Milayna

by Michelle K. Pickett

  I waved my hand in the air. “Hey! Am I ever going to get a straight answer?”

  “Yeah,” Chay answered Muriel.

  “Does she know yet?” Muriel asked.

  Chay ran his hand up the back of his head. “She suspects.”

  “Hello? I’m sitting right here.” I raised my hand above my head and pointed down at myself.

  “She crossed,” Muriel told me.

  I nodded. I really didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

  “She’s an Evil now.” Jen’s voice trembled. “She’s working against us.”

  “Oh… wow. I didn’t see that coming.” I put my hands on the sides of my neck and massaged.

  “There’s no way you could’ve,” Chay said quietly.

  “You did.”

  “Because I’m more attuned to what is going to hurt the group. I’ve been seeing her in my visions for a few days.”

  “So you were aware that she was going to hurt herself,” I said.

  “No, I was aware that someone was going to hurt the group. She isn’t part of the group anymore. But her absence makes us a little weaker, and it makes Azazel’s team a little stronger. Not much, and it’s nothing we can’t handle, but a little stronger.”

  “Then why did I have the vision? If there was nothing for me to correct, if there was no one for me to help, why did I have a vision?”

  “She’s underestimated your abilities. They’re getting stronger every day. Your vision wasn’t meant for you to step in and protect a human, it was meant for you to protect our group,” Muriel answered.

  “So what happens to her now?”

  “Who knows?” Drew shrugged a shoulder.

  “Who cares?” Chay answered.

  “I care!” Shayla cried, her hand on her chest. Her eyes wide, she took us all in. “She was one of us. We should all care what’s going to happen to her.”

  “She isn’t one of us anymore. Now she’s an enemy. We don’t have the luxury of caring.” Chay turned his back to Shayla and looked at me. “Let’s go.” He waited until I was settled in the car and closed the door. I waved at everyone through the window. There were no smiles or happy waves. Just somber faces and eyes mirroring betrayal.

  Chay got in the car and drove toward home. “There’s nothing we can do?” I asked.

  “About?”

  I sighed. “Lily.”

  “Yeah. Watch our backs.”

  I bagged up the garbage, set it on the kitchen floor, shook out a new bag, and stuck it into the trash bin. “This is when it would be nice if you were old enough for chores,” I grumbled to Ben. He smiled and shrugged before running down the hall with his arms stretched out, making noises like he was flying an airplane.

  I think there’s something seriously wrong with that kid.

  Hefting up the full bag, I walked out of the side door and screamed. The bag dropped onto the paved drive, and garbage spilled out of a ripped seam.

  My heart was racing, pumping adrenaline through my veins like I was a junkie. I slapped my hand over my mouth and took two deep breaths through my nose.

  His shoulder was leaning against the house and his finger was hooked around his belt loop. “You scream like a girl,” he drawled.

  “I am a girl,” I said from behind my hand.

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed.” A ghost of a grin touched his lips, and my heart started racing for a completely different reason than him scaring me half to death.

  “What the heck are you doing here, Chay?”

  “The others will be here in a minute. I imagine your dad will be out here, too.”

  “All right, that’s great. We’ll have a reunion. But while we wait, could you please answer my freakin’ question?”

  “What are you trained in? Judo, Jiu-jitsu, Tae Kwon Do?”

  “Tae Kwon Do, Krav Maga, and a little bit of everything else. Why?” I asked slowly.

  “Because you’re about to get a chance to use your skills. Lily and her new posse are on their way over. She thinks she can talk you into switching sides.” Pushing off the house, he walked to me. He stood so close our toes almost touched.

  “You know, I never really liked her. I should have trusted my instincts.”

  Chay laughed. The light over the door cast his face in odd shadows. He looked almost sinister. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he was the one I needed to be afraid of, but at that moment, there was nowhere else I wanted to be, and that feeling confused me. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. I didn’t want to be where Lily was, but that, it seemed, was going to be unavoidable.

  “Are you scared?” he asked, studying my face.

  “Yes,” I breathed. “Are you?”

  “Yeah, but not for the reason you think.”

  Always with the riddles.

  “Why, then?”

