Chapter 66: A Scary Flight

The next day…

Zak, Aaron, Billy, Jay, Ashley, Cheryl and I were sitting in our seats on an airplane in first class, and we were all starting to go a bit crazy.

We had taken off from Las Vegas early in the morning, and were roughly 10 hours into the 20 hour flight to Transylvania, Romania.

I had ended up spending the night, for the first time, at Zak's. I had slept in the guest room while Zak slept in his room.

After the intensity and emotion filled night, I knew sharing a bed would have been a risky idea.

Without even bringing the topic up, Zak seemed to of felt the same way, although he was worried "his attachments" would haunt me during the night.

Thankfully, nothing had happened to either of us, although I had had a dream about Emily, the first time I had "seen" her since the "Queen Mary" investigation three weeks prior.

I had told Zak over breakfast about the dream, although I couldn't remember most of it. The only real thing I could remember was Emily warning me that we should be careful in Romania. Zak seemed slightly concerned, but I knew nothing would change his mind about this once in a lifetime trip.

Zak and I had been the last ones to arrive at the airport.

Because I had stayed the night, we had to stop by my place before heading to the airport, so that I could shower, change, and get my luggage.

When we finally arrived at the airport, Cheryl was her usual perky self despite the early morning.

"Well, well. Look who has finally decided to grace ourselves with their presence," Billy teased, as Zak and I walked up to everyone after checking our luggage and going through security.

We all laughed.

"Oh shut it Bill," Zak remarked, as he set down our carry on bags.

He was being the perfect gentleman again this morning, carrying my luggage and then my carry on, despite my arguments.

"Let me see! Let me see!" Cheryl had exclaimed, jumping up from her seat and rushing toward me.

Ashley followed behind her.

"See what?" I asked, momentarily confused.

"Your ring!" Cheryl said, looking at me like I was the biggest dumbass on the planet.

I laughed.

"Oh, right," I replied and held my hand out for her and Ashley to see.

"A ring?" Jay questioned.

Aaron was sitting there with his jaw open, Billy looking equally stunned.

Zak laughed.

"Just a birthday gift," Zak said, as he took a seat with the others.

"Not 'just' a birthday gift, a BEAUTIFUL birthday gift, holy cow!" Cheryl exclaimed, holding my hand as she gaped at the ring.

I smiled to myself.

Ashley smiled as well and looked back at Zak.

"You do have some taste in there," Ashley joked.

Zak laughed and rolled his eyes.

"Is this 'pick on Zak day' or what?" Zak jokingly grumbled.

"Pick on Zak AND Ali day, since you gave her a ring and she stayed the night," Cheryl said.

Zak just grinned.

"Oooo, details girlfriend," Aaron joked.

We all laughed.

"We slept! In separate rooms!" I said.

"Uh huh," Cheryl teased.

"Ugh, you're too perky this morning," I groaned, plopping down in a seat next to Zak.

"Well, that settles it. They didn't do anything, they're both grumpy," Ashley joked, as she and Cheryl sat back down.

We all laughed again, Zak and I both looking embarrassed.

Because our flight had left in the morning, most of us had all fallen asleep for a few hours after take off, but now we were awake and bored.

God…we're only halfway there…I thought, doodling random things in my sketchbook, trying to past the time.

Zak was sitting next to me, playing with his phone as usual, trying to find something to occupy himself with.

Aaron and Cheryl were sitting behind us, and the others were sitting behind them.

I suddenly heard Zak speak.

He was recording a video with his phone.

"Here we all are, bored, on a very long flight to a very special investigation," Zak said, looking at his phone, before turning the phone to record me.

"Hi," I said pleasantly, despite my boredom, waving to the phone.

Zak smiled and then held his phone up above his head to record the others seated behind us.

I heard various comments come from all of them as they looked up at Zak's phone.

Zak then lowered the phone to record himself again.

"The woman you saw sitting next to Aaron is Cheryl, Ali's friend," Zak started. "And Aaron's new girlfriend," Zak jokingly whispered, but loud enough that Cheryl and Aaron heard.

"Hey!" They both exclaimed, causing Zak and I to laugh.

Suddenly, I saw Aaron reach between our seats, handing Zak his small bottle of water.

"Here, hold this," Aaron said, and Zak, looking confused, took the water bottle.

