Milayna's Angel (35 page)

“Milayna? Are you okay?” I was standing in
the doorway. My mouth went dry, and I couldn’t get enough oxygen.
Xavier looked at me, worry lines framing his mouth. The people
behind me sighed loudly, irritated that I was blocking the
entrance.

“Hmm? Yeah, I’m fine.” Forcing a smile, I
stepped through the door. I sucked in a breath, my hand flying to
my throat before remembering I’d taken off the necklace with Chay’s
ring before coming to the dance.

The banquet hall was decorated with pine
trees draped in colored lights. Glass snowflakes hung from the
ceiling, catching the lights like mini-prisms and sending rainbows
throughout the room. It looked so much like the ice rink at the zoo
where Chay gave me my promise ring that it stole my breath and a
lump grew in my throat. My hands started to shake, and I could feel
the sting of tears behind my eyes.

I gotta get outta here.

“Muriel? Bathroom.” I walked away.

“Is she okay?” I heard Xavier ask behind
me.

“Oh, yeah, it’s just a girl thing. We always
travel to the bathroom in packs.” Muriel burst through the bathroom
door and hurried to me. “Vision?”

“No.”

She tilted her head. “Then what?”

“Chay.” I could feel my lip start to quiver
and bit down on it hard.

“You saw him?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head.

She sighed. “Then what, Milayna?”

“He gave me the promise ring at the ice rink
at the zoo.”

“And the prom’s theme is…”

“Yeah. It caught me off guard is all. I’ll be
okay in a minute. It just… I wasn’t expecting it. Could you tell
them I’m touching up my makeup or something stupid like that?”

“Okay, take as much time as you need.”

“Thanks, Muriel.”

I pulled myself together and rejoined Xavier
minutes later, smiling like nothing was wrong while I was dying on
the inside, strangled by memories of a man I couldn’t give up on,
but who clearly didn’t want me.

I’m pathetic. If there was ever a real-life
soap opera, I’d be a candidate. I have an angel in love with me,
whom I don’t love back. A half angel I love who tried to kill me
and then walked out of my life—just vanished while I wait like an
idiot for his return when he’s made it clear he doesn’t want me.
Yeah, I’ve got this love stuff figured out. I should start my own
advice column. Sure.

Prom was my first time going out since Chay
left. The first few times Xavier asked me to go to prom with him,
I’d said no. But Muriel bugged me—make that nagged the crap out of
me—about it so much, I finally gave in. She declared it a double
date with her and Drew. I made it clear to Xavier it was a
non-date, date. Friends only. He agreed and that was how we ended
up at prom, in each other’s arms, swaying to a ridiculously slow
love song.

Shabby apartment… rainy night

Laying my head on Xavier’s shoulder, I closed
my eyes. I was getting used to the flashes of images streaming
through my consciousness.

TV dinner… a far-off wail of a police car…
the news playing on television.

My eyes flew open. The news was playing on
television in my vision. Straining to listen to the broadcast, I
was sure it was a way to locate him. If only the reporter would
mention a city, we’d have somewhere to start a search. Up to that
point, no one knew where to begin looking for Chay. He’d
disappeared from his life without leaving a breadcrumb to follow.
The news broadcast was my breadcrumb.

KHOU news…

I held my breath, waiting for a mention of a
city or a state, but like so many times before, the vision failed
me. They gave me small snippets, brief glimpses of his life, but
nothing helpful. That vision was no different.

***

“Thank you, Xavier. I had a really nice
time,” I told him when he walked me to my door after prom. It was
late, my feet hurt, and I wanted to get out of my dress in the
worst way. The last thing I wanted was for him to lean in and kiss
me… That was what I told myself anyway.

When he leaned down, tilting his head to
angle his mouth over mine, I found myself rising on my tiptoes to
meet him. When his arms slid around my waist, pulling me closer, I
went willingly. When his tongue tentatively touched my lips, they
parted. And when the kiss ended and he pulled away, my hand fisted
around his shirt front and pulled him back for another, and, for a
moment, thoughts of Chay and visions vanished.

