“I’m sorry,” he whispered against my lips. “Damn it, I’m so sorry, Milayna.”
“Just say you won’t do anything like that again. You’ll talk to me first.”
“I promise.” Chay pressed his lips against my forehead.
“Took you long enough,” I said softly.
“What did?” He pulled back to look at me.
“To come to your senses.”
He chuckled. “Yes it did.”
***
For the first two hours, we talked. About everything, anything, nothing. It seemed like we never ran out of things to say or ask each other. I wanted to know every thought he had, every reason for the many different smiles that crossed his face, the different laughs that tumbled out his lips, the reasons his eyes sometimes darkened when he looked at me. I wanted to know everything about him. And he wanted to know the same about me. I know because he’d ask me.
Why are you smiling now?—What made you laugh just then?—What are you thinking, Milayna?” he’d ask.
I knew he wanted to know everything about me because he asked the same questions I asked him.
During hours three and four, we were antsy. Too much time had passed. Either something had gone wrong or they’d moved Muriel and her parents and not told us.
“They won’t tell me anything,” Chay said, dropping into the seat next to me. His feet spread, he propped his elbows on his knees, letting his hands dangle between them.
“Why not?”
His mouth twitched. Almost a grin, but not quite. “I’m not a blood relation.”
I laughed. “If they only knew,” I said, rolling my eyes. Standing, I walked to the nurses’ desk. A different nurse sat behind the counter, a rail-thin woman in her late fifties or early sixties. She wore white, horned-rimmed glasses with little rhinestones swirling across the sidepieces. Her cheeks were painted with two red blotches of blush and bright blue eye shadow outlined her eyes. Black eyebrows were drawn on her face. It looked like a clown had thrown up on her.
“Can I help you?” She smiled. I stared. “Miss? Can I help you?”
Oh, right, that’s me.
“Um, yes, could you give me an update on my aunt and uncle, please? Their last name is Jackson.”
“They’re still in emergency while they wait for a bed to become available upstairs.”
“Can I see them?”
“I’m afraid not. We’re—”
“Yeah, too busy. What about my cousin? Muriel Jackson?”
“She’s also waiting for a bed. I’ll let the nurses know that you are waiting and when they move them upstairs, they’ll call and let me know. Then I’ll pass along the information, okay?”
No, not really. Okay would be them not having to be here at all.
I smiled and nodded. My thumbs hooked in the back pockets of my jeans, I wandered back to where Chay sat watching me.
“Find out anything?”
“They’re still back there waiting to be moved to a room upstairs.” I made air quotes around upstairs.
“I saw some vending machines down the hall. Are you thirsty?” Chay asked.
“Yes!”
“Are you in chocolate withdrawal?”
“Yes to that question, as well. Let’s go raid the machines.” I turned around and walked back toward the nurses’ desk, pulling Chay along behind me. “Which way?”
“Left.”
I turned to the left and stopped so quickly that Chay ran smack into me, making me take a large step forward.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. I knew the instant he saw him. His body went rigid and his hand tightened around mine possessively. But he held his tongue. Something I was having a hard time doing.
Why is he here? Chay is finally opening up to me, talking to me about things that happened, places he went, why he left, and now he comes trotting in here to ruin it. It’s like he knows when to come to screw things up between Chay and me.
“What are you doing here, Xavier?” I tried not to sound as irritated as I felt. I wasn’t sure I succeeded.
“I came to check on Muriel and her parents,” he said, a crease forming between his brows.
“Who told you?”
“Your dad,” Xavier said. “He’s not taking it too well.”
“Really? I can’t imagine why,” I snapped. “Listen, Xavier, Drew doesn’t even know about this yet. Muriel wouldn’t want you here if Drew wasn’t. And her parents don’t know you well enough to care if you’re here or not. So why don’t you just go? When something happens, someone will be sure to let you know.”
