Psyched (6 page)

Aisi felt a flush of anger every time he used her father’s nickname for her, but she kept it in check, not wanting to give him any more power than he had. “Why are you here? Why don’t you just go back where you came from?”

He ignored her and continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I do so enjoy high school. Such a feast for my soul, you know. Why have I never thought to partake of this? Such drama and trauma, so much gossip and hatred. You, my dear, are quite hated. Did you know? They say terrible things about you. It’s simply delicious!” His growly laugh made her flinch.

Aisi folded her arms and leaned against the nearest bank of lockers. “If you’re trying to scare me, you need to try a little harder,” she said, unimpressed. “I don’t care what anyone says about me, and you can sink back to hell for all I care. You don’t belong here and you know it.”

Malus Indolus clutched a hand to where his heart should be, looking offended. “You pierce my heart, Sunshine...or you would, if I had one. I have gone quite far out of my way to amass enough power to come to you in human form and introduce myself, and I receive such a cold reception. You make me very glad I did not choose you, Sunshine…”

His voice trailed off. He watched her carefully with those evil eyes, but she tried not to let him see how his words startled her. He hadn’t chosen her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, pushing back a decade of horrible memories.

“And please do give my regards to your father, Bezaliel, although I understand he goes by ‘Big Billy’ these days? Big Billy,” he repeated with a
tsk
, “and you mock my name. Such foolish loyalty you humans display for each other. I have not seen him for ten years, either. Sadly, when we do meet, it is always under the worst of circumstances.”

Aisi’s eyes jerked wide open in surprise as the demon continued.

“You know his name means ‘hero’ where we come from? Oh yes, we go way back, your father and I. The times we had in the motherland!” He clapped his hands together, still clasping his cane. “Blood and fear reigned supreme, all in the name of those ridiculous rocks you humans wear with such pride. Vanity does delight me. I say more diamonds for everyone. More, more, more! We caused so much pain, delivered such agony. Those were the days.”

The demon looked at her again, accusation and delight gleaming in those evil eyes. “Your name means sunshine. Are you a
light
to your father in these dark days since the pure and faithful one vanished? I’m sure daddy misses his little princess.” He clucked his tongue in mock sympathy. “Do you still feel lonely? Do you miss her?”

Rage unlike any Aisi had ever felt rose within her. This was exactly what he wanted, and she could see his blurry form grow stronger in her anger, but she didn’t care. “Be gone, evil one! Back to hell where you belong!
Tergum ut abyssus qua vos ago, malum unus!
”

The same hideous growl that had been a laugh gurgled angrily in his throat. He lowered his glowing eyes, letting them pierce her, but he smiled again and tugged primly on his black leather gloves. “Very well, Sunshine. Since you insist upon being so rude, I will take my leave of you. Before I go, my dear, allow me to show you how I feel about meeting you at last.”

He turned his back to her and lifted a leg off the ground with a satisfied grunt. The unmistakable sound of flatulence ripped through the air. The acrid smell of sulfur filled her nostrils and she cringed, stepping back to wave the fumes away from her face. She heard his icy voice echoing in her mind, “
Vos frustror mihi…”

“I disappoint you?” she repeated aloud, trying to make sense of what had just happened, when a voice that stopped her heart echoed as the overhead lights flickered to life again.

“Oh, but you don’t disappoint me.”

Giggling, Monica Hart stepped out from behind a garbage can holding her smart phone up, recording everything Aisi said. “This rocks. I have awesome footage of you being completely psychotic and talking to yourself! Wait ‘til I show Kalen!” She laughed. “This is so getting posted on MyFace tonight.”

The frustration of the day finally hit Aisi full on, and she snapped. Her glare made Monica’s smile falter. The phone in the girl’s hands suddenly slipped from her fingers and flew across the room. Hitting the cinderblock wall with a crunch, it splintered and dropped to the floor in many pieces. “You go ahead and do that, Monica. Show the world how crazy I am.”

The lockers where the phone lay began to shake. Aisi stood her ground but Monica jumped back as the lockers, which were bolted to the wall, crashed to the ground, crushing what little remained of her phone and whatever had been in it.

“Will that make you feel bigger, better, more powerful?” Aisi asked, almost calm in her rage.

