I don’t want to go and watch you two make ga-ga eyes at each other all day when I’m alone.
“You’re not. Come on… please.”
I finally gave in and told Muriel I would go. Sighing, I rolled out of bed to get ready. I wasn’t looking forward to going without Chay, and I was worried something was wrong with him. He seemed so distant.
“Where’s Chay?” Drew asked when he and Muriel picked me up an hour later.
I groaned. I felt so out of place with them on their date, even though Muriel insisted it wasn’t one. “Too much homework.”
“Huh,” was all Drew said as he pulled out of the driveway.
***
The mall was hopping that afternoon. Everyone had spring fever and wanted to get out of the house, but the Michigan weather made it nearly impossible to do much outside, unless you enjoyed shoveling snow.
The three of us shopped and laughed, had lunch at a real restaurant, not the food court, and ended up having a great time. But through it all, I waited. I waited for the inevitable stomach twisting, head-pounding, heart-racing signs that a vision was coming. I knew I was going to have one even before the sensation hit. In a crowd that big, there was bound to be something to set off a vision. I was immediately sorry I’d come with them. My vision would ruin their day even more than having a third wheel hanging around.
Drew and Muriel wanted to go into a bookstore. I sat down on a bench to wait for them.
“Aren’t you coming?” Muriel asked.
“Nah, I’m going to sit this one out.” I tried to keep my face blank and not let on that anything was wrong. “You guys go ahead. I’ll wait here.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, yeah. Go on.” I waved her away. Drew was already waiting at the entrance of the store.
My stomach was tying itself in knots. I wrapped my arms around my middle, trying not to double over and draw attention to myself. Closing my eyes, I breathed in deeply through my nose, exhaling slowly through my mouth to relax against the pain.
Breathe in… breathe out… breathe in… breathe out…
It didn’t help. Each breath made my head pound harder. I gripped my shopping bag so tight that my fingers ached and my nails dug into my palms.
The glint of metal. I see dirty floor tiles underneath. Blood. Screaming.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to focus on the vision. I needed to see a face. A place. Something.
A hand holding a knife. No, not a knife—it’s pointed, like an ice pick, but bigger. Blood drips from the tip.
I concentrated harder, looking for signs of where the person was. What store they were near.
The bookstore. A lady. She’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Black with big blue and yellow flowers. She grabs her side. When she pulls her hand away—blood. It spreads, across the flowers on her shirt.
My eyes snapped open. I was sitting in front of the bookstore in my vision. Looking around for the woman, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, exactly. But I knew whatever it was wouldn’t turn out good for the woman.
Boys. Dressed in all black. The knife.
I searched the hallway for the group of boys or the lady in the Hawaiian shirt, but there were too many people filing by for me to see, so I stood on the bench and strained to see over people’s heads.
Purse. Screaming. Stabbing. Blood.
I was frantic to find the woman. Jumping off the bench, I stood in the middle of the aisle. People pushed and shoved their way past me. Some yelled at me to get out of the way. Others just brushed past, bumping into me. I stumbled backward, but stayed where I was. I wasn’t moving until I saw the woman or the group of guys.
Then I saw them. The group of boys walked toward me. I looked over my shoulder. The woman walked toward me from behind. I watched as the two came closer and closer to each other.
I tried to make eye contact with one of the guys. If I could create a bridge, I might be able to figure out what they were planning, but without it, there was no way for me to zero in on their thoughts. There were just too many people around for me to pick out one person’s thoughts.
I turned and jogged to the woman. Keeping pace with her, I put myself between her and the boys who headed straight toward us. I watched the boy closest to me. I saw the lights glint off the metal weapon he held half in his hand, half stuffed up his shirtsleeve.
When we passed the group of boys, I watched the one with the pick lunge toward the woman. I shoved her out of the way.
I didn’t move fast enough. I felt a stinging in my side, looking down, I saw blood seep across my blue T-shirt, turning it a deep purple, and I had the stupid thought that it was a pretty color.
I held my side with my hands, blood smeared across them. The sight made me nauseous, and bile rose in my throat, stinging it. I stumbled to the wall and leaned against it. The group of boys ran through the crowd, which kept moving past. No one realized what happened except the woman in the Hawaiian shirt. She screamed for help. People stopped and stared, but no one did anything. They just watched as my blood dripped on the dirty, tiled floor.
13
Abaddon
Muriel and Drew rushed out of the store when they heard the woman’s screams. Muriel saw me slumped against the wall and ran to me, while Drew dialed 911on his cell. I heard him tell the operator there had been a stabbing at the mall, and I wondered who’d been stabbed.
Me? Is that what happened?
“Milayna? What happened?”
“A group of boys,” was all I managed to say.
It didn’t take long for the EMTs to get there. They loaded me into the back of the ambulance and rushed, sirens blaring, to St. Mary’s hospital. Drew and Muriel followed in Drew’s car.
“You were very lucky,” the doctor told me three hours later. “The knife didn’t hit any major organs.”
