Brown Girl Ghosted

by Mintie Das

  “Shut up, guys,” Jess commands.

  Perhaps it’s the lack of teamwork or the hangover, but I can already feel my muscles weakening. Tessa is going to be the flier today so I need to wait this out another two minutes, until she climbs to the top and Collette’s mother takes enough photos. I keep my eyes focused on all the lit-candle apps swaying in the air and try to concentrate.

  That’s when I spot Naomi standing under the bleachers about twenty feet directly ahead. She looks furious. Her face is scrunched up in a deep scowl and her teeth are flashing like she’s ready to tear me apart. I can feel her fury from here.

  My arms and legs start to tremble. Did Naomi read my thoughts? Can she do that? Does she know that I’m planning to eliminate her? Is she here to get revenge?

  Whatever is behind Naomi’s rage, she is clearly keen on expressing it. Naomi runs out from the bleachers like the Terminator and rams straight into me. I jerk back hard.

  “Stop moving, Violet,” Collette snarls, “or we’re all gonna fall.”

  I’m still trying to recover from the first hit when Naomi lands a perfectly placed kick upside my head. Then another on the other side. Even with her backwards feet, the girl can obviously inflict some damage. My neck swings all the way to the left, then back to the right. The pyramid starts to shake.

  “You think you can get rid of me?” Naomi shrieks. “You think I’m gonna let you go?”

  “I’m sorry!” I cry out in agony.

  Naomi ignores me and twists my ponytail around her claws. She uses it to yank me forward to my feet. In one fell swoop, the entire pyramid collapses like a Jenga tower. The girls topple to the ground with a symphony of curses directed at me.

  But I am too busy trying to avoid Naomi to care. Naomi punches me in the gut. Hard. I feel all the air rush out of me. Naomi winds her fist back for another hit; I duck before it can land, then I push her with all the strength I can muster. Naomi topples backwards with a chunk of my hair still in her hand.

  I ignore my throbbing scalp and start running for the fire exit at the far end of the gym. It’s the only door in here that leads outside. I race across the gym floor as my teammates and, no doubt, the entire school watches. I know I look crazy, but there is no time to worry about optics with a vengeful demon after me.

  I push the exit door open, causing the loud, screeching alarm to sound. My car is parked in the student lot on the other side and I book toward it. I’m too afraid to look back but I can feel Naomi gaining on me.

  I turn the corner and collide with what feels like a brick wall. I look up to see the creepy intern. What is he doing here? And who knew that he was so ripped underneath that drab undertaker’s suit? “Move!” I shout, trying to push past the intern.

  Instead, he grabs me by the elbow. Then he takes two steps forward and holds his hand up until Naomi, who is barreling toward me, stops in her tracks.

  “Wait, can you see her too?”

  Creepy Intern says nothing. He walks over to Naomi with me in tow and places three fingers on the side of her neck like a modified Vulcan death grip. I watch in a combination of shock and horror as Naomi drops to the ground.

  “What did you do to her?” I mumble.

  “It only works on new bhoots and it’s temporary. So we don’t have much time,” Creepy Intern replies. “Let’s go.” He tightens his grip on my arm and leads me away.

  Twelve

  LUKAS GLANCES OVER at Violet in the passenger seat of the hearse. Normally, he wouldn’t use such a blatant symbol of death to do this sort of thing, but the other Talbert vehicles were taken.

  Naomi’s murder is causing all kinds of chaos. He wonders if Violet’s death will spark the same mayhem, then he realizes that he doesn’t really care.

  Violet is rambling away, as he predicted she would. He’d pegged her as a blabber. She’s asking all sorts of questions about him and Naomi and talking a lot of what amounts to gibberish as far as he is concerned. There’s no need to answer her at this late stage. After all, what use would it be for either of them?

  Any goodwill that Violet had earned with the Aiedeo after the Dr. Jenkins shama was quickly erased when she continued to show how selfish and cowardly she was. The Aiedeo had finally lost their patience with her after realizing she had no intention of helping Naomi, and they agreed that she needed to be eliminated. He’d gotten the go-ahead a few hours ago. Given Violet’s recent episodes with Dr. Jenkins and Naomi, he figures she must know she’s in danger. Plus, in his experience, usually even the dimmest mortals have some idea when their time is up.

