He was fighting the vision, but it overtook him again and he began struggling. The bridge was broken, and I lost my connection with him. But I knew from our brief connection that he was in there, and I knew what was happening to him was beyond his control.
“Milayna, get out of here,” my dad yelled.
I ignored him. “Chay, I love you. You’re strong, good, and kind. Abaddon isn’t stronger than you. Fight.”
“Milayna, go,” my dad said, straining to keep his hold on Chay.
“No, Dad. This isn’t Chay. Something is forcing him to do this. He wouldn’t hurt me.”
“He just tried to strangle you!”
“I’m calling the police.” My mom picked up the phone.
I grabbed it from her hand. “No, Mom, please. This isn’t his fault. It’s Azazel or Abaddon. I saw his emotions. I connected with him. He’s confused and scared. It isn’t him!”
I turned back to Chay and cupped his face in my hands, my thumb rubbing gently over his cheek. “Listen to me. I love you. You love me. You would never hurt me. Fight this. Fight whoever is doing this.” I grazed my lips over his. “I love you,” I whispered again.
He stilled. Slowly, his eyes cleared. “Milayna?” he said, confused. He looked around. “What have I done?”
“It wasn’t you…”
Hesitantly, my dad let him go. Chay pulled his arms free and looked down at them. He ran his fingers over the scratches and the cut across his forearm. Raising his eyes to my neck, he lifted his fingers to the bruises that were already forming, stopping just before touching me, his hand hovering in the air.
“I have to get out of here.” He dropped his hand and pushed through my dad and uncle toward the door. Flinging it open, he flew through it, taking the porch steps two at a time.
“Wait!” I yelled after him.
“It’s not safe, Milayna. I can’t be around you.”
I watched as he ran down the street until he was swallowed by darkness.
26
Gone
Sunday afternoon, I received a phone call from Mr. Roberts, Chay’s father. Chay hadn’t gone home after leaving Muriel’s house the night before.
“Do you know anywhere he could have gone?” Mr. Roberts asked me, worry tingeing his voice.
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Did he say anything to you about leaving? Did something happen?”
I hesitated. “Um… he didn’t say anything about leaving.”
“But something happened, didn’t it? Chay’s been upset about something for weeks. He wouldn’t talk to his mother or me about it, but you know what it is. Don’t you, Milayna?”
“Yes. I mean, I do now. I didn’t know. Not until last night.”
“Tell me.”
“Chay tried to… Well, that’s not exactly right. Someone was controlling him. I think Abaddon forced a vision on him, and Chay tried to…”
“What?” He was growing impatient.
“He tried to kill me last night.”
He slammed the phone down, hanging up on me.
***
By Monday morning, everyone in the group knew what had happened and that Chay was missing. No one had heard from him despite their numerous calls and texts.
Tuesday came and went without word from him. I texted and called at least a hundred times over the two days. It was Tuesday evening before someone finally answered the phone.
“You can stop calling, Milayna. He doesn’t have his phone with him,” Mrs. Roberts said on the other end of the line.
“Oh.” Several moments of silence stretched between us before I said, “Have you heard anything?”
“No.” She started to cry.
“I’m so sorry.” My voice was thick around the huge lump in my throat.
She clicked off the line. The last thing I heard was a mother’s sobs over her missing son.
***
I’m sitting on the swing on our back deck. The same swing Chay and I sat on together hundreds of times. I sway slowly, waiting for him. He jumps the back fence, and I smile.
“Hi,” he says, jogging up the deck stairs. Bending down, he kisses me before sitting next to me. He threads our fingers together, smiling.
“Hey,” I say. “I wondered when you’d get here. What took you so long?”
“There was something I had to do first,” he answers.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here now.” I lay my head on the back of the swing and watch the sun slowly creep below the horizon. The sky is painted in shades of orange and yellow as the last rays shine through the puffy, white clouds. “Pretty.”
“Yeah,” he answers with a squeeze of my hand. “I love you, Milayna. Always remember that.”
Turning to look at him, I watch as he slowly fades away. I look down where our hands are intertwined. I don’t see his hand, but a sickly gray one with long, black nails. I look up. A demon sits next to me, smiling a grotesque smile. Razor-like teeth hanging below its lip.
“He warned you he’d take away the ones you loved,” the demon hisses.
I sat up in bed, screaming. Muriel jumped out of her bed and hurried to me. “Milayna? It was just a dream,” she said, her voice soft and soothing.
My parents ran into the room. My mom sat on the edge of the bed, pushing the hair out of my face. “Another nightmare?”
I nodded my head, hot tears burning my eyes.
My mom lay down next to me and wrapped me in her arms. I closed my eyes, but I still saw images of Chay disappearing and a demon taking his place, so I kept my eyes open. I didn’t go back to sleep. Lying in the dark, I wondered where Chay was. What he was doing. If he was okay.
It’d been a week and no one had heard from him.
***
Two weeks. Still no word from Chay and no new visions of someone trying to kill me. I wouldn’t admit to myself that the visions stopping had anything to do with Chay’s disappearance. It was just a coincidence. That was all.
