Milayna's Angel

by Michelle K. Pickett

  My dad reached for the card. “Do you want me to read it?”

  “No! I mean, I can do it.”

  He waited, looking at me. “Are you going to do it soon?”

  “I’m working up the nerve.”

  “You were just in a fight with a guy twice your weight and at least two heads taller than you and some flowers scare you?” He chuckled and shook his head.

  “Not the flowers. The name on the card.”

  “Let me know how it turns out,” my dad said and walked into the family room, clearly bored with my flower situation.

  Oh, you’re being silly. They’re from Xavier. Chay isn’t the flower-sending type… even if we were still together.

  I snatched the card from the bow and flipped it open. My breath hitched in my throat. I stood staring at the card until my legs started to cramp. Picking up the flowers, I walked outside and dumped them into the waste bin, throwing the crystal-cut vase on top of them.

  My dad watched me from the doorway. “Didn’t like the name?”

  “No.” I walked to the door and my dad let me pass.

  Looking over his shoulder one last time before following me into the kitchen, he asked, “Who were they from?”

  “Jake. He wished me well and thanked me for a nice evening.”

  My dad’s face grew hard. A vein throbbed on the side of his neck. “The kid’s got some nerve. That’s for sure.”

  “Yeah.” I grabbed an icepack from the freezer before I went upstairs to my room.

  Lying across my bed, I looked at the shadows from the empty limbs of the trees outside bounce across the ceiling. I tried not to look at the photo of Chay and me taped in the middle of the posters hanging there, but I kept looking anyway. We looked so happy. I couldn’t figure out what went wrong.

  I didn’t feel myself getting tired, but the next thing I knew, my mom was calling me down to dinner. I’d slept the entire day.

  Still groggy, I made my way through the hall and downstairs. I turned the corner to take my seat at the kitchen table. A small scream escaped my lips. There, in the middle of the table, sat a vase full of fresh lilies, a card attached to a large, red bow.

  “Get them out of here! Dad, how could you bring them back inside?” I accused.

  “Milayna, these aren’t the flowers from Jake. These came while you were sleeping,” my mom said. “Open the card.”

  I tore the card from the bow. Water sloshed over the rim of the vase as it teetered, nearly toppling over. Ripping open the envelope, I lifted the flap on the card. A slow smile tugged at my lips.

  The card had one word written on it: Chay.

  A man of few words. How the heck am I supposed to figure him out when he won’t give me anything to work with?

  “Well? Who are they from?”

  I peered over the card. Both my parents were looking at me expectantly.

  Benjamin shrugged his shoulders before announcing, “I hope they’re from Chay. I like him better.”

  I leaned down and kissed my brother on the top of the head, breathing in the scent of shampoo and soap. “They are,” I whispered. He looked up and smiled at me. Then his eyes flitted to the side of my face that was raw and swollen, and his expression changed.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “For what?”

  “It’s my fault.”

  “No way. This,” I pointed at my mangled eye, “is Jake’s fault. No one else’s.”

  Benjamin tried to smile, but there was sadness and a little fear in it.

  My mom cleared her throat and swiped at a tear falling from her lashes. “So,” she said too brightly. “Who are the flowers from?”

  “Chay.” Benjamin giggled.

  ***

  I was helping my mother clean up from dinner when I saw him jump the back fence. I sucked in a breath.

  “What’s wrong?” My mom looked at me.

  “Nothing. Chay’s here.”

  My mom gave me a small smile. “I’ll finish this up. You go out and see what he wants.”

  I stood with my hand on the door handle, taking a deep breath before opening it and walking outside into the backyard.

  “Hey,” he said when he saw me. He stood with his shoulder leaning against the house, thumb hooked through his belt loop, looking gorgeous as always. My heart skipped a beat, and then it bungee jumped directly to my toes before snapping back into place.

  “Hi. Thank you for the flowers. They’re really pretty.”

