Unseen

Chapter 12

"Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9)

The shadow raced towards her but was stopped midway by an invisible force that sliced it in half, making the shadow disintegrate.  Ashim appeared before her.

"What are you doing here?!" he yelled harshly, but after seeing Kayta's panicked eyes he forced himself to calm down.

"I was trying to help!" she exclaimed.  "I couldn't find any of you guys!"

"You should've stayed inside!  We don't want to lose you too!"

"What?  Lose me too?" she asked, baffled. Ashim took a deep breath.

"Milly... she was captured.  Just now." he said, looking down at the ground sadly.

"What?  How?  When?"

"Kayta, she's just gone."

"No," she denied, "No, she can't be captured. She can't be."

A demon crept up behind Kayta, only to be pierced with an arrow by Ley.

"Kayta?  What are you doing out here?"

"Is it true?  Milly was captured?" she demanded.  Ley only nodded in response.  Kayta, stunned, whirled around, a sick feeling of fear building up inside of her.

"We have to get rid of them!" she said, grabbing Ley's arm to steady herself.

Ley and Ashim nodded, and the three of them ran out to the back of the school, where Star, Eloise, Jem, and Xale were fighting the rest of the shadows.  Once they noticed Ley, Ashim, and Kayta running in, half of them flew over to them.  Ashim turned himself invisible and hit them from behind, and Ley took out his bow and shot the ones floating high in the sky.

Kayta felt one coming up behind her.  She turned around, and it hissed at her, about to grab her.  She instinctively thrust out her hands, using a force-like ability to grab the shadow.

"What did you do with Milly?" she demanded.  It stayed silent, although it was obviously struggling against Kayta's tight grip. 

"What did you do?" she tightened the grip around it's neck.

"Weeee... tooooook heeeer baaaack... to our basssssse!" the shadow replied, out of breath.  "For... maaassssster... to expeeeeerimeeeent."

"What base?  What master?" she asked.

"Theeee... theee deeeemoooon maaassssster..." it managed to say, before it disintegrated.

Kayta looked around at her friends, who were finishing off the shadows with determination and bitterness in their eyes.  She helped Star to finish off the demons she had been taunting by flying around, high in the sky.

Once they had finished, Kayta felt an eerie silence settle around the school.  They might have defeated some of the demons, but victory was definitely not in the air.

"Guys, let's go," Eloise called.  She turned and started walking down the street, away from the school.

"Where are you going?" Xale asked.

"Home," she retorted.

"Wait, don't we still have school?" Ashim said.

"Who cares?" Eloise replied.

"I thought you liked school," Xale thought out loud.

"Who likes school?"

"I dunno, you're the one who reads the textbook for fun."

"I don't read the textbook for fun, I use it to house my sticky notes." she snapped, sarcastically.  "Come on, let's go."

The others looked at each other, and then followed behind.

Once they had all made it back to Eloise's house, they sat around the kitchen in silence.

"So... can I get anyone anything?  Water?  Cookies?" Eloise broke the silence.

"How could you?" Jem suddenly spoke up, pointing at Eloise.  "How could you have let Milly get captured?"

In a blink of an eye Jem had forced Eloise against the kitchen wall, shaking her violently.

"Whoa, chill, Jem," Ley interrupted, getting up and peeling Jem's hands from Eloise's shoulders.  Jem whirled around and started walking towards Ley.

"You don't understand!" he exclaimed.  "First I lost my parents.  Now the only family I have is Milly.  She's gone now, so what am I supposed to do Ley?  What am I supposed to do?"

Kayta shivered, she could feel the icy tone his voice had taken.

"Jem," Star intervened, placing a calming hand on his shoulder.  "She was our friend too."

"We should try to save her," Kayta suggested.  "I have some intel."

The group paid close attention to Kayta as she told them about what she heard the shadow say.

"It's a demon," she concluded.  "And they wanted to capture us because we have powers.  They want to take us back to their base, use us."

"Use us to what?" Ashim asked.

"I don't know, but it must be something bad."

"So Milly's in danger!?" Jem said, unable to keep still.

Kayta sighed and looked at Jem with sympathy in her eyes.  "Jem, I'm not sure-"

"But we can locate their base," Eloise interrupted, breaking the tension.  Everyone stared at her. 

"How?"

"They take the form of shadows, right?  And shadows appear from an object blocking light, right?  Did you notice that they always face the same way?  We just have to-"

"Follow the light," Xale finished.  Eloise nodded at him.  "Exactly," she said.

"Uh, I don't understand?" Star interrupted.

"All I have to do is make some calculations...." Eloise continued, ignoring Star's comment.

"Maybe we'll leave you to it," Ley said, as Eloise hurried out of the room, mumbling equations to herself.  The others stayed in the kitchen, all in deep thought.

"It's too dangerous."  Ashim stood up from the chair he was sitting in.  "It was hard enough taking on a few of them, but sneaking into their base?  I don't think we're ready," he said, shaking his head.

"Oh come on.  Do you wanna save Milly or not?" Ley looked at him.

"I do, but I don't want us to get captured too," Ashim shot back.

"Guys, calm down," Kayta interrupted.

"Come on, man, we'll be fine.  We'll have each other," Ley said.

"No, we won't have Milly, and if we struggle taking on a couple of demons with eight of us, how are we gonna take on a whole base with only seven of us?  It's too risky."

"We'll just have to take that risk."

Ashim scoffed.  "Funny to hear 'take a risk' coming from you."

The room went silent.  Everyone started looking down or away from Kayta and Ley.  Ashim's eyes widened, realizing what he had just said, regret written across his face.

"What's wrong?" Kayta asked.

"Nothing," Star said, quickly.  Too quickly.  She pulled on a smile.

"Um, why don't you go see how Eloise and Xale are doing?"

Kayta frowned and gave everyone a questioning look before walking out of the kitchen.