by Mary Ting
When I glanced away shyly, the girls around us gave me dirty looks. I didn’t understand why they were so mean. Then I heard the whispers.
“Are they dating?”
“Who is she?”
“He’s supposed to ask me to the homecoming dance.”
To distract myself, I glanced over at the other crowd. Some of them were standing and laughing, so I couldn’t see who they were surrounding.
As I tuned out the conversation around me, I focused on that table, trying to spy on them. With all the noise in the cafeteria, it was difficult to home in directly on them. Seeing so many humans in one room distracted me. After I took a couple of bites of my sandwich, I set it down.
“Here she comes.” Kohl, the redhead from the ice cream shop, snickered. Something about Kohl warned me not to trust him. I assumed he was a football player from his size.
“Freak!” another one shouted when a girl passed by our table.
A loud groan from Kohl got everyone’s attention as his plate landed on his shirt. It wasn’t an accident, though it came off like Kohl had done it to himself. He had his arms wrapped around his plate, which still stuck to the front of him. I could imagine the fries and ketchup smeared on his blue shirt.
A thin, petite girl who had passed by caught my attention, not only for what she wore—black boots, black shirt, long black skirt, and long black hair with streaks of pink on both sides—but also for what she had done. She’d used her magic in front of humans. That’s if she had actually done it and Kohl hadn’t done something stupid to blame it on her. If she had flipped his plate, no wonder they were afraid of her.
I wondered what kind of supernatural being she was. Could she be the first one we’d encountered in Hawaii? I bubbled with excitement. Then I wondered what the heck I was thinking. What if she was evil? Maybe I should get to know her better and find out. I didn’t sense any warning about her from my angel instincts.
“What the hell?” Kohl barked, wiping the ketchup off his shirt with a napkin. His green eyes glared hard at her and they might as well have been red as his hair.
“Why are they calling her freak and who is she?” I whispered to Jack. I stood up and picked up my tray.
Jack got out of his seat and leaned into me. “Her name is Milani. The rumors say strange things happen when she’s around.”
“Like what?” I asked in curiosity, heading to the trash bin with Jack. I watched Milani go to the big crowd I had been observing a few minutes ago. She got someone’s attention because that person stood up like she lit him on fire. From what I could see from the back of him, he had dark hair and broad shoulders. His height and build were like my brother’s. Could he be a fallen angel disguised as a human?
“Who’s the guy who just stood up?” I asked Jack, throwing my half-eaten lunch away and shoving the apple in my backpack.
Jack glanced in that direction and looked away. After he threw his trash away, he stood beside me. “His name is Eli. He’s every girl’s dream.” He rolled his eyes. “He always has a swarm of girls around him, like Abel. They’re both so lucky.”
I tried to get a peek at Eli, but he sat back down again. As I turned to head back the other way, he looked toward me as if he knew I’d been talking about him. Our eyes locked. A buzz of strong attraction pulled me to him. His look alone made me breathless, and I couldn’t understand why. A gentle breeze whizzed around me and I shivered. It was the oddest feeling. My body had never experienced the need to quiver before.
Though it seemed impossible, in no time he stood in front of me. He appeared like a ghost, then became translucent, and then took on the form of black mist outlining the shape of his face and body. The beauty and the mystery of this supernatural being hypnotized me. As his entity flickered in and out, a soft wind lightly tousled my hair and caressed my body. To my surprise, an incredible warmth filled me. I gasped, unsure of what to do. I should be deathly afraid of the unknown, but I wasn’t.
His stare never faltered. It reached to the depths of my soul as he breathed in the air of my existence, and I his. He smelled like a mixture of sweet coconut and the freshest greens of nature. As his lips moved closer to mine, a cool mist floated out of his mouth, then back in, and I felt my body levitate, feeling weightless as a withered leaf falling from a branch swaying with the autumn wind.