“You’re such a freak!” Monica shrieked as she crouched behind a bench.

“Yeah, I am.”

She walked calmly past the girl huddled on the floor, the exit doors blowing open before her as she strode out and then slamming shut behind her. Monica’s hysterical screams echoed in the dark empty room as Aisi left her alone in the dark.

Alone in the dark
, Aisi thought as she ambled down the hall.
Just like me
.

Chapter 6 Big Billy’s Diner

The dinner rush passed at Big Billy’s. Aisi leaned forward, elbows on the Formica counter, looking around the almost empty diner. She should be cleaning, so she half-heartedly picked up the bleach-scented rag on the counter and made a few feeble swipes before noticing her last table was about to leave. The oldest couple in town came in every night and stayed the longest of any other customer, and they always took a few minutes to get out of their favorite booth.

Leo and her dad laughed in the back, pretending to do dishes but really throwing a water fight with the diner’s industrial strength sprayer. Aisi watched them for a moment with a grin. As she turned back around and glanced outside, she gasped. Glowing red lights burned through windows streaked with rain. Her heart jumped for a second, but then she sighed with relief. She went to the door and opened it to see the town’s cop had pulled over his latest victim. With mild curiosity she leaned casually against the door frame to see who Padelski nailed this time, glad it wasn’t her for once.

“Thank you, dear,” the little old lady yelled as Aisi stepped aside to let her customers out. She was a very sweet lady, but she thought everyone was as deaf as she was.

Aisi’s ears still rang as she answered. “You’re welcome, Mrs. Cutler. Am I allowed to help you out of your booth next time?”

“Nope,” she answered lightly as her husband helped her into an awesomely vintage, heavy wool coat with oversize buttons. She had probably worn that coat for four or five decades. “Thank you for such wonderful service, dear.” Mrs. Cutler patted Aisi’s cheek affectionately.

“You have my walker?” Mr. Cutler howled. The Cutlers made the ideal pair, because they spoke at the right volume to hear each other perfectly.

“Right here,” Aisi shouted back, pulling out the walker from behind the open door and unfolding it so she could set it before him.

“You know I was a health inspector for the state, young lady,” Mr. Cutler said loudly as he grasped the walker from Aisi. “Forty years I worked for the great state of Pennsylvania. If I were on duty I would have to shut you down for a serious health violation because of those shoes.”

Aisi grinned, wiggling her purple-painted toenails at him, which he could clearly see in her flip flops. “You tell me that every night. You gonna turn me in this time?”

Mr. Cutler winked at her as he slipped a plaid page boy cap just as vintage as his wife’s coat onto his liver-spotted, bald head. “Long as you keep my coffee cup full, I’ll let it slide.” He headed out the door, but Mrs. Cutler turned to her.

“I heard about what happened up at the school today, dear,” she whispered. “You just holler if you need any help getting this cleared up.”

Aisi groaned. “Does everyone know?”

Mrs. Cutler tipped her head thoughtfully. “Just everyone in town, but that isn’t many.”

Aisi nodded, trying to smile. “I appreciate that, Mrs. Cutler. Thank you.” She pushed the door open and her customers stepped out. She stood looking past the dingy glass door, thinking vaguely that she should probably it down soon. Padelski shook his finger at the driver of the car he pulled over, probably giving a variation of the same lecture she got when he caught her driving.

She moved back inside and began to clear the table where the Cutlers had eaten when jingling bells told her another customer arrived. Weird. The Cutlers were always her last table of the night.

Two strangers entered. Clearly they were from out of town, and young. And pretty hot. They sported the ragged backpacks, ratty jeans, and unshaven faces of college guys. The first had a look of intensity on his face, and the second sat back in a booth and kicked his feet up, looking completely uninterested in everything around him.

“I think a girl I went to summer camp with a couple of years ago lives in this town,” the second guy said as Aisi approached them with two menus.

“Welcome to—” Aisi began, but the guy cut her off.

“Hey, do you know if Zinnia Dalrymple lives around here?” he asked.

Startled, Aisi nodded. “Yeah, she does, about five miles out of town. She’s my—”

“That girl was great!” he continued. He pulled out his smart phone and started scrolling through his contacts. “I wonder if I still have her number? My mom would kill me if she knew I came up here and didn’t visit her family.” Aisi could see Zinnia’s name and an old picture of her appear on the screen as the guy rattled off a quick text message.