  He pursed his lips, trying to hide a grin. “No problem. You look like hell, Milayna.”

  “Thanks. You mentioned that last night.” I turned the bruised and swollen side of my face away from of him. “So what’s up?” I wrapped my arms around me to ward off the cold March air, wishing they were his arms instead.

  He didn’t have to answer my question. The red hobgoblins ran past us, chasing each other. I counted seven, but it was hard to be accurate when they were running around in circles.

  “How long have they been here?”

  “I didn’t know they were,” I answered with a shrug.

  One of the demons stopped running, slipped on the snow, and skidded toward me on his butt.

  “Milayna!” Friendly called, clapping his hands together, bumping into my leg as he slid across the snow. “You came out to play.”

  “Nope, sorry.”

  “Nice face.” Scarface smiled one of his grotesque smiles. “Looks like mine.” He cackled.

  I shot him a small smile. “What are you doing here?”

  “We came to make sure you’re okay,” Friendly said, spinning on his butt on the hard-packed snow.

  “Why? You want to see me dead.”

  Friendly sucked in a breath and shook his head, the tuft of jet-black hair on the top of his head flopping back and forth. “No, we don’t want you dead. We just need you to come live with us.”

  “We want her dead, moron,” Scarface snapped at Friendly.

  “That’s not the deal,” Friendly argued. “We’re supposed to get her to come with us. Alive.”

  “No—”

  Friendly’s face turned from soft and childlike to demonic. His bulbous lips pulled back over yellowing teeth. A guttural growl tore from his throat. “We take her to him alive,” he bellowed.

  Scarface answered Friendly with a demonic look of his own. “Shut up. You’re an idiot.”

  I watched in awed amusement as Friendly tackled Scarface. Their red bodies rolled around on the white snow like two drunken garden gnomes in a bar fight. Little red fists flew and stumpy legs kicked at each other.

  I started giggling. Chay chuckled, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck and over the back of his head. His hand rested on top of his head as he watched the little demons wrestle in the snow.

  “Well, this is new,” I whispered to Chay.

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess I know which of the two has my back in a fight, huh?”

  “Yeah. One definitely has it out for you,” Chay said with a small chuckle.

  “Who’s Abaddon?” I called to the fighting goblins.

  Both hobgoblins froze, their eyes wide. “No, no, no, don’t say that name, Milayna,” Friendly warned quietly.

  “Why?”

  “He’s not nice.”

  I laughed hard at that.

  Like the demons and Azazel are nice. Yeah, right, they’re teddy bears.

  “He works for Azazel,” I guessed.

  “No. He rules Azazel. He’s mean,” Friendly whispered. “A name that shouldn’t be uttered.”

  “He’s gonna kill you, you know.” Scarface said. “You and your family. You should have obeyed Azazel, Milayna. Now you’ve angered Aba—”

  “No!” Friendly yelled. “It’s a name that can’t be uttered.”

  Scarface rolled his large black eyes but said, “You’ve angered him,” instead.

  My family.

  My blood ran cold. Like ice water filled my veins, it chilled me from the inside out. My famil
y. At least Azazel only wanted me. Abaddon was trying to hurt my family. I remembered Jake running with Benjamin—he’d already tried to hurt my family.

  “Why does he want to kill my family and me?”

  Scarface looked at me and leaned his body close to mine. I could smell the sulfur and stench of rot clinging to his ruddy skin. “You’ll meet him soon enough. You can ask him yourself.”

  His message delivered, he disappeared in a cloud of smoke. I watched the hobgoblins leave in seven little puffs, the smell of sulfur swirling around me.

  “What do you think that was?” I looked at Chay.

  He let his hand fall from his head. “Empty threats.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No.”

  My stomach clenched and I doubled over in pain, gasping from the intensity of it. I reached out and steadied myself against the corner of the house. The vision assaulted my senses. I could smell it, hear it, see it, and taste it in the back of my throat.

