by N. Phillips
Ms. Walters’s announcement brought about tiny whispers and groggy complaints from the students in the room.
“Do we get to pick our own partners?” Tyler asked.
“No. I’ve already decided the pairs for this assignment. It is due at the end of the semester. I will announce the pairs now so that you may get up and introduce yourself to your partner.”
Ms. Walters went down the list of several students in the classroom, eventually calling out my name.
“Aliyah Dawn, you’ll be paired with Maylene Rivers.”
I turned around to Tyler. “Who’s Maylene Rivers?” I asked. He pointed back at the last person in the row, and I saw it was the blonde-haired girl who was rude to me earlier.
Great, just my luck.
“She transferred to the school two weeks ago,” Tyler told me. “It’s weird. Who transfers this late in the school year?”
It was strange, but nonetheless, I took a deep breath and rose from my seat before taking the packet out Ms. Walters’s hand. After sitting in an empty desk next to Maylene, Candice’s irritating giggle infected my ears.
“Good job Ms. Walters,” she said. “You put Silent and Deadly together. They make a perfect pair, but let’s hope we don’t have two more deaths in the school.”
“Candice, why don’t you just shut the hell up?” Tyler snapped. “I had to hear your self-absorbed, materialistic mouth all year, and I’m sick of it. People like you are what’s wrong with this damn world. Get a life and leave them alone.”
His loud, aggressive voice echoed through the room. Candice’s jaw hung low, surprised that he spoke in such a way to her.
“Really? I can make your entire life a living hell, loser. Don’t you ever talk to me that way again. I—”
An explosive sound resonated near Candice, who jumped out her seat in panic. The entire class looked on in terror as her magenta purse was engulfed in flames and smoke filled the air.
“Class, everybody out into the hallway,” Ms. Walters ordered. The students appeared flabbergasted by the sudden eruption.
“No, no. My bag. My phone,” Candice cried out in exaggerated fashion.
Even I was a bit spooked by the blaze, but Maylene’s hypnotic trance terrified me more than the incineration. Her inflamed pupils gazed at the burning fire as if she were dazzled by its beauty.
“D-did you do that?” I asked, fumbling over my words. The negative emotions pouring out of her ranged from sorrow and grief, to self-hatred and enmity.
“What does it matter? She deserved it, didn’t she?”
Ms. Walters doused the fire with an extinguisher. “Didn’t you two hear me? I said go out into the hallway.”
Maylene stood up from her seat and grabbed the packet of papers off the desk where I was sitting. Tyler approached me after I had walked into the hallway.
“Are you alright?”
“That girl caused the fire,” I informed him, watching Maylene walk down the hall and into the library. “She has powers, too.”
I had never seen a person who could conjure flames or manifest such a powerful desire without a demon’s manipulation, and that alone gave me shivers. What’s scarier is that I knew I’d have to confront her sooner or later.
CHAPTER 7
The rest of the school day was a struggle. Mentally exhausted with thoughts of Maylene, I sat in science class with my pen in hand and my eyes trained on the assignment sheet in front of me. But no matter how hard I tried to concentrate, the only thing I could think about was the fire in first period.
“Screw it,” I whispered to myself while scrawling answers on the paper without care. When it came to math and science, forget about it. I totally sucked, and probably would’ve failed anyway even with a clear head. English and history were my specialties.
The bell had rung soon after, with every student in the room jumping out their seats and leaving their worksheets on the teacher’s desk. Following suit, I stepped out my last class of the day and walked down the crowded hall filled with my frantic peers.
Out of the blue, a warm hand covered my eyes and a figure pressed behind me. I turned and push the person with force before shouting, “Get off me.”
With my sight uncovered, I realized the person was Lucas. A heavy breath of relief was let out as I held my chest and looked around at the few students gossiping near their lockers.
“Ali, why’re you so jumpy? You almost made me drop these.” He presented the bouquet of roses in his hand.
“Thank you, Lucas. I’m sorry. It’s been a long, weird day.”
We held hands and walked down the staircase leading to the first floor. “Well, if you’re all good, I want you to come to practice with me,” he requested after we made it to the front of the music room. “It’ll feel good having you there. The band’s already hyped because our popularity is skyrocketing.”
“Yeah, I can’t. My mom wants me home right away after school. I found her stupid audio recorder in between two of my video games cases. It’s ridiculous. It’s like she thinks I’m gonna confess to a crime or say out loud that I want to kill myself.”
“That does sound a bit extreme,” he agreed, pulling me close with his arm around my waist. “But come on. I promise if you come inside, I’ll call your parents and tell them that you’re here with me. They’ll say okay, trust me.”
Ugh. Why was this guy so convincing? It had to be those sapphire eyes. They got me every time.
“I guess. But is Robyn in there? You know how I feel about her. I’m letting things slide and giving you time to kick her out the band, but I’m not gonna wait much longer.”
“I know, and I completely understand. I told her not to come to rehearsal and that we’ll need to talk soon.”
A smile grew on my face until someone approached us.