  He cleared his throat and lifted his hand toward my hair. And my insides went nutso. I wasn’t sure what the heck they were doing. I just knew, in that second, on my driveway with spilled garbage around our feet, I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth, held my breath, and willed his hand to keep moving.

  “Hey,” Muriel called, jogging up the driveway.

  Chay dropped his hand and turned away. “Where’s everyone else?”

  Great timing, Muriel. Just perfect.

  “Right behind me.”

  “Good. Lily is almost here.” He ran his hand across the back of his neck. Sulfur. Screaming. Fighting.

  I put my hand over my ears. “I can’t have one now!”

  Chay pulled my hands away. “Listen to me, Milayna. This is one vision you have to fight—”

  “But I can’t fight them.” I started to panic.

  “You have to try. The hobgoblins and Lily are coming to force you into a vision. They know if you’re having a vision, you’re at your weakest. They also know you’re our strongest member of the group.”

  “But I’ve never—”

  “Listen to me! No one is going to get hurt here tonight. There is no reason for the vision. You can fight it.” Chay still held my hands. He gave them a small squeeze before letting go.

  “He’s right, honey,” my dad said, walking outside and standing next to me. “This isn’t a vision for you to help a human. They are forcing you into your vision state by creating a false sense of danger. There’s nothing they can do to us.”

  “Okay. Okay, I’ll try.”

  “Good girl.” My dad gave me a quick kiss on the forehead just as the other members of our group walked up the driveway.

  Sulfur. Lily walking toward us.

  “Argh, it won’t go away,” I said, cursing violently—things I’d never said in front of my dad, and I felt my face burn with a blush. He didn’t seem to notice, or he didn’t care. My heart raced and sweat pooled at the base of my back.

  “What do you see?” Chay asked.

  “She’s coming. She’s just a few houses away. She’s alone.”

  Why is she alone? Where are the others?

  “Yeah, the hobgoblins are in the backyard,” my dad said.

  My head jerked up. Only Chay and dad stood in the driveway with me. The rest of the group was in the backyard. I could hear the high-pitched voices of the hobgoblins followed by the muted voices of the others.

  Chay. Gray face. Sulfur. So hot.

  “Chay,” I whispered. I didn’t know I’d said it out loud until he turned his head and peered into my eyes.

  “What?”

  “You’re going to get hurt if you stay out here.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the door. “Go inside.”

  “Bumps and bruises, that’s all. We’ll all get knocked around a little.”

  “No.” A searing pain burned the back of my eyes. I squeezed them shut, tears springing to life behind my eyelids. I pressed my fingers to them, shaking my head. “No, no, the vision is for you. They’re here for you.”

  “The hobgoblins—”

  “It’s not them,” I yelled. “It’s something else. G
o in the house. You can’t be out here.”

  Sulfur. The smell of burning meat. Ash floating in the breeze. Chay.

  I heard his name. Just a whisper. I ignored what my dad and Chay told me. I focused on the vision instead of fighting it. Something was wrong. They thought it was Lily coming to convince me to join Azazel. But she was just a diversion. They were really after Chay. Until I turned eighteen, Chay was the highest-ranking DA in the group. He was the strongest, and he gave the members of our group a unique advantage, an advantage Azazel wanted to dispose of. Getting rid of Chay would weaken the group and make it easier for Azazel to pick us off one by one until we were all dead or converted.

  I dropped my fingers from my eyes, the tears rolling down my cheeks. “Please trust me. You can’t be here.”

  My dad clamped a hand on Chay’s shoulder. “It’s all right, son. We have to protect each other. If Milayna is sure you’re in danger, you need to listen.”

  Chay walked in the house, slamming the door behind him. I heard him slide down the door and sit on the kitchen floor, a string of profanities spewing from his mouth. As soon as he was safely inside, the vision dissolved.

  “Stubborn, isn’t he?” Dad asked with a chuckle.

  “You have no idea.” I looked up and saw Dad’s face set in hard lines.

  I tensed and turned in time to see Lily walk around the evergreen tree and start up the driveway. “Hi, Milayna.”

  I took a step toward her. “You’re not welcome here, Lily. Leave.”