  The sound of his cell phone ringing jolts Lukas out of his thoughts. He clears his throat before answering. “Yes.”

  “Is she with you?” a sharp, clipped female voice asks. Lukas has worked with most of the Aiedeo but he doesn’t recognize this voice.

  “Stop,” he hears Violet say in the background.

  “Yes,” Lukas says into his phone. His jaw muscles tense. Why is this Aiedeo calling?

  “The decision to terminate has been overruled.”

  “Excuse me? I need you to repeat.” Overruled?

  “Stop,” Violet says again, this time in a louder voice. Lukas continues to ignore her.

  “We have decided to prolong the mission. Therefore, you must abort termination.”

  Lukas doesn’t bother to hide the anger in his voice. “I was given specific instructions to terminate.”

  “Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!” Violet shouts repeatedly. He should have gagged her. Lukas turns toward his window to try to drown Violet out.

  “Yes, I am aware.” The woman pauses briefly before speaking again. He can tell that she is choosing her words carefully. “However, the earlier decision to terminate has been overruled.”

  “By whom? Who has the authority to overrule in this matter?” Lukas barks. He knows very well that the Aiedeo have full and final say in this case.

  “Maa,” the woman half whispers as though she can’t believe what she’s saying. She waits a second before continuing. Her voice is bolder now. “Maa overruled the decision. For the time being.”

  “Maa?” he repeats incredulously. In all his time with the Aiedeo, he has never heard of anything like this happening.

  The woman obviously isn’t in the mood for further conversation. “Abort termination. Further instructions on how to proceed will be given to you shortly.”

  “Understood. Termination aborted.”

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!” Violet continues.

  Lukas slams his cell against the dashboard, then pulls a hard U-turn. He looks Violet up and down. Who is she?

  Clearly, the Aiedeo know something that they’re not telling him. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up as his soldier’s intuition shifts into high alert.

  Lukas starts to say something to Violet when suddenly, everything freezes. From the inside to the outside, he is paralyzed. His mouth is half open and his hands continue to grip the steering wheel. He tries to move them but he can’t. Nothing around him moves either. Lukas fights to make sense of what is happening but then everything goes black.

  When Lukas wakes up, Violet is gone.

  * * *

  I can’t stop babbling. I know that most of it makes no sense but I can’t stop talking. Actually, the more I understand that I’m in one of those stranger-danger moments, the worse my mouth diarrhea gets.

  At first, I was relieved to the point of tears of joy when I escaped Naomi. However, now I’m totally aware that I’m in a car with Creepy Intern. Not just a car—a hearse. Talk about a bad omen. And of course Creepy Intern is giving off vibes that are seriously menacing.

  My palms start to get sweaty. I’m in the front seat next to him, seat belt on, doors locked, but my limbs aren’t restrained in any way. If he pulled over, I could get out, but why do I get the sense that’s not an option?

  Creepy Intern must be Bat Eyes. A chill runs down my legs. Bat Eyes from the cornfield and from the spying on me in my bedroom. I’m willing to bet that
this isn’t a happy coincidence. What does he want with me? He saved me in the cornfield and he saved me from Naomi, so why do I get the distinct feeling that he’s far from my hero? Perhaps because I’m riding in a hearse heading out of town. I hear my heart beating in my throat.

  I sit up straighter. “Hey, uptown and everything else is the other way. This all starts to become backcountry. Where are you tryin’ to go?”

  Of course, my questions are only met with dead silence. This is the part in those self-defense classes that Naresh made me take where you’re not supposed to try to pretend like everything is okay because you were brought up to be a nice girl. I have to acknowledge that I’m in danger. The hairs on my arms stand straight up.

  I look around in a panic. The speedometer reads ninety miles an hour. I flash back to when the Aiedeo pushed me out of that car. It was going only thirty-five, and I barely survived.