***

I changed out of my gown and into a pair of
ratty sweatpants and a T-shirt. Walking by my desk to hang up my
dress, the bright pink top of my laptop caught my eye. Picking it
up, I quietly—I didn’t want to wake Benjamin—turned it on, opening
the internet browser. I did a search for the news station’s call
letters, KHOU. I stared at the screen for a beat. My heart raced
and my insides twisted in knots. I couldn’t believe we finally had
a break… We finally had a place to start looking.

KHOU: Channel eleven… Houston.

My hand shook when I reached for the phone.
My fingers trembled so violently that I had to redial the phone
number twice. The phone rang five times before her voice, thick
from sleep, answered.

“Mrs. Roberts? I think Chay’s in
Houston.”

28

Monday morning, I walked outside on my way to
school when I saw them. Two red bodies stood in the drive, getting
soaked by the spring rain. I thought about ignoring them. Then I
had the thought of trying to run them down—smashed garden gnomes
came to mind. But curiosity got the better of me, and I decided I
wanted to know what they had to say more than I wanted to run them
over.

“What?” I walked down the driveway, trying to
keep my umbrella from blowing away.

Friendly looked at me with wide eyes. He
looked scared. “Shh,” he hissed, his finger to his lips. “He’s
coming for you, Milayna. You need to leave.”

I rolled my eyes. “Who’s coming?
Abaddon?”

“Shh!”

“C’mon, this is getting old. Either come up
with a new routine or quit bothering me. I’ve had enough of the
both of you. Now go before I run you down with my car.”

“You’ll be sorry.” Scarface laughed just as
two puffs of smoke appeared, carrying them back to Hell where they
belonged.

Later that night, Benjamin looked outside and
whimpered.

“What’s wrong, frog freckle?” I went to him
and wrapped him in my arms.

“They’re back.”

I looked out the window. My heart dropped
into my stomach. A line of teens stood in the street in front of
our house. Nine total, five Evils and four demi-demons. I pulled
the drapes closed.

“They’re just acting tough, Ben. There’s
nothing to be scared of.” I wiped my sweaty palms on my
sweatpants.

I almost believed myself. Then I started
having a vision… and I knew there was plenty to be scared of.

I saw a large hole in our backyard. A glowing
light shone from the bottom. Gray arms reached out. I could hear
screaming and moaning—smell the burning flesh and rot. The angel
demons flew in the night sky overhead, cackling like they had the
night I faced Azazel. A man walked toward me. I’d never seen him
before, but I knew it was Abaddon by the way the demons and
hobgoblins cowered as he passed. The
Demon of Destruction
who everyone was scared of getting on his bad side.

The vision ended with the man, Abaddon,
walking toward me. I didn’t see what happened next. I was pretty
sure I didn’t want to.

***

It was midnight when my cell phone rang. I
grabbed it quickly before it woke Benjamin.

“Hello.”

“Milayna, wake up. The demi-demons are
walking toward your house. I’ll call Drew and Jen.”

I jumped up and reached for my shoes.

“Hello, Milayna.”

I slowly turned and stared at the man
standing in my bedroom. He was short, no more than five-foot-five,
the same height as I was. His graying hair hung in ringlets,
falling past his shoulders. He was dressed like any ordinary person
would be—in jeans and button-down shirt. In any other circumstance,
he would have looked normal, benign even. But standing in my
bedroom in the middle of the night was not a normal circumstance,
and he wasn’t a normal man. I didn’t need to ask who he was, and I
knew screaming wouldn’t do any good.

“Abaddon.”

“That’s right,” he said with a small
smile.

With lightning speed, he grabbed me by the
hair before I had time to react, flinging me across the room. I hit
the wall with a dull thud before sliding to the floor. I saw
Benjamin stir. He rolled over, pulling his Spiderman blanket up to
his chin and gripping his teddy closer to him. I tried not to cry
out. I didn’t want to wake him.

It’s better that he find me missing in the
morning and wonder where I’ve gone than see me thrown into Hell’s
pit.

Abaddon wrapped his hand around my neck,
lifting me off the floor. My feet kicked, trying to find anything
to brace themselves against.