  “I’m not welcome? This isn’t like in the movies where you can keep the vampires away by not inviting them inside.” She laughed. The sound was garish and ugly. I stared at her. “Where’s Chay?”

  “He’s not here.”

  “You know, Azazel and his demons can tell when you’re lying.”

  I shrugged a shoulder. “Good for Azazel. Color me impressed. My answer is still the same. Chay’s not here.”

  “Too bad. I was hoping he’d come out and play.”

  “I guess you’ll have to settle for me,” I said with a lot more bravado than I felt.

  “You think you’re ready for me, Milayna?”

  “The question you should be asking yourself is—are you ready for me?” I smiled. “Because you’ll have to go through me to get to Chay.”

  Lily rushed me with a scream. Her face turned almost as red as the hobgoblins. I stood my ground. Partly because I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing me run and hide, of knowing how scared I really was, but mostly because I needed to prove something to myself. That I was strong enough to fight Azazel and his demons. That I was worthy of being a demi-angel.

  Lily threw a jab. I blocked it, knocking it away. She kicked. I grabbed her ankle and jerked her toward me, jamming the heel of my hand into her nose. Thick, foamy blood oozed from her flaring nostrils, and a look of shock registered on her face. Before she could regain her composure, I kneed her in the gut and pushed her away. She stumbled down the driveway before falling backward and hitting her head on the concrete. It took her a moment to stand. When she finally stood, she held her head, looking dizzy and disoriented.

  I immediately wanted to go to her and check her injuries. Make sure she wasn’t hurt too badly. Ask her why she betrayed the group and tell her it wasn’t too late to change her mind and come back. Then she opened her mouth and my hopes of her returning to us died.

  “You’ll be sorry, Milayna,” she said, wiping the blood from her nose with the back of her hand. “This isn’t over.” She glared at me before stalking off into the darkness.

  With a new sense of strength, I walked into the backyard. The hobgoblins were scurrying around, swinging on the swing set, climbing the fence, shimmying up the clothesline poles, and sliding down the ropes like a zip line. They acted like a bunch of demonic toddlers hyped up on too much sugar.

  I looked at Muriel. She sat with her elbow on the picnic table and her cheek in her hand, watching the hobgoblins run through the yard. The rest of the group had similar looks of boredom on their faces.

  “Milayna,” one of the fat, red goblins said in a singsong voice. “You’ve come to play with us.”

  “Why haven’t you dealt with them?” I asked the group sitting at the table.

  “You try to catch them,” Drew snapped. “Sometimes, we just have to sit and wait for them to get bored.”

  I walked into the middle of the yard. Three of the five goblins ran over to me, chanting my name in their screeching voices. The other two were trying to figure out how to get down from the clothesline.

  “Would you please get them, Jake?” I pointed at the two pitiful excuses for goblins hanging by their hands from my mother’s clothesline, their feet kicking in the air as they cackled with glee.

  Jake plucked them from the clothesline, knocked their heads together, and dropped them to the ground. They disappeared with two small pops. All that was left was a circle of white smoke blowing in the breeze.

  “Where’s Chay?” one hobgoblin asked, looking at me with its big eyes. A tuft of black hair stood straight up on top of its head.

  I’d think they were cute if I didn’t know what they are.

  “He’s not here.”

  “Chay, Chay, Chay,” they chanted. “Come play with us.”

  “I told you, he’s not here.” I picked up one of the goblins and dropkicked him across the yard. He disappeared in midair, leaving nothing more than a puff of smoke and a violent curse behind.

  The last two grew angry. Their faces changed from soft little creatures to the hard, menacing demons they were. Their eyes turned black, and a snarl tore from one’s throat.

  “You’ll be sorry you pissed us off, Milayna. He’s coming for him,” one red midget said, “and then you’re next.”

  “I’m shaking in my shoes. Get out of here before I dropkick you like I did your brother.”

  Drew walked up behind the two goblins and picked them up by the scruff of their necks. He walked to a black hole in the far corner of my yard. I didn’t see it until he dropped the goblins down it and kicked the dirt back in place. It fused together, closing the small tunnel leading to the goblins’ home down south.