Eli’s dark, menacing eyes told me he was dangerous. Something wicked ran in his blood. I sensed it with every angel instinct in me. Yet, at the same time, I sensed something good. How could I feel both at the same time? Then a strong urge forced me to close my eyes. When I opened them, he had vanished. He was sitting with his back to me again, as if what I had experienced was only a figment of my imagination. What the heck just happened?
“Lucia? Are you okay?” I heard Jack’s voice, snapping me out of my trance.
“Jack? Did you see? Was he just...?”
Jack had no idea what I meant. I stopped asking him questions, realizing some kind of supernatural activity had happened. Stunned by how easily Eli had controlled me, he was...what?
Before I could take a step, Zach placed his hand under my elbow and led me out of the cafeteria.
“What happened? You were standing there like you saw a spirit. Did you?” he whispered.
His question took me aback. The type of demons we called Possessors could travel without humans seeing them. Eli had been sitting down; therefore, he had support from Milani, who had been standing behind him. Had he gone out of his body to do what he had done? He was sniffing me out. Did he know what I was? I looked up at my brother.
“I-I think maybe.” I’d been told of Possessors but had never encountered one before. But...maybe he was one of them.
Chapter 5
We met Uncle Davin in the parking lot after school as planned. I couldn’t believe all the waves and cheers from the students.
“Bye, Mr. President, see you tomorrow.”
“You rock, Mr. President.”
“Mr. President, you’re awesome.”
Mr. President was all smiles, radiating pride and happiness. Yup, my uncle, folks. And Zach and I had even received acknowledgments too.
Uncle Davin redefined what popular meant for me. He was Mr. Popular. Maybe he could find the answers faster than we could, with his charisma. He sure had a way with the humans.
“Shotgun.” I jumped into the front passenger seat, recalling someone saying that in a movie we’d seen recently. Zach raised a brow at me, threw his backpack in the back, and got in.
“How was your first day?” Uncle Davin asked, pulling out of the parking lot.
Watching out the window, I saw how happy some students were, lingering with their friends, while some rushed to get home. Spotting Cayden with his group, I wondered why he was so mean to Jack. The girls who gave me dirty looks came to mind and how some of Abel’s friends weren’t friendly to Jack.
“Why are they so mean?” I asked. “I was excited to get to know them. I know you warned us it would be different from Crossroads or being with other Venators, but I don’t understand.”
“Jealousy,” my uncle spat. “It’s such a strong emotion. Once you cave in to it, it can make you do heartless things. Your heart becomes cold and you turn into this ugly creature. It takes over and you have no control of your actions. Humans can’t help it. They are flawed, as we are. The only difference is they are in an environment of temptation and we’re not.”
“Well, we are now,” Zach said matter-of-factly, looking out the window.
“Why would Cayden be jealous of Jack?” I questioned.
“Who’s Cayden?” Uncle Davin asked.
“Jack is smart. Cayden isn’t,” Zach explained. “Cayden needs to feel superior. I think it’s called ego. So he needs to put Jack down, make him feel like dirt. I don’t understand how that makes him feel better, but I guess it does.” Zach glanced over his shoulder to the rear window. “I think you ran a red light, Uncle Davin. You might want to slow down a bit.”
Uncle Davin ignored Zach’s comment. “Who’s Cayden?”
“Never mind him,” we said in unison and then I turned to Zach.
“Jinx,” he said before I could. We’d learned this strange behavior from Uncle
Davin.
“Who’s Cayden?” Uncle Davin asked for the third time.
“He’s just a kid who’s mean to Jack,” I replied.
Uncle Davin swerved the car to the right. “Oh, why didn’t you tell me that in the first place? I want you to find out more about him. He could be a demon.”
I stopped fidgeting with my backpack strap. “Why? Because all demons are mean and evil? I thought you said there are demons who are good.” I was thinking of Eli, though I wasn’t sure I could classify him as a demon. Demons came in countless different forms.
Uncle Davin looked at me and then back to the road ahead. “True, but a very small percentage. Did you find out anything unusual today, other than Cayden?”