  “Come on. Sit down.” Chay led me to a patio chair. He didn’t have to ask if I was having a vision. He’d seen enough of them to know.

  Fire. Heat. Glowing light. A boy screaming.

  I could feel the burning heat singeing my skin. The smoke burned my nostrils; I could taste the char.

  I concentrated on the vision. Where was it? I couldn’t see anything familiar. Just as the image started to move, giving me a different perspective, it disappeared. The clenching in my stomach went with it. The only thing that remained was the slight smell of burning wood.

  “It’s over,” I told Chay.

  “What was it?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t really see anything. Just fire.”

  “Well, let me know if it changes and I can help.” Chay turned and started toward the fence.

  “Why’d you come?” I called after him.

  “The goblins—”

  “No. I could have handled them. And you could’ve watched from home. Why’d you really come over?” I interrupted.

  He didn’t answer me, just stood with his back facing me. “I wanted to make sure you were alright,” he said quietly.

  “Then use the phone.”

  He turned and looked at me. “I couldn’t see you through the phone. Look, Milayna, I… I still care what happens to you even though we aren’t together.”

  I looked at him, studied his expression. It was neutral, passive. “I can’t figure you out.”

  “Yeah, well, you aren’t the only one.” He shrugged a shoulder.

  “You are so infuriating, Chay. Why do you always have to be evasive with everything you say?” I yelled.

  “Keeps me mysterious,” he said with a twitch of his lips.

  “No, it makes you freakin’ irritating.”

  “Milayna, I think you have bigger things to worry about than me.”

  “Yeah. I guess you’re right. I won’t call.”

  “Huh?”

  “If I need anything. You said to let you know. I won’t, Chay. I’m done.” I turned and walked into the house. The door slammed behind me.

  I stood with my back leaning against the door, my head turned toward the window. I watched Chay jump the fence and jog into the darkness beyond. A shadow slinked around a large oak following him as he passed by.

  20

  Someone You Trust

  Monday and Tuesday, I got a free pass from school. The swelling hadn’t gone down, and I was still painted in beautiful shades of purple and blue. Rather than field a lot of questions and try to find plausible explanations for injuries—you could only use the falling down stairs excuse so many times—I stayed home and watched daytime television. People on game shows got entirely too excited. I loved watching them.

  Monday night, I had the dream again. I bolted upright in bed, breathing hard. My sweat-drenched skin was covered in goose flesh. Shivering, I rubbed my hands up and down my arms to warm them. I wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or the dream—probably a little of both.

  I’d thought the dream was gone for good. I mean, Chay broke up with me. He already stabbed me, metaphorically speaking. Why was I dreaming about it again? I saw myself through his eyes as he plunged the dagger into my stomach. I saw the look of terror on my face as he stood and watched me bleed on the kitchen floor. Saw him look down and wipe the blood off the knife on his pant leg, the metallic blade acting as a mirror, reflecting his image.

  Dangling my feet over the side of the bed, I sat with my face in my hands, a puddle of warm tears growing in my palm. Sniffing, I wiped my hand on my sweatpants before swiping away the tears from my cheeks. I stood and walked to the bathroom, slipping a sweatshirt over my head on the way. Pulling out a bottle of pain reliever, I downed two tablets, drinking water out of the tap like a water fountain. Then I made my way downstairs.

  It was three o’clock and he was there.

  I froze at the foot of the stairs, looking out the window in the living room. His shadowy figure stood on the sidewalk in front of our house.

  “Again? Don’t you ever sleep?” I whispered in the dark room.

  “Apparently not.”

  I screamed and whirled around. “What are you doing here, Chay?” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Watching shadow man out there.”

  “How long has he been here?” I watched the man outside. He’d moved when I screamed. Now he knew we were watching him watch us.

  “I don’t know. I’ve been here an hour.”

  I hate that my dad gave you a key.