  I try to calm my mind. My phone along with any other possible weapons, like my keys and the mace I carry in my backpack, are in my school locker. I wonder if I can reach over and jab my fingers into his eyes, though I doubt that’ll do much damage.

  Even forgetting about his magic or whatever it is, Creepy Intern is lean, muscular, and tall. I can’t take him. A strange sound brings me out of my thoughts. To my utter surprise, it’s a ringtone. I watch him pull out a flip phone circa late 1990s.

  For some reason, when he talks into that dinosaur device, it makes him seem less frightening. I can still feel the fear in every inch of my body but I also know what I need to do.

  It’s still hazy but something else is coming back to me about that Aiedeo car incident. It was for a shama. They were trying to teach me the stop game. I never quite got how to do it and it’s definitely been a while since I tried it. I take a deep breath.

  “Stop,” I say.

  The scenery outside has changed to thick forests on both sides of the road. It looks like the kind of place where bodies are buried.

  “Stop,” I say again, this time louder.

  I can hear him getting pissed with whoever is on the other end of the line.

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!” I yell.

  He continues speaking on the phone and I hear him say something about “termination aborted.” This sounds like good news for me but I’m not gonna take any chances. I continue shouting, “Stop!”

  All of a sudden, he slams his phone down and swerves the hearse around. There’s something different about him now but I’m too far along with what I started to figure it out. It all happens in a millisecond, but for me, it’s like watching it all in slow motion.

  Everything stops. The hearse, him, even the trees. Nothing moves because it is all frozen. I have stopped time.

  I can’t believe I pulled it off. I know that it will wear off within minutes so I need to hurry. Just doing it sucked me dry—my head and body feel like a pile of mush. But I refuse to give up.

  I gather all the strength I can muster, unclasp my seat belt, and unlock the door. As soon as I jump out of the car, I see Old Blue behind the hearse. Meryl must have followed us! I race over to the truck and climb inside. I touch her shoulder and she wakes up.

  “Go!” I shout.

  Meryl presses hard on the gas and we drive out of there as fast as we can.

  Thirteen

  And CREEPY INTERN—who is also Bat Eyes—got a call and then you heard something about an abortion?” Meryl asks, then frowns because she knows that doesn’t sound right but we’re both too confused right now to know what all we’re saying.

  When Meryl ran out of the gym after me, she saw Creepy Intern put me in the hearse, so she followed us. I’ve been telling Meryl about everything that happened, starting with the ass-kicking Naomi gave me and ending with my escape, but just saying it out loud makes me realize how effed up this all really is.

  “No. It was ‘Termination aborted,’” I clarify.

  “Then you stopped time.” Meryl lets that hang in the air for a second so that we both can try to wrap our heads around it. “That’s the shit, V.”

  “I know.” Even though it comes from my Aiedeo training, I can’t deny that making time stop is absolutely mind-blowing. Although it took so much energy to do it, it feels like my mind is literally blown.

  Like so much else with the Aiedeo, I’d completely blocked out any memory of the stop game. All these years, I didn’t even remember that the whole car incident was because the Aiedeo were teaching me how to freeze time. Then today, when I needed it, it came back to me, and I actually managed to pull it off. Just like that Aiedeo who came to my room said, my powers never went away.

  We pull up in front of my house. I know I’ve got to see my nanny. Dede is my Yoda and I need her. That means I’ll have to come clean about everything, and maybe she’ll go ballistic. But no matter what, she’ll have my back.

  “Mer, you don’t have to come in with me,” I say as she unclasps her seat belt.

  “What? No way! I’m not leaving you alone after what just happened to you.”

  “Dede never misses her afternoon soaps, so she’s home. And I need you to go to school and do damage control. Especially with the Squad. I mean, I had a total freak-out in front of the entire student body and everyone’s gotta be talking about it. You think anyone videoed me?” I chew on my lip. “H and H will definitely post something about it.”

  Meryl scowls. “Seriously? You have supernatural forces after you and this is what you’re worried about?”

