Chapter One: Why would he eat that? #

“Why would he eat that?” was one of many thoughts running through her mind. “Am I noticing him because he is eating greasy atrocious food? Or because he is this handsome, tall guy with black locks of hair and heavy, sad eyes eating the greasy atrocious food?” was another thought in her mind. Nonetheless, like every Saturday afternoon, he ordered food from one of the many shops in the food court.

She had spotted him a few weeks ago for the first time. Aliya Hunt was her name. She was a 15-year-old girl living in Seattle, Washington. If you do not recognize her name, that is ok. Her family had made sure that no one knew of her importance. People saw her as an ordinary girl. But she was not ordinary in any manner. She was the only child of the owner of Unearth Properties, a private company whose clients demanded something more than a residence. Sometimes the demand was for a mansion on a remote island with a dock for a custom-made 120 m Lürssen yacht or a penthouse 412 meters in the air in New York. If one did not exist, it would be built for them. Nothing was unattainable. Their influence had made them eminent in the most exclusive social circles; some they wanted to be a part of, while others were kept at bay.

Her father, Ethan Hunt, was an architect, and her mother, Scarsa Hunt, was a real estate broker. They had met over the showing of a property in Beverly Hills. He asked her out on the way to a ranch in Texas, and they fell in love during an open house for a French château in Loire Valley. The same year they decided to start their company, and along with Aliya, Unearth Properties was born. Their time was spent between work and Aliya, and both demanded a great deal.

Aliya was very curious as a kid. She always wanted to know everything. The work kept them nomadic, and moving to a different country every few years gave her curiosity a perfect stage. She was eight when she read ‘Crime and Punishment’ in Russian. She already knew German because of the fairytales she read as a five-year-old. The romanticism of Russian literature and the poems of Alexander Pushkin; she was in love with literature. She was eleven and learning French to read the translation of Art of War when the phone rang.

It was a calm evening in Par, with a cool spring breeze blowing the white curtains in the flat. Aliya was sitting on a Persian carpet trying to decipher an official French letter, but it was too hard. Her mother, who knew the language far too well, was trying her best to resist helping her. She had to finalize the contracts for the new headquarters of the sovereign fund. Her father heard the phone, which distracted him from his newspaper and tea. He got up to tend to the matter.

“Allô,” he said. What he heard made him drop the phone receiver and run to Aliya. It was a threat call to kidnap the little girl from her school and then kill her if the security blueprints for the new headquarters were not released. Aliya was safe now, but for how long. The couple talked, and a call was made. And on the other side of the earth, a phone rang in Seattle at 9:13 AM.

Ethan’s elder brother Nathan Hunt had a company with Pentagon as a leading client. It wasn’t entirely known what kind of a company it was. However, Ethan knew that their best chance of survival was with Nathan. A mere coincidence that Nathan was drinking his morning tea when the phone rang. He asked his housekeeper to pick up the phone, and Ethan was frantic on the other side. Nathan ran to the phone and listened meticulously. The phone call ended, and another call was placed.

Meanwhile, in Paris, there was a knock on the door. It was the security from the US Embassy sent by Nathan. The security guards took the Hunt family to the airport, and before they knew it, they were on a private jet to Seattle.

Nathan received them at the airport and took them to his mansion on the outskirts of Seattle. It had the security of Fort Knox, with two-armed security guards at the main door and a scanner on the gate floor. Scarsa tried to keep Aliya calm, but Aliya knew something was wrong. Nathan had a long talk with Aliya’s parents, and it was decided that twelve-year-old Aliya would stay in Seattle with her uncle and two cousins, Arman and Aryan, while her parents tended to the business. They could lock her down and homeschool her, but that would be no life. Instead, they decided that the best way to keep her safe was to control the risk and keep her grounded in one city. This would also bring stability to her life; her parents could always fly to Seattle. Not like money was an issue. Thus started the custom of Sunday brunch, where the family would get together monthly.

Without her parents, Aliya was sad. The books were her safe haven. Nathan had decided that Aliya would start survival training with Aryan at the security company. They were taught not to make eye contact with kidnappers, to run zig-zag in line of fire, and much more. This was her new life.

Then she turned thirteen and started high school. And like all girls of that age, she too grew wings. Suddenly, living with three men was not her ideal situation, and at the next brunch, she asked her parents if she could have a flat. Her uncle could arrange security, but a twelve-year-old living on her own?

Alas, the youth won, and it was decided that she could stay at the penthouse in downtown Seattle two days a week. It was closer to her school and would lay a path to a new life by herself. Soon it was five days, and finally, she moved permanently to her penthouse. The penthouse, though small, was no less secure. Her parents had bought the building, and on the twentieth floor was her abode. The concierge would greet a guest, and if the destination were the penthouse, they would be escorted inside to the private security desk.

The security required a government-issued ID scan to confirm the identity, followed by fingerprints. Fingerprinting allows a search through NSA, police, and FBI databases to check for a criminal past and sometimes help establish the identity. The guest would then pass through the scanner and be randomly tested for explosives. The desk was operated by two guards, with a third Head guard. The head guard would call Aliya to confirm if the guest should be allowed to enter. Once she permitted, the guest was escorted to the private elevator with a card scan to start the ride. Aliya entered a code to open the elevator into the living room as the elevator reached the penthouse.

There were no exceptions to this security. Aliya and her parents had direct access to the elevator with the code; the rest needed the security guard’s scan key. Aliya had two close friends, Shireen and Melia. Shireen was the only other visitor to her home beside her family.