  “Who is it?” The person was too far away from the streetlight for me to tell who it was, but I had a feeling it was either Jake or Rod.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s Jake.” Chay stretched his legs out in front of him.

  “Why haven’t you called the police?”

  “Figured I’d see how long he’d hang around.”

  “Well, I don’t like him out there. It creeps me out.”

  I walked to the front door and flipped the lock open. Chay was beside me before I could open the door. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me around to look at him.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going outside to see what he wants.”

  Isn’t that fairly obvious?

  “Why on earth would you go traipsing out there to talk to a guy who did that to your face?” Chay whispered. He dropped my wrist and leaned back on his heels to look at me. “Is that what you were doing?” A smile tugged on his lips.

  “Yeah, so?”

  Chay chuckled. “We should go see Uncle Stewart for a milkshake when you feel better.” As soon as the words crossed his lips, he realized his mistake.

  “There is no ‘we’ anymore. You saw to that.”

  He reached up and tugged gently on a lock of hair before sliding it behind my ear. “Yeah, I guess the friend thing is out, huh?”

  “I don’t want to be your friend, Chay. It’s bad enough we’re stuck together in the same demi group. Otherwise, I’d choose to not see you at all.”

  Jerking the door open, I was outside before he could stop me. I immediately wished I stayed inside, or at least looked out the window to see what my stalker was doing, because when I crossed the threshold, I came nose to chest with Jake.

  “Ouch. I clocked you better than I thought I did,” Jake said, laughing.

  “Yeah, you hit a girl. Your mother would be so proud,” I snapped. “What are you doing stalking around in the dark like the cockroach you are, Jake?”

  His laughter died on his lips, and I thought he was going to hit me. I braced myself, getting ready for the attack, ready to block his blow. But Jake didn’t take a swing. Instead, his gaze drifted over my shoulder and he smiled.

  “Can’t stay away, huh?” Jake said to Chay. “I have to admit, I don’t blame you.”

  Chay’s look was defiant. He didn’t acknowledge Jake or his comment. He just stared at him, moving his hand possessively to the small of my back.

  “Well, as much fun as this lit
tle reunion is, it’s time for you to leave,” I said.

  “Don’t you want to know what I came to say?”

  “No.”

  Jake leaned in close to my ear. His vile breath moved wisps of my hair when he talked. “He’s sending someone for you.”

  Chay grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me away. “Back up,” he ordered Jake.

  Jake took a step back, his hands raised in surrender. “Hey, whatever, man. Just thought I’d give ya a head’s up is all.”

  “Who?” I called out as Jake walked down the porch steps.

  “Someone you’ll never see coming. Someone you trust with your life.”

  “I already know Azazel has sent someone,” I bluffed.

  Jake laughed. The sound matched the sneer on his face, garish and ugly. “Ha! You don’t know anything.”

  “Then why don’t you enlighten me?” I didn’t really expect him to. I was surprised when he did. I guess he was in a talkative mood because I learned a lot from our little meeting.

  “Abaddon. He’s ticked that Azazel couldn’t finish you when he had the chance. He garfed up the whole thing. So Abaddon is going to take care of things. You won’t be as lucky this time around, Milayna, and neither will the ones you love. He’s gonna take them from you.”

  “Who’s Abaddon?”

  Jake smiled like we were talking about the weather and not my impending trip to Hell. “Your worst nightmare.”

  “What does he want with my family?”

  “Nothing.” He shrugged a shoulder. “He just wants to hurt you, and hurting your family is the best way to do it. Maybe he’ll let you live. Then you can spend the rest of your life knowing you got your family killed because you wouldn’t listen when you had the chance. Your time is running out. You can still switch sides even though you’re eighteen. You can voluntarily crossover.”

  “No.”

  “Whatever. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. See ya around, Milayna. Chay.” Jake jogged down the driveway and turned on the street toward his house.

  Chay guided me into the house. “C’mon. Let’s go back inside. It’s freezing out here.”

  “He’s coming after my family to get to me.”