The first guy, Mr. Intensity, hardly looked up from the equipment he pulled from his backpack. “I thought you tried never to do what your mom said.”

The second guy grinned as he quickly sent a text. “But this girl was a great kisser.”

Aisi stood patiently by their table, tapping her pencil on her order pad. She tried to repeat her opening spiel. “Welcome to—”

The guy’s phone beeped at him, and he picked it up to read the text he just received. “She wants to come hang out! Sweet! Hey, what is this place anyway?” The intense friend ignored him as he switched on all the equipment, so he turned to look at Aisi. “Uh, do you know where we are?”

Aisi blinked. Did this guy really just ask her if she knew where she lived and worked? “Just tell Zin to come find Aisi. She’ll know where to go.”

The guy typed furiously. “Come find Ace?”

“You say it like air conditioner. A.C. Aisi.”

“Your parents named you after an air conditioner?” he asked, not looking up as he texted.

Aisi rolled her eyes and glanced at Mr. Intensity, who looked carefully at all the stuff he unloaded from his backpack, lights flashing. The diner filled with little bleeps and blooping sounds as the equipment came to life.

“If you guys want to order any actual food, toss something at me, okay?” she told them. Mr. Intensity nodded back at her without looking up from his toys. She flipped on the ancient TV in the far corner and began to sweep the floors, but she could still hear everything the two guys said over the television.

The door jingled again a few minutes later and Zinnia blew in like a fresh wind. She looked around and rushed over to the table excitedly. “Colby! What are you doing out here in the middle of stinking nowhere?” He stood and she hugged him tightly.

Zinnia plopped down on the bench next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Aisi!” she called. “Come and meet my camp friend!”

“You got here pretty quickly,” Aisi said, leaning on her broom as the boys finally seemed to notice her existence.

Zinnia sighed. “My mom makes me go to these lame D.A.R. teen meetings at the library two doors down. It’s me and like two other girls listening to the librarian go on and on about a bunch of dead people.”

Colby nodded sympathetically. “I feel your pain. My dad tries to take me golfing and afterward, he likes to hit the steam room. And he makes me go in.” He shivered in disgust. “It’s just me and a bunch of old dudes sweating in their towels and nothing else.”

“Ewww!” Zinnia shuddered. “That’s nasty. Hey, Colby, this is my best friend in the whole wide universe, Aisi Turay. Aisi, meet Thomas Colton Byington the….how many are you?” she asked, turning to Colby.

Aisi glanced at Mr. Intensity, who had turned his attention back to a hand-held device that didn’t seem to work the way he wanted it to. He kept pushing buttons, ignoring everything else going on around him. She felt an odd flutter in her stomach as she watched him. He wouldn’t even look at her, but for some reason this guy made her nervous.

“The fourth,” Colby replied in his best fake British accent, and Aisi smiled a little as she looked back at him. He might be okay.

“The fourth,” Zinnia repeated, laughing. She took his hand and squeezed it, always a flirting pro. “But you can call him Colby, because no one wants to say that name over and over. What are you doing out here?”

Colby pointed at his companion. “My cousin dragged me. It’s finals week and he wants some more evidence to back up one of his final projects.”

“Where did you end up going?” Zinnia asked. “Your parents wanted you to get into some Ivy League school, right?”

Colby laughed. “Not with my grades! Even with a big fat donation they wouldn’t take me. I got into my grandpa’s alma mater, Franklin Pierce U.”

“So what are they going to rename now that you’re in?” Zinnia asked, raising her eyebrows with interest. Aisi raised hers too, but in confusion.

“I’ll be studying in the Thomas Colton Byington, Jr., Library before I graduate,” he said.

“If you actually studied,” the other guy muttered, twisting a knob on the stuff he wouldn’t stop fiddling with.

Colby looked a little too guilty. “This is my cousin, Vance Alfaro.”

Zinnia leaned forward. “Did I meet you at camp, too?”

Aisi smiled, thinking her friend was wondering if she missed the chance to kiss yet another guy. She plopped down on the bench next to them. She shouldn’t sit with customers while on the job, but really, who cared? No one would come in for the rest of the night. It was odd enough that these two guys showed up.