Mimi's Demons

Chapter 20: Mimosa

"What's your name?"

Mimi glanced at the slinky demon hanging off the Hispanic lady's shoulder before refocusing on her. Usually, she knew better than to stare, but she hadn't talked face-to-face with people in a long time. And the slinky demons were hard not to stare at, especially when they hung on someone's shoulder like that. Maybe the lady liked the demon? In her heart, that is, not in her head. She didn't know the demon was there in her head.

"Why do you need to know?" said Mimi.

"No need to act tough," she said, sounding and looking like she was ready to slap Mimi, though her eyes were strangely smiley. "We aren't going to do anything bad with it."

Most of the problem Mimi had with giving her name Mimi didn't fully understand herself. With her name they could find her mother, take her back home. Isn't that what she wanted?

But the idea of meeting her mother again, and possibly her entire step family, made something tighten painfully in her stomach. She missed her mother. At the same time, she didn't want her mother to see her like this. And yet she didn't want to see the mother that had let her become like this.

The purple-pink demon on the lady's shoulder swung its cork-screw tail, which looked more like a slinky made of purple ribbon. It had long, thin limbs, tipped with even thinner, cat-like claws. It made no attempt to stop those needle-thin claws from sinking in and out of the lady's shoulder. When it caught her looking, it didn't hiss like the street demons. Rather, it gave a hair-raising, staccato click that rose in intensity the longer Mimi looked, which was never long.

Mimi quickly passed over the demon to look at the dark man in his comfy looking lazy-boy chair. His middle was thick with bandages beneath his black shirt and he had some hair growth on his chin, making him look more like the druggies she was use to. He raised a black eyebrow on meeting her gaze.

She hadn't noticed back in her storage room, but his eyes were very, very black. So black she couldn't make out the pupil, even in the bright morning light pouring through the window.

"Mimosa," she said. "Mimosa Grant."

The Hispanic woman scrunched her nose and the man in his chair gave a low huff of laughter.

"Mimosa?" he said. "Who names their kid after an alcoholic beverage?"

Mimi scowled. "I go by Mimi. Even mom calls me that."

"Then was it your dad who called you that? Nevermind, your mother's just as much at fault for letting him."

"My dad—" Mimi stopped herself. Saying too much. She couldn't let her bad habit come back just because people were back.

"What about your dad?" he asked, not friendly, but not demanding either. Everything about him right now reminded Mimi of a lazy cat basking in the sun.

But Mimi couldn't relax with him. The demon on the woman's shoulders was kneading its claws in her shoulder again and smirking with wet, noodle-like lips.

When she didn't say anything, he gave a little half-roll of his black eyes.

"Serena, go back to work. I got this."

The Hispanic lady jutted out her lower lip, as though disagreeing, but she didn't argue. Just left. Mimi had the strange feeling that it wasn't a wise thing to argue with the black-eyed man. The big genie guy in a turban and the Hispanic lady had referred to a 'boss,' and Mimi wouldn't be surprised if this guy were it. If it weren't for the fact their boss obviously owned this huge rich mansion and she'd found this man bleeding out next to a dumpster, she'd believe it right now.