That brings us back to today. Shireen had emotionally blackmailed Aliya into going to the mall on Saturday. They had sat together on the first day of high school, and since then, they had been inseparable, exclusive, and prevalent. “We are juniors. We need to start raising our profiles to become prom and homecoming queen. You know how those ivy schools like that.” Shireen said. “Sure!” Aliya said sarcastically. “I have a 4.0 GPA, I am the Head of debate club and Maths club, but “Head of Prom” is for which Harvard will be looking.” “It is not Head, just queen. You didn’t even go to the prom last year,” said Shireen trying to prove a point. “Don’t you have to be a senior to go to Prom?” questioned Aliya. “Oh, my feeble-minded Aliya! So little, you know.” “You can go to prom as a senior’s date. Being prom queen shows that other people like you. Seek advice, you must!” said Shireen completing her teacher talk. “Who doesn’t like me?” said Aliya surprised. “They would if they got to know you outside a book or a competition. And it would be nice if you knew the people who came to your sweet-sixteen party.” “What party?” “You know, how in this country, when people turn sixteen, there is a party. They can drive, have sex, and get ready for that sweet liberation of twenty-one.” Aliya gave a judging look. “One needs to be eighteen to drive in the USA. And I am sure half our class is not a virgin. I don’t get the appeal of turning sixteen.” “It is still a birthday and is less than two months away. We have so much work to do, many people to meet, and many things to buy. Let’s go!” said Shireen impatiently.

Aliya found malls boring. But in a city where it rained nine months a year, one needs a covered place to walk. The mall was a suitable place to meet the other school kids, shop, and slurp on milkshakes. Aliya did not enjoy the idea but did not want to lose her only trustee and reluctantly agreed to join them. While other girls were gossiping, Aliya longed for a book. Shireen’s death ray look had stopped her from reaching into her bag for that hidden book. With a sigh, she decided to people-watch, and there he was. The first time she saw him, he had ordered a burger from the Burger Joint. The burger looked like a truck had rolled over it and was served with equally road-killed fries. He took a sip from his soda and then took a bite of the burger. He realized it tasted worse than it looked and spat it out. Not knowing what to do next, he sat there, looking at his table and sipping his soda. “Why would he eat that?” she thought and soon could not take her eyes off him. He wore a Boston red cap, a black turtleneck, black pants, and formal shoes. He looked just as ordinary as her. But while she was staring at him, he looked at his table with sad and heavy eyes. He sat there for another hour, sipping the soda, and then left. She noticed how he fidgeted with his feet every ten minutes, was peeling the wrapper off his soda cup, and sighed if someone walked close. She was occupied with him, but her muse had now left. She had nothing else to do but to be pulled into the tedious conversation about Melia liking Mike. She sighed! She was fifteen on paper. Her travels and books had made her mature. “She is an old soul,” her uncle would say. Aryan was constantly in trouble, sneaking past the security, having fights in schools, and underage drinking, but Aliya was above all that. A star student, she was already ahead in classes. She was responsible, always adhered to the rules, and read many books. She wrote a blog to review books, which was very popular. “All that intelligence, and we talk about Mike,” she thought.

It was next Saturday and the time for the mall. Shireen was at her door, convincing Aliya she needed to go out. Aliya was dismayed that she had to go, but there was hope. She was wondering if she would see him again. She hadn’t thought about him all week, but suddenly the idea of seeing him again provoked her. She didn’t want to think about it too much if he didn’t come. Her thought hadn’t finished when Shireen screamed, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Aliya sighed and called Ben. Ben was her Head Guard. Ben was waiting outside the building with the Rolls Royce Phantom, a gift from her parents.

Shireen and Aliya met with their friends, and the chirpy group of five started their fashion walk around the mall to check out what was new. While everyone else was browsing the latest spring collection, Aliya was eagerly anticipating the food court. It was two, and the girls decided it was time for milkshakes.

It was like any other rainy day in January. It was cold, and the thought of a cold milkshake didn’t appeal to Aliya. But she caved in, and with a vanilla milkshake, she was in her own world. Like clockwork, there he was. He was tall, two meters tall. He was not wearing a cap, and his black locks were perfectly groomed. They fell on his eyes on one side. He wore a ski jacket that looked far too warm for the place. He opened the jacket, and underneath was a navy-blue t-shirt with fitted pants. He walked around the food court and ordered from a sushi place. The sushi looked like it had been beaten on a washer board like last night’s laundry. He sat down with the sushi, had a piece, and, disgusted, moved the tray away. He started sipping on the soda when she suddenly realized that the cup looked precisely like her milkshake cup. She tilted her head to the side with a silly smile; how could she not have recognized the cup? He was drinking the same milkshake as her. What else could she have missed about him? Did he know her? Aliya was deep in her thoughts. She was staring, and to her, the rest of the world did not exist. Only she and he were the two people in the world. But Shireen was there too, and she noticed Aliya. She leaned on her and whispered, “Do you want to talk to him?” Aliya was startled. She was embarrassed that Shireen had noticed her. She regained her composure and answered, “No .“But the cat was out of the bag. Her muse was the new topic of gossip, with various views clashing. Aliya was blushing, and Shireen could not stop making fun of it. In all the buzz, he was named “Mr. Brooke” after the notoriously hot writer Rupert Brooke. Every once in a while, he would move the black locks. But the adamant hair would fall back. It was the most romantic love-hate relationship, and everyone sighed every time he did that. In between the gossip, Aliya realized that he was leaving. She felt unease in her heart. She thought that she had been robbed of time with him. But alas, he was gone.

This became a regular ritual. Aliya would wait for Saturday week after week, and there he would be. She would stare, girls would gossip, and then they would go home. By the end of the month, he had tasted Thai, Italian, and some cuisine that might not even be classified as food. But she was content with the admiration from afar.

But in the 6th week, something had changed. Either it was that he had started from the first shop and was almost at the end or that a feeling inside Aliya that sharing a milkshake ten meters apart was not enough, she decided to do something about it.