Drifting

Chapter Two

Chase Bradley

Emilie Schay

Marie Elliot

Nat Jeremy

Isaac Smith

James Sheeks

Carlie Howell

I read and reread Rob's sloppy handwriting while trying to think of some way to break the news to these people. I can't just come right out and tell them that they're Drifters, they wouldn't believe me. I sigh loudly and fall back onto the mattress in my hotel room. It's sketchy, gross, and hot, but Florida is far from London and that's where Rob told me to go. I haven't heard from him in almost 12 hours and that's a first. He usually comes to see me whenever he can, which is all the time. He spends more time with me than his actual body. He always said it was safer that way.

I shake all thoughts of Rob from my head before I involuntarily drift to him. It's happened before.

So, instead of thinking about Rob and what he might be doing at the moment, I think about Chase. He's the first name on the list so Rob must think he's the first that should be told, right? I close my eyes and for a moment, I see nothing. Slowly, fragments of one image come into view and I realize that I'm at an airport in California. I look out of the corner of my eye and I see him. Chase. He's sitting at a table at a Starbucks, blaring music into his ears, without a care in the world. He's going back home to Florida for a holiday. He's not excited at all but he's doing it for his mom.

Keeping out of Chase's line of vision is hard. A Drifter can kind of tell when there's another Drifter near and their eyes just automatically try to seek them out. When Chase's eyes come towards me, I act like a normal human about to board a plane. Exciting. While waiting for Chase's boarding number to be called I tune into the music he's blaring into his poor ears. Not a bad music choice at all, but the volume is a bit unnecessary.

When Chase's flight finally gets called, I watch him get up and speed walk to the gate.

When he boards, I come on a few people behind him, to ensure that he doesn't become suspicious. I sit a few rows behind him and tune into his thoughts while the plane begins taking off.

How am I going to tell mom that I fucking dropped out? She's going to be so pissed.

I quickly shake his voice out of my head. That's his business, not mine.

About an hour into the flight I realize that he keeps glimpsing out of the corner of his eye, and looking at me.

I sigh internally and clear my head, I have to do this in a way to where he won't freak out on this crowded plane.

Chase?

I see his head quickly snap in my direction, knowing automatically that it is me talking to him.

Don't be alarmed. My name is Annaliese.

His eyes widen and he looks around, noticing that he's the only one on the plane that can hear me. At this moment I'm only receiving one thought from him; how much did I smoke before getting on this plane?

I watch as he gets up and makes his way to the back of the plane to use the restroom. I follow a step behind him.

When we're both in the bathroom he quickly turns to me, confusion in his eyes and his thoughts.

"Look, I don't know who you are, like if you're some stowaway or some stalker chick or some magic pixie fairy but you need to stay away from me, that whole mind thing was weird as hell. Also, if that came from my fucking headphones that's even weirder because that means you touched my shit and I'm not okay with that at all." I roll my eyes at his choice of words. "Listen Chase, we don't have time for your overreacting," I say, checking my watch. We'd be arriving to our destination in almost four hours, and if I want to tell him everything, I need to get him calmed down. "Overreacting!? I'm not overreacting, if anything, I'm underreacting. I mean some random chick just followed me from California to Florida and then followed me into the only bathroom on the damn plane!" I only shake my head. "If you keep yelling, the flight attendants are going to get the police officer at the front of the plane to come back here; I don't think you want that, do you?" I see hesitation in his eyes before he breaths out quickly. "Fine, but what do you want? I mean like do you want money? I'm a broke ass college student, I've barely got a dollar to my name," he says, running his left hand through his hair. I sigh and look around, airplane bathrooms are so gross, I think to myself, and like that we're in my hotel room. "What the fuck!" Chase yells, falling onto the floor. "Okay I know this isn't much better but airplane bathrooms really gross me out," I say, motioning for him to sit next to me on the bed. "Where are we? How am I here? What are you?" I put my hands on either side of my head and shake it, if this one's bad, how bad will the others be? "Chase, I need you to calm down, I can answer your questions but only one at a time." He rubs his palms up and down his thighs for a moment while thinking before he speaks again. "Am I still on the plane?" is his first question. I breathe a sigh of relief; maybe this will be easier than I first thought. "Yes, you're still on the plane, your mind is just wandering," I say, lightly touching his shoulder. He scrunches up his eyebrows, "But if this is all in my mind, how can you touching me feel so real?" "You're not imagining this, I'm real, your mind is just with me while your physical body is on the plane," I say, trying to make him understand. Suddenly there is a loud knocking from the door and in a second we're back on the plane. "Come on buddy my kid's gotta use the bathroom, hurry up!" Chase looks at me wide eyed before crashing out of the bathroom and hitting the door into the very angry gentleman holding the hand of a child. "What the fuck is your problem?" The guy asks, shoving Chase into the wall. "Sorry man, I was just uh" before Chase could get himself into more trouble, I took over. "Sorry, nervous flyer," I say and I can see that the guy believes me enough to let Chase go. He mumbles something rather rude under his breath and ushers the child into the small bathroom then stands guard outside of the door, glaring at Chase. "What was that?" Chase whispers when we get back to his seat. After receiving strange glances from his seat neighbors, I roll my eyes, "You might not want to talk when someone's visiting you- for future reference- because the people around you can still hear you," I say, bringing us back to my hotel room. "But when we're like this you can talk as much as you want as loud as you want because I'm the only one who can hear you, but if someone were to walk in right now I'd look a little crazy." He scrunches his eyebrows in confusion before saying, "Future reference?" I sigh and motion for him to sit down next to me. "This might take a while."