Page 13 of The Most Wanted Witch

Slow down.

This was her choice. If she wanted to do this, I had to let her. I slowed my pace for all of two minutes before I double-timed it, making up for the loss and then some. Of course I didn’t have to let her. She was being an idiot.

“It will be okay,” Hawk said, following at my pace.

“She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

The alley split off and I couldn’t remember which way to go as my nerves wiped away my memory. “Left or right? Which way?” I turned around. “Hurry up.”

“Left.”

By the next turn, he was pointing the directions before I got there. My head had been clearer when I was fighting a giant bat for my life.Thatwas the key to the problem.I’dbeen fighting for my life, not lying in wait as Bibbi fought for hers. This was the stupidest thing I’d ever done, even if it hadn’t been my idea.

Oscar and Zab had taken the direct route behind her because they’d be less likely to scare off the Grouslies. Another dumb idea. What if they couldn’t scare off the grouslies at all?

“Even if they get a bite in, I’ve got the treatment on me to stop it. It’ll be okay,” Hawk said, still calm.

“Have they ever almost eaten you to death? No. Nothing about this is fine.”

How was it that the person who hadn’t wanted this to happen was now telling me it wasn’t that bad?

The sound of a whistle broke the air. It was Oscar’s signal that they were moving in on her.

We both took off at a run.

I turned the corner just as the herd surrounded Bibbi about fifty feet away.

“Come on, I know you want this.” She was drawing them close in, holding the bag of meat out, her other hand in her pocket. “Just a little closer,” she said, as calm as if she didn’t have a single nerve in her body.

I watched as they circled her, as was their way.

Hawk grabbed my arm, trying to hold me back so she could do what she needed to do.

He didn’t have to bother. I’d been running here to save her, but she didn’t need me, not yet. She had this under control.

The grouslies moved in slowly, as if they sensed a trap.

“What’s she waiting for?” How close was she going to let them get before she used the stone? It would hit at least one of them, and we’d get some sense. She didn’t have to take a bite in the process.

“She’s drawing them in tighter to make sure. She’s pretty good at this,” he said, as if he hadn’t expected it.

We were both asses, then, because I hadn’t either. She might be a Whimsy witch, but what she lacked in magic, she definitely made up for in balls. The grouslies drew in so slowly. She shook the bag, and a few more pieces of meat dropped to the ground in front of her. They snapped, the bloody meat driving them into a frenzy. She followed it immediately with the stone, dropping it right on top of where they made a blanket covering the meat.

The stone fell in between the bodies, but that didn’t stop the light from blasting into the alley. A rainbow of light. The only time I’d seen anything like it was when I held the stone myself. It had shone brightly for me, but still, I was the only one I knew of with a rainbow.

One creature moved from the meat, turning its attention to Bibbi, and it snapped me out of my daze. I ran forward just as it moved to sink its teeth into her ankle.

They scattered, dragging some of the meat off with them, leaving a trail of blood.

Another sound drew my attention to the opposite end of the alley, the one we’d just come from, and I saw a group of kids running off.

How long had they been there? Had they seen the light? Would they put it together the way I had? How could they not? All they had to do was see the grouslies flashing the same colors and glance at my hair. It was impossible not to add those two things up. Even if they needed a little help, the next fifty people or so they told, someone would figure it out.

I shut that out of my mind for now.

“Did it get you?” I asked Bibbi, motioning to her ankle as Oscar and Zab approached from the other side.

“It tried, but I don’t think it broke the skin,” she said, even as her attention was on my hair as she tried to figure out why the grouslies, and maybe Dread, would have the same colors.

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