The Silent Neighbour ✓

Chapter Twenty Four

Nova Johnson

Alexander sat beside me on the plane next to the window, we were waiting to depart but there was some sort of hold up.

I fiddle with my headphones and look up to see Alexander reading my mother's book. I then see a figure pushing a suitcase into the cubicle above us and once there face is revealed, shock plasters its way onto my face.

Leo?

"What the fuck is he doing here?" I nudge onto Alexanders shoulder; he glances down at me before looking up at Leo as he settles down next me.

"He's helping us." Alexander goes back to his book.

"Be grateful." Leo snarls, as he adjusts his seatbelt.

"I thought Jane was coming."

"She isn't, I just said she was so you would come." He mumbles, leaning his head back against the window. I glare at Leo as he rolls his eyes and slides out the newspaper.

"Grandad." I slur under my teeth.

"Bitch." He shoots out.

"Asshole."

"C-"

"Enough, the both of you, stop acting like children."

Alexander had to swap seat because of our bickering and now I was next to the window, the clouds move constantly, forming sheets hundreds of feet apart while appearing to be one layer underneath.

A hazy pink strip joins the blues where the ocean meets the sky, as though mother nature needed to add a petal-hue blush.

Sometimes a dense cloud floats above the sea, resembling the sky-bound palace of the Empress of the Never-ending Story. With spring-melt streams, the white is almost always uniform.

I glance up at the time, we will be arriving in Russia in approximately- 8 hours! We have only been on the plane for an hour and forty-eight minutes.

I glance over at Alexander who is reading the book, I rest my head onto the window and try my hardest to fall asleep. The child crying in the back, the mother trying her hardest to keep him silent.

I flick my eyes open and tense my jaw, "would you like any drinks?" The flight attendant asks.

"A vodka tonic please." I say without thinking, the lady nods her head as she gets out a glass.

I watch her staring at Alexander from the corner of my eyes, and some sort of jealousy flows through my blood. It should not mean anything to me. Well. It should. Mostly because this man used to be mine.

Until I found out his father is trying to kill me just like he killed my mother.

The flight attendant hands me my drink, I take it from her and down it within a second. "Sir, would you like anything to drink?" She asks Alexander.

"No than-"

"Yes, he would like a glass of wine, red, fill it to the top please." I was drinking to calm down my nerves, Alexander looks at me in confusion.

"You just had a shot-"

"It's for you." The flight attendant places the glass on his table, and I take small, hurried sips of it as she departs.

This is something I can handle. I am capable of killing someone. It's not me who's doing the killing.

Alexander takes the wine from my hands and places it on Leo's table; I want to reclaim it, but his hands stop me. "I need it."