Zach and I stared at each other. We were so busy being engulfed in the high school environment, we didn’t get a chance to ask. It would have seemed strange if my first interaction with the humans was to talk about the kidnappings. We planned to observe and see if someone brought it up first, and then ask questions.
As far as the unusual part, we didn’t get a chance to talk about what had happened in the cafeteria, but I knew it alarmed Zach too, especially since he found me standing there, in a daze. I pondered whether I should bring it up to my uncle or wait until I found out more information about Eli.
“Nothing so far,” Zach answered for both of us. “We’ll start asking tomorrow.”
“We don’t have time to sit around. We start today. Ask Jerk over for dinner. We’ll start with him,” Uncle Davin said, pulling into the garage.
“Who’s Jerk? Did you meet a new friend?” Zach asked me, unclicking his seatbelt. We didn’t need them, but Uncle Davin made us put them on.
I got out of the car and slammed the door. “He means Jack. I don’t know why he doesn’t like him.” Swinging my backpack over my shoulder, I invited Jack via text to come over for dinner.
“It’s not just Jack. He doesn’t like any boys coming near you.” Zach held the door for me, letting me enter first. “Personally, neither do I. I’ll be nice to Jack as long as he keeps his hands to himself.”
“How am I supposed to make friends and ask questions? And I don’t need another uncle. I need a brother. How are we supposed to work together if I’m mad at you? We need to be on the same side.”
Zach stopped in his tracks, squinted at the ceiling, and then looked at me. “You’re right.” He went to his room.
Surprised by his words, I happily walked into the kitchen to join my uncle. “What are we going to eat for dinner?” I checked my phone when it vibrated to see an incoming text. “It’s Jack. He said he would love to.”
Uncle Davin rolled his eyes, opening and closing the dark wood cabinets. “I bet he would,” he mumbled under his breath.
I dropped my backpack. Uncle Davin wheeled at the loud thump, and then turned back to the cabinets again, opening more, only to come out empty-handed. What was he searching for?
“Sorry,” I apologized, resting my elbows on the white granite island as I admired the stainless steel fridge, oven, and dishwasher. They always gleamed since we never used them. “It’s just that your comments about Jack upset me. You don’t know him or his intentions. He’s a sweet boy. He makes me happy, but it doesn’t mean I like him in the human way. It’s strange to be in a human world, trying to fit in, let alone trying to fit in during the most awkward stage in their lives.”
Uncle Davin took a pot and a pan out of the pantry and placed them on the stove, and then he reached back in to pull out two bags of noodles. I was surprised he’d found anything at all. Perhaps the previous owner had left them there. We didn’t have any food, besides the bags of chips Uncle Davin liked to munch on and a few drinks and salsa in the refrigerator. This would be our first attempt at cooking. “I guess we’re having—” he read the label, “—spaghetti. Whatever that is. I’ll have to look up how to cook it. I suppose I have to add some things to make these weird-looking noodles tasty.”
Then he inhaled a deep breath and bored his eyes into mine. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll try to be nice. It’s just that you and Zach mean the world to me. I have to protect you the best I know how in this dangerous environment. Plus, your father will kick my butt if anything happens to the two of you. I would kick my own butt if anything happened to you. Do you understand?”
I nodded with a smile. I could feel his love for me. “I understand.”
“I’ve watched you both grow up since you were tiny babies in my arms. I love you both so much it broke my heart when you started your training as Venators. At that moment I realized you were no longer children. You were at the age when you could slip through my fingers. You were ready for battles, and I could no longer protect you. It’s one of the hardest emotions I’ve had to deal with. If I feel this way, I can imagine how your parents must feel.” Uncle Davin pulled me into his arms and then let go. “Can you understand where I’m coming from?”
“Yes,” I replied, grateful for everything he’d done for us. He had been there when we were born, when we took our first flight, and when we learned to use the bow and swords.
He’d placed us first, before his own life, and he still would, even when we were old enough not to need him anymore. Of course, being a Venator mentor, that was what he did. However, it was different with us because he had a special relationship with our parents. They’d been through many trials and tribulations together, and their friendship was built on respect and trust. We were a family.