"And this," Aaron said, reaching between our seats and handing Zak a magazine.

Then another magazine came.

Then a hoodie.

Zak couldn't react fast enough to take each item with only one hand free, so Aaron was basically dropping the items on top of him.

Cheryl and I started laughing.

Aaron was clearly trying to annoy Zak, and probably trying to distract future viewers of the video from the "girlfriend" topic.

I saw Zak start smiling, trying not to laugh.

But then Zak ended up laughing as Aaron reached forward again and handed Zak his cell phone.

"Here, want my cell phone?" Aaron asked.

"Okay okay, enough!" Zak said, laughing, his lap covered with Aaron's stuff.

Cheryl and I were still laughing.

Zak started tossing the stuff back over his head at Aaron.

"Oh my god, are they always like this?" Cheryl asked, laughing as Aaron tried to react fast enough to catch everything.

"Yup," I said, jokingly leaning away from Zak and acting like I didn't know him.

People were starting to stare.

"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Zak asked, wrapping his arm around me and pulling me back toward him.

I jokingly groaned.

Zak grinned at me.

"How have you not lost your mind?" Cheryl asked, laughing.

"I don't know," I replied jokingly.

Aaron and Zak just laughed.

Zak's Point of View

Roughly 45 minutes later…

I sat playing around with my phone still, looking at tweets from fans and replying to a few of them.

Alicia was still drawing in her sketchbook, and I didn't want to disturb her while she seemed happily occupied.

This flight was going to kill me.

We still had roughly nine hours to go!

But I was getting more and more excited about the investigations we'd be doing, and the sights we'd get to see.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alicia rubbing her eyes.

I looked at her and saw she was blinking a few times.

"Are you alright doll?" I asked.

"I don't know…my vision just suddenly got blurry," she replied, rubbing her eyes again.

I felt some concern, but figured she may have been just tired.

I knew she wasn't used to long flights like this.

"Why don't you rest for a while? You're probably just tired," I suggested.

"Maybe," she said, although I could sense she wasn't thinking the same thing.

"You've been at your sketchbook for a while Ali, probably just that," I heard Cheryl comment from behind us.

Alicia didn't respond.

She was sitting rather still - a little too still - and staring straight ahead, not blinking.

My concern went from about 20 percent to 100 percent.

"Ali?" I asked, sitting upright a bit and leaning toward her.

She suddenly ripped the page she was working on out of her sketchbook, and started sketching rapidly across a blank page, still staring straight ahead, unblinking.

I immediately remembered back prior to the "Queen Mary" investigation, when she had told me about three drawings she didn't remember doing, and all of them ended up being related to the investigation.

"Shit…Aaron, what do I do?" I asked worriedly.

He had been the one to find out about the drawings first.

I felt my seat move slightly as Aaron grabbed the top of it, and was looking at Alicia.

"I don't know bro…I only saw her after the fact," he replied.

Alicia was still sketching like mad.

From what I could see of the paper, it looked like she was drawing the inside of a castle, and was in the process of drawing a figure.

Cheryl was suddenly in the aisle next to Alicia's seat, kneeling down beside her.

"What is she doing? What's wrong with her?" Cheryl asked, full of worry.

Shit.

Alicia must not of told her about the incident before.

"This happened once before…but I didn't see it. Before the 'Queen Mary' investigation, she did three drawings that basically predicted information we found out about the hauntings of the ship..." I explained.

Cheryl looked at me in shock.

"Are you telling me she's some sort of psychic now?!" Cheryl asked, panic in her voice.

"I don't know…" I said.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when Alicia suddenly ripped the page she was sketching on from her book, and tossed it carelessly aside before starting to sketch again.

Cheryl managed to catch the paper before I could, and I saw her eyes widen.

"What is it?" I asked.

She looked at Aaron and I with a blank expression as she turned the paper to show us.

"That's me bro!" Aaron exclaimed.

It clearly was a drawing of Aaron.

In the drawing he was grabbing his arm, and looked to be in pain.

What the hell…? I thought worriedly, taking the paper from Cheryl.

Cheryl looked back at Ali with a panicked expression.

"Ali! Snap out of it!" She exclaimed, and tried to take the sketchbook from Alicia.

