Page 42 of For Dear Life

“What’s wrong with him?” asks Leif

The whining builds, competing with the jangling cacophony of music from the arcade.

“Told you he’d taken shit again, Garrick,” mutters the other guy. “Oz, get up.”

But the shifter now convulses in the small space between the machines, and I watch in horrified fascination as pink foam spills from his mouth, his limbs jerking.

“Violet!” urges Leif, and pulls me backwards.

“He doesn’t usually do that,” snarls Garrick, and lunges at me. “What did you do to him?”

I deftly side-step. “Me? Nothing. I haven’t touched him.”

Apart from the other night when I tried to rip his skin off.

The third shifter wipes broad hands down his face and crouches. “Oz! What the fuck have you taken?”

“You indulge in drug taking?” I ask them.

“I’m calling an ambulance,” says Leif in panic as others approach, a small crowd gathering in the claustrophobic space.

“What did you do?” shouts Garrick. “Oz never reacted this badly before.”

“You just intimated Oz is suffering from a reaction to illicit substances,” I retort. “I did not supply him with such.”

“And that makes his fucking ears bleed does it?” snarls his friend beside him.

What?

Blood leaks from Oz’s ears and the foam spittle turns deeper pink as the shifter gasps and gargles, the mess streaking the gray tiles beneath his head.

“You’re killing him! Stop!” shouts Garrick.

“I’m not doing anything,” I say calmly.

But cold trickles through my blood, a new uncomfortable and annoying response to the world, the same as when Grayson had the witch’s heart in his hand.

Panic.

Is Oz’s current condition what happens to a construct when their witch dies?

“Get him out. No ambulance. No human’s touching him. They’d use the excuse to finish the job. Or that bitch’s dad would interfere, so she gets away with this.” The third shifter speaks quickly, holding Oz beneath the arms, then lifting him.

Oz can’t stand—makes no attempt to—head lolled forward as the pair struggle to stop their friend crashing to the tiles again.

I look around to where Leif stands nearby on the phone, fingers gripping his hair as he speaks. A male uniformed staff member joins the throng, and he commands me to step back.

But I need to watch.

To understand.

The burly shifters half-drag Oz away and they hulk over and argue with the slender girl who served Leif the drink earlier. By now, some from the bowling lanes crowd the exit from the arcade, and as the shifters rather charmingly shout at everybody to fuck off, they pull Oz across the floor, his boots squeaking as they do.

Many visiting this place of teen frivolity are from the academy, and others are from the fateful party. Accusing looks are thrown my way and whispered rumors begin again. While others stare, unmoving, I follow. I must see every second of this scenario.

Two paramedics in distinctive green clothing appear and I’m convinced a fist fight will break out between the shifters and medics as they extricate the still convulsing Oz from his friends. Both shifters pursue the medics to the ambulance, and I sneak outside the building onto the sidewalk, hiding as best I can amongst the onlookers.

The pair of shifters enter the rear of the ambulance with one of the medics and Oz, and the vehicle dashes away into the evening, lights flashing as brightly as the arcade’s. As I stand and watch, Leif emerges and winds an arm around my shoulders.

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