The rays of the morning sun spilled through the lone window of Annie's bedroom, softly caressing her face. Feeling the warmth on her skin, she opened her eyes and turned to look at the clock on her bedside table: 7 AM.
The alarm clock failed to wake her up.
A surge of panic went through her spine, as she was supposed to wake up at 6 AM to get ready for a very anticipated out-of-town trip.
"Damn the vodka," she murmured. She thought she needed the vodka to calm her down while a panic attack disrupted the speech she was practicing last night. The speech that could either make or break her career.
Not good.
Groggily, she sat up and reached for her smartphone, expecting missed calls from her boss. There was a grace period of 15 minutes before the service bus left for the Hawthorne Estate. She was expected to have ridden the bus by 7:15, and it will be a good three hours before they reached the secluded, cultivated mansion of the Hawthornes.
Important clients, infamous for their sense of secrecy and eccentricities.
As she had predicted, her boss, Frankie Dart, had bombarded her with missed calls and text messages—or death notices, she thought. Frankie was dubbed the Raven-haired Demon behind her back, after all.
Luckily, she had crammed some clothes and traveling essentials inside a nifty backpack two days ago, so all that was left now was for her to take a shower, brush her teeth, and put on some clothes. It was a miracle that she had been able to compress her shower time in 10 minutes, brushed her teeth for a few seconds, and put on some decent-looking clothes before she heard the bus honking from the outside. She disregarded putting on cosmetics; combing her brown hair already took most of her last few moments of privacy anyway.
The bus was black, with tainted windows and a big white H insignia in the middle. She was met by a plain-looking man in a black coat. He looked about forty years, with a clean-shaven face and bald head. He was wearing black-rimmed glasses, and had a weird smile that looked out of place.
"Good morning, Miss Annie Edison. I am Dean Pelton. I will be your conductor and butler for this trip," he proclaimed, and his voice, Annie noted, had a very awkward squeak about it. Annie couldn't help but feel ill at ease in his presence. She handed her backpack to him, uncertainly following him as they made their way inside the bus.
The bus driver, a brawny looking man with star-shaped sideburns, did not acknowledge Annie as she followed Dean Pelton to her seat. The man with the star-shaped sideburns had very glazed eyes, and Annie couldn't help but think he was in a psychedelic stupor induced by drugs.
The oddity of the men sent little chills in her spine, even though the inside of the bus looked luxurious, with its comfortable-looking leather seats, mini bar, mini kitchen, two mini refrigerators, and flatscreen tv. It seemed she was the first one to be fetched by the bus, as she was informed she would have five more traveling companions (or business competitors, as she dubbed them) for the trip.
She followed Dean Pelton to the seat in the middle section of the bus, and made herself comfortable even though the anxiety of being with two strange men in a strange vehicle lingered at the back of her mind. Dean, in a polite manner, asked, "Would Miss Edison like some breakfast?"
"That would be lovely," she murmured, pinching herself before she requested a breakfast champagne. "And some aspirin, please." She needed to do something with her headache.