“At least tell me how they are—”
“I haven’t seen them,” I interrupted. “They’re still in emergency, and they won’t let anyone back to see them.”
“So you don’t know anything about their condition?”
I narrowed my gaze on him. “No,” I answered slowly. “Why?”
Why would he care…? He barely knows my aunt and uncle. He doesn’t even know Muriel all that well.
“Just concerned.”
What’s your angle, buddy?
“We’ll be sure to pass along your concern,” Chay said. “Come on, Milayna. Let’s find the vending machines.” Chay put his hand on the small of my back—geez, I loved it when he did that. Even with Xavier watching, it sent a jolt of electricity through my body. He steered me around Xavier and into the main corridor where several brown, boxy vending machines stood.
We walked over to the machines and stopped. Wrapping one arm across my middle, I bit the fingernails on the hand of the other. I vaguely heard Chay dropping coins into the machine, the metallic tinkle as the coins dropped into the change bin inside, and the loud thud as the machine dispensed the bottle of Coke.
“Here.” Chay held out a cold Coke to me.
I looked up and smiled. “Thank you.”
“I get a kiss before I give you the second thing I bought.”
“Huh?”
“The second thing I bought you. I get a kiss if you want it,” he said, his gaze searching mine.
“What are you looking for, Chay? Why are you studying me so closely? Do you think that because Xavier might see, I won’t kiss you? That somehow his presence will interfere? Because if that’s what you’re worried about,” I fisted my hand in his shirt front and jerked him to me, “you shouldn’t.” I let go of his shirt and wrapped my hand behind his neck, pulling him down to me.
His lips touched mine tentatively, gently—mine commanded his. They were demanding, forceful—almost angry with the need to prove to him that he was my everything. I pulled back and looked into his eyes. “You’re the only person I’ve loved, not just now, but ever. There wasn’t anyone before you, and there won’t be anyone after you. I’ve never been more sure of anything. Your leaving proved that to me. There’s only you.”
“You’re that sure?” he asked quietly.
My heart cracked.
He’s not. He’s not sure, or maybe he knows and he doesn’t feel as strongly.
“Yes,” I answered.
He nodded, looking at his feet. And the crack running across my heart grew. I almost didn’t hear him speak over the sound of the pieces of my heart breaking apart. “I love you, too, Milayna. I always have.” I smiled at him, and he rolled his eyes. “You’re gonna cry now? I just told you I loved you. That’s supposed to be a good thing.”
“It is a good thing,” I said, wiping the tears away as they fell from my lashes.
“I’ll take your word for it. Usually, when guys cry, it isn’t a good thing,” he said with a grin. “Here.” He tossed a bag of chocolate candies to me.
“Romantic, Chay, real romantic.”
“What? It’s chocolate,” he said with a laugh.
By hour five, we were both exhausted. We’d played twenty questions, thumb wars, and I-spy. We were officially bored, tired, and hungry beyond what the vending machines could quench. I curled up across two hard plastic chairs and lay my head on Chay’s lap. He idly played
with my hair, picking up curls and letting them sift through his fingers. The feeling had warring effects on me. It relaxed me to the point that I felt my eyelids droop and sleep move in more than once, but it was also exhilarating at the same time. The feel of Chay’s fingers moving through my hair sent shivers through my body, goose bumps peppered my skin, and the funny little fluttering in my chest was anything but relaxing.
“You’re vibrating,” Chay said.
“Hmm?” I was somewhere between awake and asleep, the groggy spot when you could hear what was going on around you, but you’d slipped too far into sleep to react or even care.
Chay patted my thigh where his hand was resting. “Your phone, Milayna. It’s vibrating.”
“‘Kay.”
“Jackson family,” a nurse in green scrubs called from the double doors leading into the patient area of emergency.
“Yeah, uh, here.” Instantly awake, I jumped off Chay’s lap and hurried to where the nurse waited.
“Your family members have been transferred to their rooms upstairs. I’ve written down their room numbers for you.”
