Page 41 of Best Hex Ever
“Does that mean we win?” Tom asked. He’d been intermittently checking his phone and seemed miffed that there was no signal here.
“Not yet,” said Eric cheerily. “We need to get back to the exit first.”
They followed the route back as best they could, with a couple of wrong turns here and there.
Dina felt her chest expand and let out a deep exhale as they saw the maze’s exit.
Maybe it was just knowing that Scott wasn’t having a good time, but it was definitely not as fun as she’d hoped it wouldbe.
“Looks like we won!” said Eric, high-fiving each of them. “Immy is never going to forgive me,” he said to Dina.
“Bet you she brings it up in her vows tomorrow,” she laughed.
“Wouldn’t surprise me one bit.”
“Aww, you beat us! Damn!” Immy cried as her team slunk out of the maze from a different path. “I really thought we had you there.” She slumped.
Eric picked up his fiancée and swung her around. “I can share some of my everlasting glory with you if you want.”
“Mmm, okay then.” Immy leaned in to kiss her fiancé.
Dina looked away to give the couple a moment of privacy and searched for Scott. But he wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
“Hey, Immy, where’s Scott?”
“He’s right—” Immy turned around and looked at her smaller team. “Huh. I swear he was right with us. Wasn’t he?”
The others shrugged. Dina stared back at the maze, standing ominously tall and in shadow.
“Oh shit, he’s still in the maze.”
Chapter 16
“Oh, this is not good, this is not good,” Eric muttered, pacing back and forth. “Scott hates closed-off spaces. I thought he’d be fine but…shit, I shouldn’t have let him go in there. Okay, you all wait here, I’ll go get him,” he said, about to marchin.
Dina put out a hand to stop him.
“Eric, I’ve got this.”
“No, Dina, it’s on me,I—”
“Youcan stay out here and think of something that will take Scott’s mind off this when I get him out. All right? As you said, I have the sense of direction of a bloodhound. I’ll be in and out in no time.”
“Are you sure?” Eric frowned.
“Babe, it’sDinawe’re talking about. She’s got this,” Immy reassured him. Dina didn’t want to waste another second. Without hesitation, she plunged back into the maze.
Dina thought about how long it had taken them the first time. If Scott was freaking out in there, then she needed to get to him quickly.
The tall hedges of the maze huddled around her, giving away none of their secrets. She took a few right turns, and stopped, now firmly out of sight of the others. She needed to cast a spell.It would need to be a little more powerful than the average spell to help her locate Scott, so she pulled out the amethyst pendant she wore around her neck. It would act as a conduit of sorts.
Dina reached into her pocket and pulled out a few stems of chamomile she had foraged earlier. They were such delicate, beautiful little things, with their sweet honey scent, and they would work perfectly.
“Sorry,” she whispered to the flowers, before crushing them in her palm. Dina didn’t often use this kind of magic, because truthfully she rarely needed it, and because it involved destroying life. A little devastation here, a pinch of ruin there; it gave the magic that extra bit of oomph. Given that it was Samhain, there should have been enough magic in the air to tap in to that this kind of spell wouldn’t be necessary. But the maze dulled it somehow. Perhaps it was all these neatly manicured hedges—there was something distinctly clinical about them that felt at odds with her magic.
She felt the spell take effect.Scott, where are you?
Dina took a deep breath, closing her eyes and focusing her mind. She thought only of Scott. And how much she wanted to find him. The amethyst pendant tugged her forward, her eyes flying open. She held the chain of the necklace, but the stone itself was pulling her forward, and now to the right, as if it were being pulled toward a magnet.