“Excuse me.”
My heart skipped a beat. It was her. Maylene.
“I don’t mean to intrude, but can I speak with you for a moment?”
“Yeah, sure,” I replied to her before pulling Lucas a few feet away. “Wait right here.”
“Uh, okay,” he said before leaning back against the locker and taking out his cell.
Taking a deep breath, I walked over to her with a fake smile and avoided eye contact. “What’s up?”
“Why are you looking all over the place? Stop being weird.”
She’s calling me weird, but she’s the one setting purses on fire. Okay…
“Anyway, if you’re not busy today,” she paused and glanced over my shoulder at Lucas, “I would like to get Ms. Walters’s assignment over as soon as possible, preferably in one day. Can you meet me in the library in twenty minutes?”
“The packet is going to take longer than one day, and I have to get straight home. Moms, you know how protective they can be once they’re worried.”
“Yeah, I know about that,” she said with her eyes to the ground. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I like getting things done early so I don’t have to worry about them later. I’ll stop by your house in a few hours and we can get this assignment finished in one sitting. You’ll thank me later.”
Inviting her over to my house was not a good idea. Not after what I saw she could do. My family could be at risk if she got out of control, but damn was I curious to know how she could conjure fire so easily with just her emotions and not from demonic influence. I figured asking a few questions and getting some answers about her powers could help me to understand my own.
“Alright. I’ll give you my address and cell number.”
After we exchanged information, I walked back over to Lucas, who was transfixed by whatever was on his phone.
“Lucas,” I called out. “Lucas.”
“Yeah, sorry,” he yelped, now fully attentive.
“What are you so hooked on?”
“I was reading all the positive comments about the band’s performance last month. Get this; Cassandra Blackwood is following my page. She’s a producer and model o
n social media with over a million followers. If she’s following me, her fans probably will, too.”
“Yeah, great. I bet a lot of her fans are girls, too. Just as long as they’re following you because of the band and not because you’re the cutest guy in the world, I’m happy for you.”
He chuckled. “That’s all it’ll ever be. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
After a brief embrace, he pulled away from our lip lock. “You ready to go inside and check us out?”
“I can’t. That girl is coming over to my house later, so I have to clean my room. I literally destroyed it last night.”
He sighed. “Alright, but you owe me some quality time.”
“Why don’t you just come over tonight? My mom’s supposed to be cooking a fancy dinner, and hopefully, I’ll be done working on the project with Maylene by then.”
“Cool. Then afterwards, we can sneak upstairs and be alone.”
I bit my bottom lip. “Of course.”
We kissed one last time before going our separate ways. I hurried down the hall toward the exit of the school to catch the bus, eager to get home and prepare for the most interesting guest I’ve ever had.
Hours had gone by, and the day soon turned into night. I sat on the side of my bed and watched as Maylene, who was sitting at the computer desk, wrote down the answer to the math problem we had just solved. It was surprising, but we were actually getting along.
“I can’t believe we’re halfway done,” I said. “I definitely couldn’t have answered any of these questions without you. I usually cheated off of my best friend when it came to math problems like these.”
“Is that her?” Maylene asked, pointing at the picture frame on the shelf. “She’s pretty.”
I smiled. “Yeah. She was really smart. She wanted to be a seismologist and learn more about the planet and how it functions. I envied her sometimes.”
Maylene rose from her seat and looked closer at the picture. She picked up the frame and turned to me. “You said was. What happened to her, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“You don’t know?” I looked down at the carpet for a brief moment to gather my thoughts. “Valeria committed suicide two months ago. She lived with abusive foster parents and suffered through depression. I wanted to ask my dad, who’s a social worker, to help her find a better home, but she didn’t want to risk moving too far away and leaving me and her boyfriend. Through it all, I tried my best to make her happy and talk her out of it, but my words weren’t stronger than the demon’s influence.”
My eyes brimmed with tears. Not wanting Maylene to see me cry, I walked over to the window and looked out at the empty street.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” she said. “It wasn’t my place to ask. I have to say, though, the way you spoke of a demon, it’s almost as if it were real.”
Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I turned to Maylene and nodded. “That’s because they are, and I have to deal with them every single day.”
A quick realization shot in my mind that I had just told someone my biggest secret. What was more shocking was her response to my confession.
“Oh. Well, what are you waiting for? Tell me about them.”
A surge of excitement took over me when she said that. It was the first time I met someone other than Tyler who was truly interested in knowing about the demons.
We both sat on the bed before I began. “Okay. I guess I should start from the beginning and explain everything as best as I can. So there’s people out there who can make their strongest desire come true without any sort of logical explanation. It’s almost like magic.”
“Sounds like an anime. Go on, I’m intrigued.”
A quick smile turned into laughter at her comment, but the happy expression on my face dwindled at the thought of telling the next part of the story.
“So, these desires have to come from somewhere. Whether it be personal problems, lifestyle choices, or a bunch of stuff like ambitions and past experiences. Part of mine came from what I went through after the Navelwood High School shooting five months ago.”
