The Woes of a Wilted Flower

7 - The Devil In The Next Room

 We entered on the plane, we had first class seating of course. I never flew first class so I was kind of excited for that. The first thing I noticed that there was no other passengers on the plane. "Are we early? "Where is everybody at?" Mani said.

Nathan cleared his throat and looked down at Mani. He looked back up as he moved towards the seat. "There are no other passengers, I was having trouble getting a plane on such short notice, so I just bought out a commercial plane. Y'all can't sit anywhere y'all want I guess." He said the sentence so matter-of-factly. I rolled my eyes and sat in the first set, Mani sat in the seats across for and Nathan went to the last seats in the back. Mani gave me a big smile, she was so excited for it because this was maybe her third or fourth time flying on a plane, but she was always so young. I gave her a smile back. At this moment, a headache pain ran through my head making me put my head to the back of the seat. I closed my eyes and tried to think about this 5 and half hour flight we were about to take.

I looked at the clock on my phone that read 10:30 pm, there were also a few texts from London and Aria from our group chat. Hasan text me, but knowing him he is probably sleep, so I was going to wait until tomorrow to call him. I text back the groupchat, I still hadn't told London and Aria about me moving with Nathan, it wasn't out of secrecy, just more like I haven't had the time to sit down and talk to them. I was going to call them both tomorrow and let them know I guess. I looked back over at Mani who was talking to the flight attendant, he was helping her find a movie to watch. I turned back to see where Nathan was. I peered through the cracks of the two seats. He was looking down at his phone, he looked up at me instantly and caught my eye. It felt like he knew I was looking at him in that moment.

I turned back around immediately and pulled my headphones out my pocket, I struggled to untangle them but eventually I did and plugged them into my phone listen to some music. Soon the flight attendant went was demonstrating the seat belt mechanisms and what to do is we fell out the sky. In combination with my music playing in one ear and the flight attendant being extra as hell with this fake seat belt, I drifted off to sleep.

~ ~ ~

"The temperature in New York currently is 83 degrees the time is 8:30 here. Thank you for flying Delta Airlines.." I heard over the PA of the plane. I slept the whole flight here, Mani was sprawled out over 3 seats. I turned around expecting to see Nathan in the same position, but he was actually right behind me. He had his eyes clothes, but he was mouthing words to a song. He didn't have on his entire suit ensemble, just the button down shirt and the pants. I turned back around and gathered the things around me. I had to pee and I wanted to wake up Mani, but the seatbelt sign was on. I glanced back just to see if he was also getting ready to land, but he had his eyes open and staring straight ahead. He gave a wink and then licked his lips. I turned right back around rolling my eyes. Mani soon woke up when we started descending to land, she got up and I told her to put on her seat belt.

We soon landed and got off the plane. Nathan stayed quiet the whole time, I could feel him glancing at me everyone once and a while but I ignored him because I was texting Hasan. We got into a black truck with a driver. The driver put our things into the trunk and drove us through the city traffic until we completely stopped, we stopped at a building that looked like it as least 30-40 stories high. Nathan got out and didn't tell us to, so me and Mani just got out on our own and stood in front of the building. A valet talked to Nathan for a short second and gestured for us to walk into the building. I grabbed Mani's hand and walked into the building.

The lobby of the building was big and luxurious. There couches and rugs everywhere that looked too expensive to touch. There was a concierge desk and a few people at a bar talking to each to the right. There were two large elevators were open. Nathan walked in and began walking straight towards it, we followed him into the elevator. The doors didn't close until a guy in an all black suit, wearing an earpiece, and black sunglasses. Nathan acknowledged him by nodding his at him. The doors closed and the man pressed the 32 button on the panel. It went all the way up to floor 30 and then stopped. Nathan and the man both moved to the front, put their two keys into and turned at the same time. Me and Mani look at each other with confused looks. We turned back once the elevator started to up again, it stopped at 32 and then the doors slowly opened. It opened the doors to an apartment that was amazing. The ceilings were high, there was split level for the living room, and a large dining room table. Towards the back of the apartment were large floor to ceiling windows, the curtains were closed blocking the view below. Nathan gave the guy in the elevator a nod and we walked out.