Page 5 of The Accidental Witch

Yet, she truly believed this woman would kill her.

She believed.

Tottington skirted the three women, pushing both Hervé and Robbie behind him. Almost as if in slow motion, he grabbed the vase on a nearby table filled with sunflowers and marigolds, yanked the arrangement out and threw the water at Nina’s head, dousing the flames.

The room went entirely silent—after the round of surprised gasps, that is.

“Oooo,” Robbie stuttered, falling forward to reach for her. “Oh, Mrs. Statleon! Omigod, I’m so sorry!”

But Nina held up a finger in warning, her eyes ablaze, water dripping from her hair and down along her beautiful face. “Do not. Do not come any fucking closer, you GD walking disaster!”

Robbie started to protest, but Tottington decidedly shook his distinguished head in the negative, pressing a single finger to his lips for her to pipe down.

Marty draped the throw blanket over Nina’s head and gave it a scruff to dry her off, but when she dropped the blanket, Robbie had to fight another gasp.

Oh, heavenly mother… No, no, no, all that glorious hair, burned to within an inch of her scalp.

Well, not all of it. It was onlyoneside. Just like hers.

They matched!

Then Robbie did what she tried so hard all her life to avoid. She said something stupid.

Holding up a piece of her own singed hair, Robbie sang out, “Twinsies!”

There was a roar like she’d only heard in movies before Nina came at her, both barrels loaded.

However, Marty and Wanda were quicker than the speed of light, heading her off at the pass, knocking her to the ground and wrestling her like a live alligator. Steve Irwin would shed a proud tear.

“Get the fuck off me, you assholes!” Nina howled, but Wanda hiked up her skirt and straddled her like a mechanical bull, holding her down, gripping her slender wrists high above her head while Marty soothed her, lowering to her haunches above Nina’s head.

She leaned down into Nina’s face and stroked her cheek with the back of her hand, sweetly whispering, “Stop, Nina. It’s all fine. You know it’s all going to grow back in a day or so anyway. Quit behaving like an uncaged animal.Now.”

Robbie blinked. Grow back in a day? If that wasn’t some bullshit, nothing was. Her hair was as long as Nina’s, and it had taken two years to grow it this long. No amount of Rogaine would make that happen.

Marty booped her friend’s nose. “Nina, I’m telling you, get yourself together. It was an accident. I’m one-hundred percent sure Robbie couldn’t help it. Soknock it off.”

Robbie coughed and nodded, waving at the lingering smoke in the air. ”I…I didn’t. I swear?—”

Tottington’s frown of discouragement cut off any further protest.

Nina continued to struggle, bucking against Wanda’s thighs of steel. “Get the fuck out of my goddamn face, Blondie, or I’mgoing to rip your intestines straight up outta your throat and cook them for Waffles’s dinner!”

Robbie stared in abject fear while Hervé cowered behind her, his bristles quaking against the brick floor.

“She is a savage, mon amie. Beautiful, but ze savage,” he muttered in her ear.

Oui. Mon ami was ze savage.

Wanda looked down at Nina as she began to settle and calm. “Do you still want to choose violence? Or can I trust you enough to let you go?”

Nina narrowed her eyes at her friend. “She burned my fucking hair, Wanda. Burned it right the fuck off my head. She has to die.”

Wanda smiled at her friend, loosening her grip on her wrists. “She did, but like Marty said, it was an accident and it’s going to grow right back. You know that. Stop being so insufferably unreasonable.”

“I’m still gonna kill the bitch,” Nina said with, if Robbie was hearing correctly, a little less hatred in her tone.

Wanda smiled again, only this time it was indulgent and saccharine sweet. “You stop this nonsense right now or I’m putting you in time-out. You’re not going to kill anyone. Now,” she let Nina’s wrists go and sat back, “do we understand each other? Or do I have to sit in this unladylike position in a skirt, of all things, until we do?”

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