“Now that I actually heard about,” she said. “Were you directly involved?”
“Honestly, I feel like the whole thing was my fault. I was volunteering at the school that morning for a fundraiser partnership between Navelwood High, and our school, Ravenvale High. I didn’t really know where to go, so I ended up in the back of the school and saw some guy banging on the door for me to let him in. I asked who he was, and he said he was a student who forgot his ID at home, so they wouldn’t let him in through the front entrance.”
“You opened it, didn’t you?” she asked. Her question made my eyes drift away from her. “It’s alright. You don’t have to tell me the rest if you don’t want too.”
“It’s fine. About ten minutes after I had let him in, I heard gunshots and people screaming through the building. Everyone around me started running for their lives, and so did I until I spotted my brother in the crowd. His name was Noel, and he was a senior at the school. I called out to him, and I was surprised he heard me through all the commotion.
“He covered me as we ran toward one of the exits, but I felt his arm slipping off my shoulder. I turned around and saw him lying on the ground, bleeding from a bullet in his back. I leaned over him and cried out for help, but no one came. When I looked up, I…”
Silence filled the room as I paused and gripped my sheets in frustration. Maylene sat attentively with a dreadful stare. It was almost as if my retelling of the past affected her as much as it did me.
“I saw the guy who I had let in the building. He was pointing the gun straight at me, and behind him was this hideous, dark creature that terrified me more than losing my life. I would’ve died that day if a police officer hadn’t entered the school and shot the guy before he pulled the trigger.”
After concluding my story, I caught a glimpse of Maylene’s hand reaching over to comfort me before it was jerked back. “I’m sorry you had to experience that,” she said. “Did your brother survive?”
“No. But you know what’s the craziest thing about all this, Maylene? The demon. Why was I able to see it but no one else could? I mean, yeah, I’ve always had a passion for helping people fight their demons and making the world a better place, but I wouldn’t call it my deepest desire, you know? Especially not before my brother’s death.”
She appeared in deep thought with her legs crossed and her chin resting in her hand. “I think I figured it out. Can you describe your exact thoughts during everything that happened?”
“Well, I remember asking myself what could convince someone to do something so horrible. I recall making excuses in my head for why he was doing it, because I just couldn’t understand how someone could be so evil and take so many lives without a reason…”
“Bingo,” she shot, breaking me out of my thoughts. “That curiosity mixed in with your good nature and desire to help people gave you the ability to see what causes violence and corruption: demons. That moment awakened your power.”
In just minutes, Maylene helped me to understand myself better. In just hours, she became someone I could converse with and open up to. I wasn’t sure how or why our friendship was building so fast, but I liked it. I really did.
“You’re right,” I told her. “Wow, I can’t believe I never thought of that before, especially during my grieving stages a few days after. I locked myself in my room, feeling weak, hopeless, and confused. I started to think life had no meaning, and that anyone around me could be just like that guy. Eventually, I got better and started purging demons using this magical light I was given. So yeah, that’s my story. I’m amazed you haven’t called me crazy yet and ran out the door.”
She chuckled and looked down at her black and white Adidas. “I don’t think you’re crazy. At least you’ve been gifted with something that can change the world. I can’t say the same for me.”
Well, it was now or never. The opportunity to a
sk was here, so I inhaled an air of bravery and exhaled the question, “How is it that you can conjure fire so easily? Usually, someone with a desire that powerful is being influenced by a demon, but you’re not.”
“I don’t know. Demon or not, this power has caused me to do harmful things to the people around me, and it’s only gotten worse in the last month or so. I don’t even get burned from the flames anymore.”
I could hear the remorse in her voice and sense the sadness from her aura. She needed to release those emotions, and I wanted to help her achieve that.
“Regret from what, exactly?” I asked.
“It’s nothing you or I could change now. It’s best to leave it in the past.”
“Maylene, you can talk to me. I sensed the negativity inside of you when you lit Candice’s bag on fire. I know you need help, and you can get it by telling me what happened.”
Her brow twitched as she leered at me with fiery eyes. “I don’t need to tell you anything. I don’t appreciate you using whatever ability you have to intrude into my emotions. Don’t ever do it again.”
I remained silent, not wanting to ignite a fuse that could result in my house being set ablaze. She stood up and gathered her supplies before walking to my room door.
“Coming here was a mistake,” she mumbled. I got off my bed and latched onto her arm before she could walk out.
“Maylene, wait.”
“Don’t touch me.”
A crackling sound made me turn around. The packet Ms. Walters assigned was burning away in a ball of flames on my desk.
“I need to get the extinguisher,” I exclaimed.
“You don’t have to.”
Maylene approached the fire and extended her hand into it. With a simple touch, the flames began evaporating into thin air. I was left speechless at her taming of the blaze. It was illogical and inhuman.
“Now do you see what happens when someone tries to get close to me?” she sneered, gazing into her open palm that showed no signs of discoloration from the fire. “Don’t try it again.”