The knife pierced right through my side. Going in the front and exiting the back. It was far enough to the side that it missed everything important. It just caused a lot of blood, making it look much worse than it really was. Than it could have been. However, it did hurt like a mofo.
I was required to spend the night in the hospital for observation. After my parents and Muriel and Drew made sure I was fine, they left so I could rest. The painkillers the nurse gave me made me feel woozy, and my head spun like I was riding a tilt-a-whirl. All I wanted to do was sleep.
I wasn’t sure how long I slept. When I opened my eyes, it was dark outside. A single nightlight shone in my room, just enough that I could see him slouching in the chair across the small hospital room.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“For what?”
“I should have been there.” Chay scooted his chair closer to the bed. He laid his head on the bed and held my hand to his mouth. His lips tickled my skin when he spoke. “Do you need anything? Are you in pain? Should I get the nurse?”
“I have what I need.” I reached out and pulled him to me by the collar of his shirt. He kissed me softly, holding back like he was afraid I was going to break. I pulled him closer, deepening the kiss. It made me feel heady, alive. The room tilted and spun.
He leaned back and looked at me. “They said you’re going home tomorrow.”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just a little sore, but the painkillers here are out of this world, wicked good.”
“What happened?” Chay cupped my face with his hand and rubbed his thumb over my cheek.
“A vision.”
“You know, you’re supposed to keep the people safe, but then you’re supposed to get out of the way, too.” He grinned.
“Yeah, I’ll remember that the next time someone tries to shank me.”
His grin fell away. He looked miserable. “I’m so sorry, Milayna.”
“There’s nothing you could’ve done.”
He shook his head. “I could have been there for you. I wasn’t.”
I heard someone at the door clear their throat. “Am I interrupting?”
I pushed t
he button on the bed to turn on the lights. Squinting against the bright light that pierced through the darkened room, I saw him. He stood in the doorway with a large vase of roses and an obscene number of balloons.
Xavier.
“No,” I said.
Yeah, you are.
“Yes,” Chay grumbled. I pulled him to me for another kiss. That seemed to placate him.
“I’ll just drop these off and go. I wanted to see for myself that you were okay,” Xavier said, looking at me. “You look pale.”
“It’s the lovely gown. Pea green isn’t my color.” I picked at the hospital gown and frowned.
“You can pull off any color, Milayna,” Xavier murmured.
Chay shot him an angry glare.
“Visiting hours are over, gentlemen,” a burly nurse said, walking by my door.
“I guess that’s our cue.” Xavier hesitated a moment before smiling. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks.”
He walked out the door with a backward glance toward Chay, who’d already moved in to kiss. He didn’t seem too worried about the end of visiting hours.
***
I’m running. He’s back there; I can hear his footsteps. They’re getting louder, closer.
“Milayna,” he taunts. “I’m coming for you.”
His footsteps grow faster. I push myself to keep running. My breathing is heavy, my legs rubbery. My heart is pounding a painful staccato against my ribs. I need to stop. I can’t. I don’t.
He’s here to kill me.
Running into my house, I slam and lock the door behind me. I stare at it… waiting.
The door handle rattles, and my stomach drops. I need to call the police. Turning to grab the phone, I stumble backward. He’s looking down at me. A sneer mars his otherwise perfect face.
Jake.
He jabs something at me. I look down and see the metal handle of a knife sticking out of my stomach. Blood seeps around it, dripping a steady rhythm on the toe of my white tennis shoe.
He jerks his arm back, and I feel the blade slice through my flesh a second time as he rips it out of my body. I cover the wound with my hand, staring at the blood oozing between my fingers. Red and warm, it stains them.
Shocked, I look up. He stands in front of me, smiling, the bloody knife dangling from his fingers. Not Jake.
Chay.
I screamed and kicked my legs to free them of the sweat-soaked bed linens tied around them. My arms flailed. Something held them back, something pinned me in. I pushed against the metal bars.
“Milayna,” an unfamiliar voice called, and I shrunk away from it. “It’s okay. You’re at St. Mary’s Hospital. You’re safe.”
The hospital? I remember.
I stopped struggling. I wasn’t tied down. It was my IV and other medical equipment strewn through the room.
A cord wrapped around my finger, monitoring who knows what. A cuff around my arm that measures my blood pressure. Bet that’s outta sight right now.
Feeling liquid seep onto the sheets, I look down. I was sure I’d ripped a stitch or two and would see red blood staining the bedsheets, but the liquid was clear.
“Oh, you’ve pulled your IV out.” The nurse grabbed the IV tube and pinched it off. “Maybe the doctor will let us keep it out and we won’t have to stick you again.”
“That’d be good.”
“I’ll be right back.” She was an older grandmotherly type, and I liked her. But she hovered. Well, fluttered would be a better description. She darted like a hummingbird from here to there, fixing this, checking that. It exhausted me.
She was back flying through the room within minutes. “Here you go,” she said in a singsong voice. “Swallow up.”
I did as I was told. It wasn’t until the pills were down my throat that I thought to ask what they were.
