Page 28 of The Warrior
“I missed you,” Mila exclaimed and although her mentors, Archer and Kya, had told me not to show her favoritism in front of the others, I couldn’t help picking the girl up in my arms.
“I missed you too.”
Mila flashed those cute dimples of hers and it instantly soothed my soul.
“Wanna go with me to the lake?” I asked her.
“Can I come too?” Raven was bouncing from side to side with excitement.
“I have something I need to talk to Mila about. But next time you can come with us for sure.” I set down Mila, who was half my size. “Raven, do me a favor and tell the adults that I’m taking Mila to the lake. We’ll be back in half an hour.”
“Okay,” Raven agreed and ran back to the school with the other students who had come to greet me.
“You came at a perfect time,” Mila said as we walked away from the buildings. “We were about to have science, and it’s so boring.”
“Are you kidding me, science is fun.”
“Fun?”
“Science is where you do experiments and explosions. It was my favorite subject in school, except for fighting of course.”
“We’ve never done any explosions.”
“Then ask Archer to step it up. Science isn’t supposed to be boring.”
Mila nodded with a thoughtful expression. “I’ll tell him you said that.”
“So, what’s new at the school?” I asked and Mila was happy to entertain me with the newest gossip about pranks and crushes.
“Has anyone been mean to you?” I asked.
“No. I think they’re afraid you’ll hurt them. Nero is still mad at me for the time you hung him upside down in the tree.”
“He can be mad all he wants to, as long as he doesn’t touch you or tease you. If he does, you’ll tell me, right?”
Mila nodded, but something told me she didn’t agree with my methods, and that she might be hiding something.
“What aren’t you telling me, sweetheart?”
“Nothing,” she said but the way she bit her lower lip revealed that she was hiding something for sure.
“Mila, sweetheart, do you know that one of my talents is to get people to tell the truth?”
“How?” she asked and looked up at me with large eyes.
“With little girls like you, I tickle them until they pee their pants.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That’s disgusting.”
“Yes, and it smells bad too, so you better tell me.”
Mila took my hand and I melted a little. “If I tell you, will you promise not to get upset?”
“Hmm.”
“It’s a secret, so I can only tell you if you promise not to tell anyone.”
“Hey, I’m the unofficial world champion of secrets.”
