The Short Demon King

Chapter 27

I sat on the couch reading a book about different magical creatures with Kevin grabbing a snack in the kitchen. He hummed softly to himself, but suddenly stopped with a gasp. A bag of chips crunched as it fell to the floor.

"What's wrong?" I asked cautiously, turning my head toward him.

Kevin stared blankly at his phone, not daring to look away from it as he answered, "We've gotta go. NOW!"

I'd never seen him so panicked, even on that day he was super behind schedule. He left the house without even tying his shoes or waiting for me to catch up. I hopped behind him to put on both my heels, then raced to catch up.

Wind blasting my face, I asked again, "Seriously, what happened? Why are we running?"

"It's Maya! Here, look at this."

He shoved his phone in my face. By now Maya had taught me the gist of how to use one of these, so I scanned the screen to find the most recent text. The text itself was very simple. All it read was one word: 'help.'

That was the only text she'd sent all day. By the timing, she would have just gotten out of school at this time. Did something happen when she tried to leave? Why didn't she send more information?

I turned to Kevin for answers. "What do you think happened? Will she still be at the school?"

"I don't even know! Something like this has never happened before. I can't- I can't lose her too!"

He started sprinting faster. I kept up easily. In fact, I could run way faster than him. This gave me an idea.

"You wanna go to the school, right?" I verified.

"Yes, that's our only option right now!"

"Then hold on!"

I scooped Kevin up, easily carrying his weight despite my small frame. While he sat in my arms, still in shock, I bolted. My feet barely touched the ground as I darted through the town toward Maya's school. We probably would've gotten really weird looks if anyone could see us for more than a split second.

Before Kevin could protest being carried, we stood before the school and he was back on solid ground. He wobbled around a bit, completely disoriented and shook his head.

"You good?"

He rubbed the side of his head. "Yeah... I'll be fine." He blinked a few times before scanning our surroundings. "Do you see her?"

"No... wait, I see someone I recognize."

I jogged toward the entrance of the building, trying not to scare the entire town today.

"Iris!" I called.

She stood near the entrance, nervously searching her surroundings, then staring down at her phone. She only stopped when she heard her voice called. Her face clouded with a mixture of multiple confused and concerned expressions when she saw me.

I'd hoped to avoid everyone from the party for the rest of my stay here, but now there were more important things to worry about than people thinking I'm weird. If Maya really was in danger, Iris could be my only hope at finding her.

"Jaye? ...What are you doing here?"

"Yes, hi. It's me. From the party," I explained as quickly as possible. "Hey, have you seen Maya today? We've been looking for her."

"I was actually just searching for her. She got called down to the office earlier, but we weren't told why. I've been trying to contact her ever since, but with no luck."

"Why would she disappear after getting called to the office? Is that normal?" I asked.

"Certainly not. Usually she;d return from the office after just a few minutes. It was also really weird how they didn't tell us who called her down there."