“Thanks. Where are the elevators?” I asked, looking at the blue sticky note the nurse wrote the three room numbers on.
“The end of the hall and to the right, but you can’t visit them now. Visiting hours are over. You’ll have to come back tomorrow morning.” She turned and disappeared back into the patient care area.
I stood and stared at the door. “What the hell? Tomorrow? Really?” I blew a piece of hair out of my eyes and turned toward Chay. “I guess it’s time to go home. It would have been nice to know before now,” I muttered.
***
“Could Uncle Rory remember what happened, Dad?” I asked when my dad got home from the hospital the next afternoon. Chay and I visited Muriel that morning. She couldn’t remember anything that happened. She’d been in the backseat. By the time she’d realized something was wrong, it was too late.
“Yeah. Said they ran off the road and hit a tree.”
“Huh. Just like that. Just ran right off the road and hit a tree? Nothing else happened?” I asked, watching my dad. Like most people, he had a tell. A thing he did that signaled if he was lying or not. He always pulled his eyebrows down over his eyes, just for a second or two, but it was unmistakable.
“Well, there was one other interesting piece of information.” The spoon he was stirring his iced tea with clanged against the sides of the glass, pecking at my already fraying nerves until I thought they’d snap like a rubber band wound too tightly.
“What?” I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers. I could feel a headache breaking through.
“The reason their car ran off the road. It was a big gust of wind. It came out of nowhere. Just a brutal force that, according to Rory, seemed to pick the car up and fling it against the tree.”
“Himmel.”
My dad shrugged. “Probably. If it was Himmel, he weakened himself. He attacked, but he didn’t succeed. If what the hobgoblins said is true, then he’s weaker. And that’s a good thing for us.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “that’s a very good thing for us.”
If we can trust the hobgoblins.
“Milayna?” Ben stood at my bedroom door in his superhero pajamas. I lowered the book I was reading and smiled. Scooting over on the couch, I patted the spot next to me. He skipped inside my room clambering to sit beside me.
“What’s up, Ben? Aren’t you supposed to be in bed? It’s almost midnight.” I tried to sound stern, like my mom would, but Ben giggled and I couldn’t keep from smiling.
“I was waiting for you. You and Chay stay out late. What do you do so late at night, anyway?” Ben pulled the quilt down from the back of the couch and covered up with it.
“Um… tonight we saw a movie.”
“Oh.”
He laid his head on one of the pillows and snuggled deeper into the quilt. I picked up my book and started reading. It wasn’t too long before I heard Benjamin’s soft snores beside me. I looked at him and rolled my eyes.
Geez, you’re drooling all over the place.
Putting my book down, I scooped Benjamin into my arms and carried him to his room. I laid him on his bed and tucked the blankets around him.
“Milayna?” Ben whispered as I walked away.
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever have dreams?”
I walked back to his bed and sat on the edge.
That’s what this is about. He had a bad dream.
“We all do. Did you have a bad dream?”
“Not really,” he said with a shrug. “Sometimes, I dream that something bad is going to happen to someone and then it does.”
My blood ran cold and a lump formed in my chest, making it hard to breathe.
He’s having visions already. He’s too young!
“What if you knew something bad was going to happen to someone you didn’t like? Would you try to stop it?” Ben asked.
I nodded and pulled the blanket tighter over him. “We should no matter who it is.”
“Dale is a bully. He’s mean to everyone. Why should I care what happens to him when he doesn’t care about anyone but himself?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
He bit his lip and thought about what I said. “Then maybe I don’t want to do what’s right,” he said finally.
My heart sank. It slowed in my chest. Everything around me seemed to slow. The clock’s ticking, my heart’s beating, Ben’s speaking—it all slowed to the point that it sounded like garbling. Then, as if someone flicked a switch, everything righted itself and the sensation left, jarring me back into real time.
Oh no, no, no. You have to want to do what’s right, Ben.