“Listen to me and this will go a lot easier
on everyone involved. Do as I say and I’ll spare your parents and
brother unnecessary pain. I’ll make things easy for them. For you
however,” he shrugged one shoulder, “I’m afraid that ship sailed
some time ago. I’ve been looking forward to tonight, and I intend
to make it worth my wait.”

The protective barrier blocked most of his
power, but he could still fight like any other human. And the mofo
was strong.

He let go of my throat, and I fell to my
hands and knees in front of him. I tried to crawl away. He smiled
down at me before he grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me up.
Pinning my arm behind my back, he held it so tightly that his
fingernails bit into my flesh. My shoulder joint screamed in agony
when he jammed my arm further up my back. He pushed me from the
bedroom and down the hallway. I stumbled. He dragged me to the
front door, my legs flailing, trying to find something to wrap them
around. I used my free hand to hold on to the doorjamb. He easily
pulled me through the door and down the concrete steps of the
porch, my feet hitting the steps painfully as they bounced from one
to the next.

Muriel, Jen, and Drew were there, already in
a fight with the demi-demons and Evils. But nine against three
weren’t very good odds, and they were quickly overtaken. Without
Chay, our second-strongest demi and next in line to lead the group
if something were to happen to me, our group was weakened.
Broken.

“See what you have caused, Milayna?” Abaddon
gripped my face in one hand and forced me to watch the fight.

Two demi-demons were laughing as they held
Drew in place for Jake. Jake took his time with each hit, making
sure it delivered maximum pain. Drew’s left eye was already purple
and swollen shut. His lip was bloody, and blood dripped from his
mouth. His head lolled to the side, and I wasn’t sure if he could
stand up without the demi-demons help—I couldn’t tell if he was
even conscious.

Jen was still fighting, but she was losing
ground quickly. Lily and Shayla were enjoying smacking her around.
Jen would’ve been fine if it had just been the bitchy duo—she could
take Lily and Shayla without problem. But Rod and Steven were in on
the fun, too. The four circled her, taking turns jabbing and
kicking. Just when Jen would block one hit, someone else would
throw another at her. Her nose was covered in blood. She was
holding her side and hobbling on one leg. She was finished.

Muriel was trying her best to fight off the
remaining two demi-demons and help Jen, too. There were too many
fists and legs flying for me to keep up with her fight. All I could
tell for sure was that Muriel was hurt. Her face was bloody and she
held one arm close to her body, protecting it. She was done.

“Tell them to stop. Please,” I whispered
around the lump in my throat.

He’s right. I caused this.

Abaddon raised his hand. Without a word, the
fighting stopped. “It was getting boring anyway.”

Muriel’s face was already swelling from the
brutality of the fight. Blood ran down her cheek and dripped onto
the shoulder of her torn T-shirt, but instead of worrying about her
own fate, she looked at me with remorse. “I’m so sorry, Milayna.”
Tears formed in her eyes.

The group was herded together by the demons,
forced to watch as Abaddon shoved me forward to the pit. I fell to
my knees. I could see the people who had sold their souls to Azazel
and I cringed at the sight of the damned sentenced to Hell,
swirling in the yellow light. The smell of sulfur and burning flesh
was so strong that I gagged with each breath.

“Milayna!” my mom screamed from the porch
where she and my dad were cornered by a group of sickly gray
demons. Tears ran down her face. My father fought a futile battle
against the demons. The tendons in his neck were taut, the muscles
in his arms bulging as he pushed against the group, his face red
and full of rage.

“I love you,” I yelled to my parents.

“Well, Milayna, time to go. I’m not like the
idiot Azazel. I’m not going to spend time chitchatting with you. I
prefer to get things out of the way sooner rather than later. So
I’ll ask you this only once. Do you want to change your mind and
come and work for me… or do you want to die?”

I looked into the pit, smelling the sulfur,
rot, and burning flesh. I saw the fiery golden color emanating from
it, feeling the heat and tasting the char in the back of my throat.
And for a mere second, I wavered.

I don’t want to die there. I don’t want to
die now. Maybe switching sides wouldn’t be so bad. So Azazel gains
some of my power. The next demi-angel can fight him. I’m too tired.
So very, very tired of it all.

I looked into Abaddon’s black eyes rimmed in
red. A slow smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He knew what
I was thinking. He thought he had me…