  I stared at him, and he shrugged. “There’s always a portal somewhere. We just have to find it. I happened to spot that one.”

  “Where’s Lily?” Shayla asked.

  “She left.”

  “Good riddance.”

  We walked into the house through the patio doors. I saw Chay sitting with his back against the side door, still mumbling under his breath.

  “Sleeping on the job, Chay?” Drew drawled.

  “Sidelined. Bummer,” Jake said, laughing.

  “Shut up.” Chay got up and walked to me. I braced myself for the yelling to start. Instead, he brushed the hair out of my face and gazed into my eyes. “Are you okay? Did she touch you? Because if she touched you, I swear—”

  “I’m fine,” I whispered.

  He seems upset, and not just because he had to sit out the fight, if that’s what it was, but because I might be hurt. Because he cares?

  “It’s not just me he wants.” I twisted the sleeve of his shirt in my fingers and held it firmly. “You have to be careful. Promise me.”

  He let the knuckles on one hand slide down the side of my face, and I tried really hard not to lean into it. I mean, my crush was Jake. Not Chay. I tried so hard to pull away. I did. But my eyes closed, and I leaned into his hand. “I know. I heard.” His voice glided over me like silk. Soft and husky—and so damn sexy. Liquid fire moved through my body.

  I heard Muriel’s small chuckle from somewhere in the room. It couldn’t have said, “I told you dark and brooding was your type,” any louder if she’d screamed it. Forcing my eyes open, I cleared my throat. “Lily’s eighteen, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah, we all are, except you,” Chay answered. His hand rested lightly on the curve of my shoulder, his thumb rubbing my neck.

  “Then why did she
change? I mean, I thought we were immune to Azazel when we turned eighteen?” I moved away from Chay and reached into the refrigerator. Pulling out Cokes, I handed them to everyone. Chay’s fingers moved over mine when he took the can from me. His gaze never left mine.

  “No, you’re immune because of your higher rank. The others gained some strength when they turned eighteen, and the group as a whole will be stronger when you’re eighteen, but they’ll never be immune.” My dad took a long pull on his Coke. “But any one of us can turn at any time. It’s a personal choice, regardless of age or rank.”

  “Oh.”

  Crap. There’s so much to learn. This is worse than studying for the SATs.

  “Another thing I don’t understand—why don’t our neighbors hear or see what’s going on? I mean, we just had five fat, red goblins running around our yard, squealing and acting like a bunch of brats who OD’d on Red Bull and Fun Dip candy, but no one seems to have noticed.”

  “Well, it helps that the lots in this subdivision are an acre each and the perimeter of ours is mostly wooded,” my dad said, easing into a chair. “But the truth is, most people are blind to otherworldly things. What you see and hear as a demi-angel is much different from what their minds are capable of understanding.

  “That’s one reason we can keep Ben from being tainted by what we see and do. His mind isn’t ready to accept the situation. But the closer to the age of accountability he gets, the more he’ll understand, and the more he’ll see.

  “Demons are around us every day, but people don’t see them. It’s the same when they’re here. We can have all the fury of Hell in our backyard, and the neighbors won’t see it.”

  Chay took a drink of his Coke and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “We probably will.”

  A frown pulled at my dad’s mouth. “True, this is going to get ugly.”

  Four weeks, two days until my birthday.

  Compared to what was happening in my life, school was even more of a bore than usual. The visions took over. I had them at school, at home, and anywhere I happened to be. If there was a human in danger and I could step in, I had to. I was learning to let the visions have their way. It became easier with each one. Not fun, necessarily, but easier. I’d do what they wanted me to, and then go about my life like normal. Because it was normal. At least for me.

  The only bright spot in my school day was Chay. Jake had become a distant memory. Oh, he was still gorgeous and charming, but he wasn’t Chay… who also happened to be gorgeous but was definitely not charming most days. He had his moments, though, and I was beginning to think more and more about him and less and less about Jake. That made me feel off-balance. I knew where I stood when it came to Jake, which was nowhere. He had Heidi, the cheerleader. Rah-frickin-rah. I wasn’t in the picture.