“A movie?”
“Sounds good. Let me tell my parents.” I ran in the house and asked my parents if I could go. Naturally, they said yes. According to them, Chay was the next best thing since the invention of the wheel. I agreed with them wholeheartedly.
We got into Chay’s car. He put the key into the ignition, and the motor roared to life. I looked around.
“Hey, you cleaned,” I said with a laugh. The fast food cups were gone from the front seat, and the burger wrappers had been picked up. The floor had been vacuumed and the dash wiped off. Then I looked in the backseat. The fast food cups were thrown haphazardly on the floor covered by the wadded-up burger wrappers. The floor hadn’t been vacuumed, and nothing had been wiped off.
“Yeah.” He winked. “It’s as clean as a hospital operating room.”
“I can see. Very neat and tidy.” I nodded, trying to hide my smile.
We picked a movie and got comfy in the theater’s reclining seats. While we waited for it to start, we guessed the trivia questions flashing on the screen by unscrambling the letters to find the answer. Every time I answered before Chay, he’d pelt me with popcorn.
“I can’t help it that you’re slow!” I laughed so hard I snorted.
“Okay, Ms. Piggy.”
I looked at him. “Did you just refer to me as a pig?” I raised my eyebrows at him.
“Um… it’s because you snorted… I was jok—”
I started laughing again. “You’re so gullible. But seriously, watch the pig jokes.” I laughed so much that my sides hurt. And Chay threw so much popcorn at me that it piled up in my lap. I stood up, and it rained popcorn all over the theater floor.
The lights dimmed and the previews started. That was when I saw little red arms in the empty seat in front of me. The seat rocked back and forth, reclining and then straightening, then reclining again, followed by a high-pitched squeal of delight. Damn hobgoblins.
“What are you doing here?” I pulled the seat down and looked in the eyes of the pudgy imp who was making my life a living hell.
“We’re on a date.”
“You weren’t invited,” I said through clenched teeth.
“We thought you’d want to know about your mother.”
The blood slowed in my veins and a ringing filled my ears. “What about her? You’d better not have touched my mother. She has nothing to do with this. I will see red splatters on the road with my tire tracks on them from where I’ve run you down if you’ve touched one hair on her head.”
“You’ll see.” It smiled at me.
My stomach tightened so hard that I jerked back and my elbow knocked my pop out of its holder.
“I told you. The vision is already starting. See you at home, Milayna.” He giggled and disappeared with a small puff of smoke.
My head started to pound. I shot out of the seat, the reclining back hitting me when it flew forward. “I need to go home.”
“Milayna, they’re just trying to scare you. Will it make you feel better if you call?”
“No, no, I’m having a vision. I need to get out of here.” My hands started shaking, and the cold fingers of fear ran down my spine. I tripped trying to get out of the dark theater, stumbling on the stairs leading up to the exit.
“Are you okay, miss?” an attendant asked.
“She’s just not feeling well.” Chay helped me up the stairs and into the hallway.
My head pounded. My vision faded in and out. The ugly burgundy-and-gray carpeting on the theater’s floor turned fuzzy, and a flash of my mother entered my vision. As soon as I saw her, the vision left and I saw the matted, dirty carpeting again.
“Take me home.” I leaned on Chay for support. My hand fisted in his shirt. “Please.”
‘You might as well switch now before it’s too late. Or too late for the ones you love. The ones you love. The ones you love.’ Shayla’s words rolled over and over in my head. I couldn’t focus on anything else. What if I was too late? What if Azazel hurt my mom? I sucked in a breath to keep from crying and held it until my lungs burned. How could I forgive myself if my mom was hurt because of me? I couldn’t. Azazel knew the guilt would eat me alive, little by little, like worms feasting on a corpse. ‘Too late for the ones you love.’
Chay sped all the way to my house, talking on his cell phone. First, he called my dad, made sure everything was all right, and told him about my vision. Then he called his father and finally, he called the group. They met us when we arrived.