Page 64 of The Nowhere Witch

He tossed me on my back on the couch. Before I got my bearings, he tore the leg of my pants from the ankle up to my knee.

“What are you doing? These were my favorite pants!” This wasn’t like Salem. Did he have any idea what good clothes in Xest cost when they were all handmade?

I punched him in the arm. It didn’t faze him.

“You’re buying me a new pair.”

He nailed me with a look that would’ve made a sane person lean back. I leaned forward, or tried to, but he put a hand on my stomach when I tried to get up.

Worst part was the way my body reacted to his touch. I leaned back just so I didn’t encourage any more touching. Every tiny contact was like trying to extinguish a raging fire with gasoline.

“How did this happen to your knee?” he asked. “Who did this?”

“None of your business.”

“You’re walking around battered and refusing to tell me what the hell is happening?”

The veins in his neck were bulging, and I could feel the sizzle of his magic in the room, raising the temperature a few degrees.

“I’m not battered,” I said, trying to pull the scraps of my pants over my knee.

He stood and called into the other room, “Zab?”

“Yeah?” Zab hesitantly called back.

“Close up for the day. Now.”

There was a long pause before he replied, “Got it.”

“What’s the purpose of closing the shop? What’s that going to do? I’m still not talking to you,” I said, grabbing the throw blanket from the arm of the couch and draping it over my leg so he’d stop staring at it.

“You’ll tell me eventually because you’re not leaving here until you do.” He sat on the opposite couch, stretched an arm across the back, and dared me to try to leave with his gaze.

It was a dare I had no problem taking. I never should’ve tried to talk to him. That was what I got for butting in to Bibbi’s business.

I got up, hobbling for a second in spite of my best efforts, and went to leave the room. Let him try to keep me here. Right before I got to the door, it disappeared, becoming a cinder-block wall. I turned around and made a pitiful excuse for a dash for the back door, which was also now a cinder-block wall, along with the window.

“Let me out of here, now.” I spun around to face him.

He leaned back. “No.”

“You can’t keep me here.”

“Pretty sure I can.”

I gave him my back, not knowing what to say. He might be right. He probablycouldkeep me here, and what could I do to stop him? I wasn’t totally useless, though. I just needed to figure out how to use my magic to get me out of this mess.

I thought back to the different spells I’d been memorizing at Zab’s. Most of them were charms and notions. Nothing that would get me out of here. I was better off trying to help this room somehow. After all, that was what my magic liked to do.

“This room needs air,” I said with a flick of my wrist.

A gust of wind from nowhere blew in.The cinder blocks didn’t budge.

“This room needs ventilation.”A ceiling fan appeared overhead.

“You’re not getting out until I let you out,” he said calmly. “This is my building. Nothing you do will offset what I put in place, not with the way I’ve warded it.”

Of course it wouldn’t. Still, there were other angles to work. As if he’d sit here all day. He’d crack. I’d never seen this man sit still since I’d known him, let alone what we were doing now. Just had to be patient. I had a decent amount of patience. I could get through this.

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