“One is a painkiller and one will help you sleep.”
Great, something to keep me asleep so I can relive the nightmare over and over.
She gathered up the IV and put a bandage on my hand, patting my arm and telling me to get some rest. It didn’t take long before the combination of painkiller and sleeping pill made my eyes start to droop. The next thing I knew, I was waking up to my parent’s faces and the smell of powdered eggs.
“How do you feel?” my mom asked.
“Sore. Tired.”
“Do you want to eat?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Is that smell my breakfast?”
She looked at me and nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“I don’t think I’m that hungry.”
She laughed. “I don’t blame you. Anyway, you’re getting sprung. We’re just waiting on the paperwork, and then you can go home. I’ll make you something there.”
“Okay.”
It took three hours before the doctor signed off on all the paperwork so I could go home. “I can walk,” I complained when the nurse made me ride down to the car in a wheelchair.
“Hospital policy,” she said.
The ride home was… painful. The painkillers the hospital gave me to take home weren’t nearly as fun as the ones they gave me the night before. My side felt every bump, shimmy, and pothole.
“Where’s Benjamin?” I asked on the way home.
My mom angled herself so she could look at me in the backseat. “He’s home with your grandma.”
“Come here, child, lemme have a look at ya,” my grams said as soon as I walked through the door. “You look a little green around the gills. Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, Grams, I’m feeling just great.” I rolled my eyes but smiled at her.
“That’s what I thought. They didn’t feed you, did they?”
“They tried to give me something that smelled too vile to be legal. I decided to wait until I got home to eat.”
“Hi,” Benjamin said.
“Hey, Frog Freckle.”
“Can I see the hole?” He was a typical seven-year-old boy.
“Well, it’s all bandaged up right now, but later, when Mom puts new bandages on it, you can look at it, okay?”
He nodded. “Wanna play video games with me since you have to stay on the couch anyway?”
“Sure.” I hobbled into the family room and eased down on the couch, getting comfortable. Benjamin handed me the controller for the video game and stood in the middle of the room, staring at me.
“What’s wrong, Ben?”
“Why’d they do that to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“It sucks the royal weenie.” He looked down at the floor. “I’ll let you pick the game since you’re hurt and all.”
“Thanks.” I picked his favorite game.
I spent the rest of the day playing video games and getting fed by my grandmother.
I never heard from Chay.
***
My phone rang early Monday morning; the sky was still gray.
“Hello?” My voice was gravelly from sleep, and my head was fuzzy from the pain medication I’d taken during the night.
“Hey, beautiful.”
“Chay, what time is it?”
“Early. I’m getting ready for school. I wanted to talk to you before I left.”
“Where were you yesterday?” I was hurt that I hadn’t heard from him at all, not even a text message.
“I thought you’d need to rest.”
“I didn’t need to rest that bad,” I complained.
“I’m sorry. I just want you to get all the rest you need so you’ll heal,” Chay murmured. His voice was like velvet, soft and smooth. It made it hard to remember why I was supposed to be angry with him.
“You’ll come over after school today?”
“You can’t keep me away.”
It was the longest day in history. I tried to read and work on the homework my mom picked up from the school, but I couldn’t concentrate. I was anxious to see Chay that afternoon. He’d been acting weird the last few days. I wanted to see him and make sure things betwee
n us were okay.
Finally, I heard the doorbell ring. I started to get up to answer the door when my mom shooed me back on the couch.
“But it’s Chay.”
“I don’t care if it’s the pope. You need to stay put. I’ll get the door.”
A few seconds later, Chay walked into the room. He looked amazing. I was sure I looked like something out of a zombie movie.
“Hey.” I sighed.
“How are you feeling?” He sat on the floor next to the couch.
“Bored.”
He laughed. “Already? Geez, you should be enjoying watching soap operas all day.”
“My mother was kind enough to go to the school and pick up my assignments for the week. She’s banned all soap operas until she knows I’ve done my schoolwork.”
“Bummer.”
“That’s what I said. I mean, really, I was stabbed. Can’t I get a free pass for a soap opera or two? What’s the world coming to?”
He laughed and nodded. The sunlight streaming through the window danced off his hair and his blue-green eyes twinkled. “I agree that you’ve earned a day or two off. It’s good to hear you joking, Milayna.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked, baffled by the look on his face. I’d learned to decipher most of his expressions, but his face held a new one. I had no idea what it meant.
He shrugged one shoulder.
He didn’t have time to give me an answer. The front door flew open, and I heard a boy’s voice yelling my name. “Milayna! I’m so gonna beat you today,” Benjamin yelled, running down the hall to the family room.
Chay looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Video games. I played with him so much yesterday that I saw aliens and meteors in my sleep. I swear at one point, I woke up and my fingers were twitching like I was pushing the buttons on the controller.”
“Chay!”
And that was all it took to get me off the hook. As soon as Ben saw Chay, he forgot all about his invalid sister.
“You wanna play with me?”
“I thought you were playing with Milayna?”
Milayna's Angel Page 13