  “I think we’ve already established that I have messed-up priorities. You know that looking like a freak or, to be more accurate, having my freak side exposed scares the hell out of me. Just as much as Bat Eyes or the Aiedeo.” I sigh. “So can you just use your Meryl Miller swagger to smooth all of this out?”

  “Whatever that means.” Meryl starts up her truck. “But you know that I’ve got you.”

  “Thanks.” I hug her as hard as I can. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  I watch Meryl leave, then walk up the driveway. As soon as I step into my house, a feeling of safety overwhelms me. I’m crushed by the weight of everything I’ve just survived. My entire body aches, my nerves are fried, and my mind is in overdrive.

  “Dede,” I croak out in a shaky voice.

  I walk into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of cold water. After I chug it and another two more down, I go to find Dede. The wall clock reads 2:46 p.m., which means she’s probably too engrossed in General Hospital to have heard me come home.

  I seriously contemplate crawling because my legs hurt so much, but instead, I half walk, half limp to the living room.

  Recent events should probably have taught me to expect the unexpected. However, nothing has prepared me for what is waiting for me on my sofa. I stand there paralyzed as my stomach crashes to the ground.

  Dede is sitting on one side of the couch. The TV is turned off, which is in itself is quite incredible. Sitting on the other end of the sofa, leaning against the chocolate-brown cushion, is Creepy Intern.

  He stands up when he sees me and I notice he’s no longer wearing his undertaker suit. Instead, he’s in black jeans and a worn leather jacket that looks like it’s older than Dede. How nice that he had time to change after his botched murder attempt on me.

  “I’m not here to harm you.” His voice is deep and assured like it was on the phone earlier but now it also has a hint of warmth that I haven’t heard before. Just a very, very small hint, though, and I’m not buying it.

  “Isn’t that what most killers say right before they slaughter you?” My head is spinning. I honestly can’t believe that after actually freezing time to escape Creepy Intern, he’s standing in my living room. I turn to Dede. “Is this real? Do you see this monster right here?”

  “It okay, Violet,” Dede says in that soothing voice she hasn’t used since I broke my legs. “Lukas tell me everything.”

  They’re on a first-name basis? I want to hurl. I check Dede’s eyes to see if she’s been
glammed or if someone’s played some other kind of hypno trick. “You know this sicko bastard kidnapped me and you’re trying to tell me it’s all right that he’s here in our house?”

  Dede shakes her head. “Mami, sit down so Lukas can explain you everything. I make chai.”

  I don’t know how to respond. I thought that Dede having my back at least meant that she wouldn’t have a tea party with my kidnapper. I’m losing my shit really fast.

  “Perhaps you should sit down, Violet,” Lukas says. “We have important matters to discuss.”

  Maybe it’s hearing him say my name or just recalling the sheer terror he put me through, but I snap. Before I even know what I’m doing, I leap across the sofa and tackle Lukas to the floor. I sit on his chest and pummel his face with my fist. I punch him over and over as blood squirts from his nose and his mouth. There is a crazed shrieking sound that pierces my ears. I look around to see where it is coming from but then realize it’s me.

  Lukas isn’t hitting me back, which only infuriates me more. Now he’s being chivalrous? After he kidnapped me?

  I elbow Lukas in his eye. I am about to do it again when I feel Dede pull me off him. Her strength always surprises me.

  I sit back against the sofa and simmer quietly. His face is a mishmash of bloody cuts and bruises; he looks like a hot boxer. I cringe. Scratch the hot—just because I got a few punches in doesn’t mean all is forgiven. Far from it.

  Lukas gets to his feet and stares down at me. “Now that you have gotten that out, let’s talk about your shama.”

  * * *

  I sit on a stool at my kitchen counter, my sopping hair wrapped in a towel, holding a cup of chai. Dede thinks there’s nothing in the world that can’t be fixed with a hot shower and tea.

  However, just because I smell better doesn’t mean I feel better. An entire bar of soap can’t scrub away the anger I have as I see Lukas and Dede sitting together at the kitchen table. When it comes to matters concerning me, Dede doesn’t get to be neutral. She is supposed to be on my side. Always.