Angel

“Can you slow down!” Erin pants, running underneath Luana and I.

“You can become a centaur!” Luana yells.

“Right!” We hear a noise like a horse neighing, and Erin’s palomino horse burst out and raced beneath us.

I flap to a halt at the side of the road, and pick up a white feather again. “Still here…” I murmurs.

“What’s still here?” Luana asks.

I quickly stuff the feather into my jacket. “Nothing!” I say, remembering she’s an angel.

Luana raises an eyebrow and turns away. “So this is the spot?”

Centaur-Erin nodd, and taps the ground with her hoof.

“I just want to warn you before we go down there,” Luana says a little quietly. “Nina’s phsyco. She’ll do anything to get what she wants. If she finds us, I don’t doubt for a moment she won’t turn us in. She never felt like I was her daughter. We’re practically strangers to each other. She might even kill me for not helping her plan at all. So if you see Nina, do not go near. We can… get rid of her later, but I’m going to do it, alright?”

“We can’t kill her!” Erin says, back as a human.

Luana sighs. “You won’t. I will.”

“That’s murder!” Erin gasps.

“You know how many others Nina will kill?” Luana asks. “A. Lot.”

“I have nothing to do with the murder,” Erin grumbles. “I think we should just arrest her.”

Luana rolls her eyes. “Please just remember - Nina equals danger, alright?”

“Ok, fine.” Erin mutters. I nod.

“Ludi, stand on the spot Lora disappeared,” Luana orders. I step on the spot I last saw Lora, and felt a rush of excitement.

I’m coming, Lora!

“And three,” Luana says, standing beside me.

“Two.” Erin copies.

Luana swallows. “One.”

Suddenly I feel white-hot, and I screech with pain. There’s fire all around me.

But it disappears quickly, so does the heat. I’m standing on a dark floor, staring at a dark wall, a dark roof above me and the walls beside me lit on fire.

“This is hell?” Erin squeaks. “I think I like heaven better.”

I turn around and scream. I’m nose-to-nose with a tall woman, her curly blonde hair a rat’s nest and her red eyes narrowed with hate.

Luana and Erin spin around, and Erin screams too.

Luana doesn’t. She looks at the woman with pure fear. “Nina!” She mouths, before hitting the floor, out cold.