Alicia gripped the sketchbook so hard, her knuckles turned white.

Billy, Jay and Ashley had all moved forward now, concern on all of their faces.

"Is everything okay here?" A stewardess asked, standing behind Cheryl.

Shit.

How the hell do we explain this?

Alicia's Point of View

Ten minutes later…

I suddenly jumped in my seat, feeling like I had just woken up with a start.

I immediately noticed Cheryl kneeling beside me, fear and worry on her face.

I also felt pain in my right hand.

I looked down at my hand to see I was gripping my pencil with an iron like grip.

I opened my fist to stretch out my hand, letting the pencil drop to the floor.

"Ali?" Cheryl asked, putting her hand on my arm.

I looked at her, feeling a bit dazed.

What was going on?

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I suddenly felt Zak's hand on my back.

"Are you okay…?" Zak asked.

I looked at him, seeing Aaron, Jay, Billy and Ashley out of the corner of my eye, and noticed Zak was holding a few pieces of paper in his hand, and I could see a drawing on one of them.

I felt my eyes watering.

"It happened again…?" I asked quietly.

Zak just nodded, trying to keep the worry off his face.

I covered my face with one hand, feeling a few tears in my eyes and feeling full of fear.

I felt Zak's arm move to wrap around me, and he gently pulled me toward him in a hug, after setting the papers on his lap.

I leaned into him, hiding my face in his chest and cried quietly.

"It's okay…we'll figure this out," Zak said softly, rubbing my back and gently kissed the top of my head.

About ten minutes had passed.

I had stopped crying after only a minute or so, but stayed as I was in Zak's arms.

The others had gone back to their seats, probably sensing I didn't want all the attention on me, especially since other people in first class had been watching, and a stewardess kept coming to check on me.

Zak kept silent the entire time, but continued to rub my back.

After calming down for the most part, I gently pulled back, lifting my head up from his chest.

I looked at the drawings on his lap.

"What are they?" I asked quietly, not really wanting to see them, but figured I probably should look at them.

Zak picked the drawings up and handed the first one to me.

It was a drawing of Aaron, in what looked to be the inside of a castle.

Seeing one of the guys in one of these drawings not only surprised me, but worried me.

Aaron was grabbing his arm, and the expression on his face showed pain.

I frowned.

"Did he see this…?" I asked quietly.

Zak nodded.

"Yeah…I think he's okay though," Zak replied quietly, before holding the second drawing out to me.

It was a drawing of a forest at night, and in amongst the trees, there was a silhouette of what looked like a young girl.

The words "don't come!" we drawn above her head, in very shaky, almost scary looking letters.

For some reason, I knew it was probably Emily.

I rubbed my forehead before taking the third and final drawing from Zak.

I didn't like that I had done another set of three drawings again.

I knew in the paranormal field, three was a sign of the devil.

Three scratch marks, three knocking sounds, whatever it may be.

The third drawing was of a forest again, with what I assumed was a fairly large, glowing orb, in amongst the trees.

Because these three drawings were done only in pencil, there was no colour, and so it wasn't entirely clear what this "orb" might be.

"Do you remember anything at all?" Zak asked softly.

I shook my head.

"I remember telling you my vision was blurry…and then the next thing I remember was seeing all of you guys around me…" I replied softly.

Zak frowned a bit.

I looked at him, feeling my eyes watering a bit.

"What's going on with me Zak…?" I asked quietly.

I was afraid I was losing my mind.

Zak frowned and pulled me into a hug again.

"I don't know…but I promise, we'll figure it out. I'm going to send some messages out to some experts in the field, and to a few psychics I know, including a woman we had on the show before," Zak replied softly.

I remembered him mentioning this woman before.

"The one who can draw portraits of spirits she senses around her?" I asked quietly.

Zak nodded.

"Yes," Zak replied, and then kissed the top of my head. "You'll be okay, I won't let anything happen to you," Zak added softly, rubbing my back.

I rested my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes, and said nothing.

At the moment, I was more concerned about Aaron than myself.

What did the drawing of him mean?

Was he going to get seriously injured? Or was it just showing him reacting to the presence of a spirit?

God…give me the strength to figure this out…

Authors Note: There, now we'll all set up for the lockdowns in Romania. :)

Hope you enjoyed this update!