“Mil-lay-na,” Friendly called. I hadn’t seen the hobgoblins since before Chay left. I’d hoped they were gone for good. I should have known better. Until Abaddon was out of my life, the hobgoblins would be around.
With a sigh, I walked outside. “What do you want?”
“Nice digs,” Scarface said with a scowl.
My family and I had finally moved out of Muriel’s and rented a small house just a few doors down from our old one. We were close enough to oversee construction on our new house, but we had our own home—no more sharing a room with Muriel or fighting for bathroom time. But I still didn’t have my own room, not really. Since the night Edward tried to throw him into the pit with the demon, Ben had slept with me. He had nightmares nightly of demons and a glowing hole. I understood his nightmares, so I let him stay in my room.
“Thanks, but somehow, I don’t think you’re here to talk about my living arrangements.”
“Abaddon’s pissed.”
“And I care why?”
“You aren’t supposed to be alive.” Scarface scowled.
I shrugged a shoulder. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“Where’s Chay?” Friendly asked.
“Home.”
“No, no, no,” he said in his girly voice. “We’ve been watching. He’s not there.”
“Why have you been watching?”
“He is mad at him.” From the hushed tone the goblin used, I knew who ‘he’ was.
“Why is Abaddon mad at Chay?”
“He didn’t do what he was told,” Scarface growled.
So Abaddon was behind Chay’s visions after all.
“Chay was stronger than Abaddon’s spells.” I laughed. “Abaddon must really hate that.”
“No, Chay isn’t stronger.”
“No? Then what?”
“Love.” Friendly giggled, clapping his hands together and squeezing them so hard his fingertips bulged.
I tilted my head to the side. “Why’d Abaddon pick Chay then?”
“Abaddon didn’t p
ick him,” Friendly said. “He picked the other one.”
“Who’s the other one?” Generally, the hobgoblins were confusing. They talked in circles, using riddles, and never gave a straight answer. But at that moment, they were even more so. My head hurt, and my convo with the red munchkins from Hell wasn’t helping.
“That’s no fun. You have to figure that out yourself.”
“So… why did the other one pick Chay?”
“Stupid question, Milayna,” Scarface taunted.
Because I trusted him. He was someone I’d never see coming.
“Because the other one couldn’t do it,” Friendly sang, dancing around my feet.
Their message given, Scarface and Friendly disappeared in little plumes of white smoke, leaving the smell of sulfur behind.
The other one. Azazel? What other one? Ugh, they’re so confusing that they make studying for the SATs easy. Just let Chay come home.
***
Eighteen days. No word from Chay.
The demi-demons and Evils hadn’t been around. There were no fights, no demon sightings, and no attempts on my life. Even Rod and Jake stopped watching the house at night.
“It’s like nothing happened. They completely ignore us,” Muriel said one afternoon at lunch.
I glanced at Rod and Jake sitting at a table across from us. “I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or puts me more on guard. Maybe they’re just trying to get us to forget before they make their next move.”
“I agree with Milayna. I don’t think we should get too comfortable yet,” Drew said, tearing up a piece of doughy pizza crust. “I don’t think we’ve heard the last from Abaddon.”
“He’s never far from my mind.” I hadn’t forgotten, and I wasn’t letting my guard down. Abaddon and I still had a score to settle, and I wasn’t resting until I stood over his cold, lifeless body.
Train.
I sucked in a breath and gripped my plastic fork so hard it snapped. The image flashed quickly before my eyes. A train barreling down the tracks. I didn’t know what it meant. We didn’t have any train tracks around us. There wasn’t a station close by.
I can smell the exhaust… and something else. Something cleaner, fresher… cologne. Chay.
I stood up so fast my chair fell over with a loud bang against the tiled cafeteria floor.
Muriel put her hand on my arm. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
Closing my eyes, I concentrated on the vision. I needed a landmark, a sign. Something, anything, that would tell me where Chay was. I tried to relax and will the vision to show me something else. But like always, it came on its own terms. When I wanted to see something, I didn’t.
Drew tossed his pizza crust down and leaned forward. “You’re having a vision?”
I shook my head, muttering a frustrated curse. “Just flashes of an image. Nothing I can use.”
“What was it?”
“A train. I think it… never mind. It was nothing.”
***
I see him standing in the distance. The turquoise water behind him, waves lapping at the white, sandy shore. The sun is high in the cerulean sky.
His back is to me. I call his name, but the sound is lost in the wind. I walk toward him, calling his name again. He turns. His face is void of any emotion, masked, closed off. I stop walking. Have I made a mistake? Maybe he doesn’t want to see me.
He raises his arm, holding out his hand to me. A smile lights up his face. I laugh and run to him. He catches me against him, lifting me up in a hug, twirling me around. When he stops, I slide down his body to the ground.
The water laps at our feet as we stare into each other’s eyes. He lowers his head and kisses me gently. I wrap my arms around his neck. This is right. This is where I belong. Where ever Chay is, that’s where I need to be. He lifts his head and moves his mouth close to my ear. He murmurs something. I strain to hear.
“What?”
