what was wrong!
"Yes?" Trevor asked spraying pieces of sugar-free bread with butter on her face. "Say that again, please."
Aubrey had to stuff her mouth with her hair to stop herself from screaming. She knew her brother was trying to make her mad, and it worked perfectly well. She quickly got up as anger boiled in her throat.
"It's unhealthy to eat your hair. By the way, where are you going?" Smirked her brother.
"Where can I go? We're on a plane! Of course, I am going to the bathroom, idiot." She snapped. Then she caught a glimpse of her mother's stare and sulked away.
"I told you it's unhealthy to eat your hair, now you need the bathroom!" Trevor hollered after her, followed by a few curious stares from awakened passengers.
Blushing with embarrassment, Aubrey stormed up the aisle way and came to a halt. The man with sun glasses was only a few seats away. Even from where she was, she could see a small slip of paper, the very same one that man took out earlier. This was her chance. She took a deep breath and walked up to him as quietly as possible.
When she was close enough, she could see that like most of the other passengers, he was asleep (because he was snoring) with all the food untouched in front of him. And she noticed that even while sleeping, the sun glasses remained on his face.
Heart thundering, Aubrey slipped her hand around the piece of paper, which was stuck between the man's arms. Suddenly the man gave a snort and turned sideways, taking the paper with him and continued to sleep like nothing happened. Aubrey, on the other hand, thought she was going to faint.
After a glance around, Aubrey was sure that no one was paying her any attention, except for her brother who was staring at her with one eyebrow lifted higher than the other. She decided to turn her attention back towards the paper.
The slip of paper was now right under his bottom, which would be harder for her to get than before. Aubrey would have to be very conscious of what she was doing. Heart hammering against her chest, she touched the piece of paper and pulled it out as fast as she could. There was a sharp tearing sound and half of the paper was in her hand. The other half was still wedged in between the man's bottom and the seat. Panicked, Aubrey leaped over her confused brother and back into her seat and pretended to be sleeping.
She opened an eye and saw the man, obviously awake now, examining his half of the paper in complete shock. As she stared at the man, she wondered how he would look like without the sunglasses on his face.
She didn't have much time to think about that because at that moment, the man's head whipped around and stared right at her. Frightened, Aubrey quickly closed her eye and hid the paper underneath her shirt. She heard the man got up and his solid footsteps were coming her way. She tried to stay calm and prayed that she appeared asleep. The footsteps stopped right next to her brother's seat. Aubrey thought this was the end when she heard voices.
"Excuse me sir, is there anything I can help you?" It was the stern flight attendance that spoke to her earlier.
"No, nothing, I just, um, came for a little stretch" Aubrey heard the man's voice for the first time. It was deep and had a Scottish accent.
Wait, Scottish? Isn't the place we are heading Scotland? Aubrey shivered. She didn't like where this was heading to.
"Then I suggest you go back to your seat because you are disturbing other passengers." Replied the flight attendance.
After the man was back in his own seat, Trevor spoke, "Thank you, he was rather scary."
The flight attendance blushed and noticed that Aubrey didn't have any blankets.
"Poor girl." She exclaimed and walked away.
"Hey, Aubrey, what is this all about?" asked Trevor curiously. He shook her, "Aubrey!"
Aubrey chose to ignore him. If she replied, the man would know that she was awake.
A few seconds later, the flight attendance came back with a blanket in her hands and laid it over Aubrey, who she probably supposed was sleeping. After she was done with her job, she left.
Aubrey, who was grateful for the blanket, dared not say thank you. She had a feeling that the man was still watching her. She could almost feel the two white eyes staring at her through the darkness. Aubrey was anxious to see what was on the paper. But she was too afraid and tired. After a few unsettling seconds, she fell into a deep, deep sleep.