“Now that you understand me better”—he caressed my cheek—“be a sweetheart and help me make dinner. I have no idea what I’m doing. What was I thinking? I’ve never cooked in my life.”
“Why don’t you order takeout instead?” Zach suggested, walking in on our conversation.
Uncle Davin and I exchanged glances. “Why didn’t I think of that?” he said, shrugging. “In the meantime, you two do your homework.” He picked up his car keys from the dining room table. “Be calm. Uncle Davin will be right back with dinner.” He waggled his brows. “Whoever came up with the idea of takeout, thank you.”
Chapter 6
“Spaghetti tastes great,” Jack praised, swallowing a bite. “It tastes just like Romeo’s.”
I twirled the noodles with my fork, mimicking what Jack had done before he shoveled it into his mouth. “Romeo’s?” I asked.
When Uncle Davin coughed lightly, I knew he’d gone there for takeout.
“Oh, it’s an Italian restaurant nearby. It’s one of my favorite places to eat. I should take you there to try it.”
Uncle Davin cleared his throat and scowled. Jack caught on. “I meant, we should all go there. I didn’t mean just Lucia and me. Although I wouldn’t mind taking her there, but I know you wouldn’t agree. Not that I would try to do anything. I mean—not that I was thinking about it. She’s a great friend. And...” Jack rambled nervously.
“It’s okay, Jack.” I placed my hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to explain. We all know what you mean.”
Jack took a big gulp of his water. It seemed to calm the redness in his face. “So, Zach, are you planning to ask anyone to the homecoming dance? I overheard a group of girls saying they wanted to go with you, but of course, you can only ask one.”
Zach stopped chewing, narrowed his eyes, and then looked at me for help. We’d never discussed the topic before. After all, it was only the first day of school.
“I don’t know.” Zach sounded hesitant.
“You have to go. It’s your senior year,” Jack pressed on, breaking his garlic bread in half.
“What Zach meant to say is he doesn’t know who to ask.” I winked at my brother.
“How about you, Lucia?” Jack asked. His tone sounded a bit off.
“I don’t
know.”
“You mean Abel hasn’t asked you yet?” Jack chewed on the bite of bread he’d just taken.
“No. Is he going to?” My cheeks flushed with heat.
Jack seemed worried. “Oh, I don’t know. I thought from the way he—it seemed—I mean, he didn’t tell me anything. Did you want to go with him?” He took a bite of his meatball.
Instead of answering his question, I diverted the attention to him, “How about you?”
He swallowed and took a gulp of his water. “No way,” he stated with conviction.
“Why not? Is it that bad?” Zach twirled and twirled his fork. He wasn’t quite as successful as I had been. It was tricky to get a bite of noodles on it.
Jack curled his lips to one side with a hint of mischief. “Well, I know this sounds silly, but it’s on Friday the thirteenth.”
I turned to my uncle, silently asking him for advice. I had no idea what he meant by that.
Uncle Davin took a bite of garlic bread and said, “Can you explain? I’m not sure what you mean. I know it’s a superstitious day, but everyone has their own opinion on the reason behind it. What’s yours?”
Jack placed his fork down and crossed his arms with his elbows on the table. His expression was stoic but serious. “Every Friday the thirteenth, for as long as I can remember, something bad has happened.”
That caught our attention, big time. I sat up, as did my uncle and Zach. Jack paused for a second. Then he took a sip of water and continued, “I thought it was just a tale, but last year confirmed it was true. Friday the thirteenth came twice, and both times high school teens went missing. One was from our school—her name was Clarissa—and there were a few others from other high schools. I’ve forgotten their names. It’s very strange that they would disappear on Friday the thirteenth. Coincidently, it also confirmed what my grandfather told me before he passed away.”
“What did he say?” Uncle Davin asked before Jack had a chance to say anything more. The Divine Elders had sent us to Earth to find answers, and all along the boy next door, who annoyed my uncle, seemed to have had them.