“I said it’s time to come home, Milayna. Abaddon is waiting.”
My blood runs cold. I pull back and look at him, dropping my arms. I see the gray-faced demon looking back at me with black, lifeless eyes.
I turn and run. The sand shifts under my feet and I slip, catching myself with my hand. I look over my shoulder. The demon is gaining on me. I push myself harder, run faster. I can hear it calling my name.
“There’s nowhere to go, Milayna. He’ll find you. Hell waits.”
I look down and see the sand disappearing. It’s falling away beneath my feet, and I realize I’m not on a beach. I’m in an hourglass. The sand is falling from one globe to the next. My time is running out. The last of the granules swirl through the hole and I slip down with them, like water circling down the drain.
At the bottom… a yellow, glowing hole. The smell of burning flesh swirls though the air. Screams of the damned bounce off the glass walls of the hourglass.
Time has run out.
Bolting upright, I looked around. I was home, in my bedroom. Benjamin lay sleeping in his bed next to mine, snoring softly.
I pushed a sweaty lock of hair off my face and lay back on my pillow. The nightmare didn’t upset me. I’d had them every night since Chay left. Besides, any dream of Chay—even a nightmare—was a good dream.
My stomach clenched so hard that I doubled over and inhaled sharply. I tried to stay quiet so I didn’t wake Benjamin, biting my lip to keep from crying out. My head pounded. The pain so intense it felt like someone was jabbing me with a hot poker from the inside.
You hear me, don’t you, Milayna?
I squeezed my eyes closed against the stabbing pains in my head. “Yes,” I gasped.
I’m coming for you.
27
Prom
Six weeks. No word from Chay.
“Dinner was great. Thank you for inviting me.” Xavier folded his napkin and laid it neatly beside his plate.
“Any time.” My mom smiled.
Yeah. Whatever, Mom. Your little dating game isn’t gonna work.
I started clearing the table, so ready for the night to be over. I just wanted to go to bed. I didn’t care that it was only seven o’clock. Sleep was the only time I dreamed, and dreams were the only time I was with Chay.
“I’ll clear the table, Milayna. Why don’t you go talk with Xavier?”
I stared at her. Was she serious? With a loud sigh, I flung my arms up in the air and turned toward the family room. I was relieved to see that Xavier was already killing space aliens with Ben in a video game. I didn’t hang around to see who won.
Minutes later, I heard him walk up behind me. Then I smelled him.
Geez, he smells good. Whatever cologne he’s wearing should be banned. It does weird things to women’s heads. Ugh!
I wiped my hands on the back of my jeans. They were sweaty even though the rest of my skin was covered in goose bumps.
Why does he make me feel this way? I love Chay, and I’m waiting for him. He’ll come home. He will.
I didn’t turn around. I could tell from the heat radiating from his body that he was standing too close. So I kept looking out the front window.
“Rod and Jake are back,” I whispered.
“I see,” Xavier said.
“I wonder what it means.”
“I don’t know. Nothing good.”
“Yeah.” I turned then. I was so stupid sometimes. I should’ve listened to my instincts and kept my back to him.
“I’m on my way out,” he murmured, gesturing toward the door.
“See you Monday at school.” I winced when my voice cracked.
Xavier didn’t move. He stood in front of me for what seemed like hours, his crystal-blue eyes looking into mine.
“He’s not worth it.” He reached out and cupped the back of my neck with one hand and placed the other on the small of my back, pulling me against him. “Waiting for him… he’s not worth it. He doesn’t deserve it.”
He lowered his head, his lips hesitating just inches
from mine. My lips parted slightly and my tongue ran across them. Xavier groaned and lowered his mouth the last few inches. Our lips touched, and my body sprang to life. It was like I’d been living in the ugly part of winter, when everything was gray and dirty, and as soon as his lips touched mine, everything turned into a beautiful, colorful spring. His kiss was gentle, and I kissed him back, opening my mouth when his tongue touched my lips.
I grabbed his arms, feeling the tight muscles flexing beneath my hands. My head swam in the smell of him, sandalwood and soap. And my tongue craved his taste—more, more, more, until I was clinging to him, pulling him against me.
His mouth left mine. I breathed his name as he kissed down my neck and across my collarbone, before moving up the other side, leaving a trail of fire everywhere he touched.
He ran his lips along my jaw to my ear. “He’s not good enough for you.” He kissed the hollow behind my ear before sucking on the lobe. “I’m here now, Milayna. I want you now.”
He kissed me again, a slow, deep kiss, before reaching up and taking my hands from around his neck. Lifting his head, he looked into my eyes. Kissing one palm and then the other, he let my arms fall gently to my sides.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I watched him walk away, running my fingers across my lips, swollen and moist from his kiss.
Holy hell.
***
Xavier rang the doorbell at exactly five o’clock Saturday afternoon. Walking carefully down the stairs, I tried not to slip and fall. I wasn’t used to wearing heels, much less the stilettos Muriel picked out for me.
He swallowed hard when I opened the door. “You’re beautiful.”
My cheeks pinked, and I felt a small fluttering in my chest. “Thanks.”
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