“I had a dream that something was going to happen to Dale and then it did,” Ben said.
“Were you awake when you had the dream?”
“Yeah. Weird, huh?”
“Mm-hmm.” I brushed his hair from his face. “Do you have a lot of dreams like that?”
“Sometimes.” He shrugged.
I didn’t have visions until I was almost eighteen. He’s too young to deal with them.
“Do you ever have dreams about what’s going to happen to people? Like bad stuff?” He looked at me, his eyes wide with curiosity.
“Um, sometimes,” I said. “Tell me more about your dreams.”
“They show me what to do to stop bad things from happening to people. Sometimes, I’m not even sleeping when the dreams come. They make me feel weird.”
Did I have visions at his age? I remember seeing things and… yes! I did have them. Why didn’t I remember until now?
“What do you do, Ben?”
“I do what the dream tells me to. Then it goes away.” He shrugged one shoulder.
“Do you want to do what the dream tells you? If you could stop it, would you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you like helping people? Doing what’s right?” I held my breath, waiting for his answer.
This might be it—the point when he reaches the age of accountability and enters a time of safety from Azazel.
“I don’t know. Is that what I’m supposed to want to do?”
Damn. If this is his turning point, he’s turning the wrong way.
“Yes, frog freckle, it is. You should want to help people. It’s what’s right.”
“Oh.” He pulled the blankets up to his chin and closed his eyes. The conversation was over. He was asleep almost instantly. I watched him for a few seconds before turning and leaving his room, closing the door softly behind me.
He’s close. Real close.
***
“Why didn’t you tell me I had visions when I was Benjamin’s age?”
My dad’s hand stilled. The glob of peanut butter he was scooping out of the jar dropped with a splat on the countertop. “Um… huh?”
“I remember them, Dad.”
“We didn’t see the need in telling you. A
s soon as you reached the age of accountability and entered the safety period, the visions stopped and you forgot about them. There was no reason to bring them up.” He grabbed a paper towel and wiped up the peanut butter, licking the sticky goo from his fingers.
“Ben’s having visions.”
He wadded up the paper towel and tossed it in the bin. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” He sighed. “What did he say about them?”
“Not much, really. Just that they make him feel weird, he’s awake when he has them, if he does what they tell him, they go away, and…” I hesitated. I didn’t want to say the next thing out loud. Then it’d be real. If I didn’t repeat it, it was like Ben never said it. If I told my dad, we’d have to face the fact that Ben’s choice might not be the one we hoped for.
“What, Milayna? What else did he say?” my dad interrupted my thoughts.
“That he isn’t sure he likes helping people, especially people he doesn’t like.”
My dad stopped screwing the lid on the peanut butter jar. He stared down at the red lid, not speaking for what felt like an eternity. “It doesn’t mean anything,” he said finally. “A lot of kids struggle with what’s right and wrong when it comes to other kids, especially those they have problems with. It doesn’t mean he won’t make the right choice when the time comes.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Sure I am,” he said a little too cheerfully. “Ben’s a great kid. He’ll make the right choice.”
My dad finished screwing the lid on the peanut butter jar and put it in the refrigerator. He put the bread in the pantry along with the grape jelly. Leaving his sandwich lying on the counter, he walked out of the kitchen.
I took the peanut butter jar out of the refrigerator and put it in the pantry, grabbing the jelly. I wrapped his sandwich in plastic wrap and placed it in the fridge with the jelly. As much as we tried to tell ourselves, and each other, we weren’t worried, we were. Benjamin was at his most vulnerable, which meant we had to be extra careful in everything we did. We couldn’t let Azazel have the upper hand—Ben’s life depended on it.
Turning off the kitchen light, I wandered down the hall toward the stairs. I saw them standing under the streetlight outside the front window as I passed. Their unnatural, pasty-white skin seemed to glow in the darkness, even with the lapels of their trench coats lifted to hide their faces.
The Innocent Page 21
