“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. There’s something about these bushes,” I said, stumbling through the leaves. “I think we walked by these on the way here.”
“Nah.” Roscoe picked up a branch I snapped off, sneezing again. “We woulda already broken through this place if we had,” he continued, wiping his nose with the back of his arm.
After a few minutes of walking, something tickled the back of my neck.
“There’s a huge spider on you,” Roscoe shouted.
I screamed, flailing my arms and spinning backward. Instead of a spider, I ended up with a face full of leaves courtesy of Roscoe.
“I ain’t never heard a grown man scream like that in my life.” Roscoe shook with laughter, choking on snot as he sneezed again. “Goddamn, I can’t breathe.”
“You’re going in the cage tonight.” I snatched the thin branch away, whipping him with it once before tossing it to the side.
“I thought we agreed that those things were too dangerous to use.”
“I’ll happily make you take that risk,” I said, scratching at my arm, which was starting to burn a little. “There aren’t supposed to be any mosquitoes this time of the year.”
Roscoe’s face went from a squinty grin to wide-eyed horror in less than a second.
“What?”
“Oh shit,” he said, pointing at my face.
“I’m not falling for that again.”
“I’m bein’ serious. Yer face don’t look right.”
Similar to my arms, a burning and itching sensation spread from my forehead down to my cheeks.
“Uh oh,” I said, my heart racing as I picked up the thin branch I’d tossed away. The leaves were turning a red color, which was typical for fall, but when I counted the three leaflets on each stem, all the blood drained from my face. “Oh my God. This is poison oak.” I dropped the branch and gripped Roscoe’s chestmane with both fists. “You rubbed this all over my face, you idiot! I’m going to kill you!”
Roscoe stood in the middle of the bedroom with his tail tucked between his legs, his hands bound, and his maw wrapped in an enchanted leather strap. The most satisfying part of all of this was how snug that cage was, since it perfectly molded to Roscoe’s size. After that, it shrank uncomfortably small. If this was witchcraft, then I could see why Mosavi got a kick out of it.
It wasn’t that hard to get all this stuff on him. Once I snuck the magic cuffs around his wrists, that was it. His body locked up, and I could do whatever I wanted.
“I’m taking a shower,” I slurred, my face still swollen. I was confused as to why the reaction to the poison oak was so quick and intense. Perhaps the rapid healing had something to do with it, but I didn’t know for sure. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Roscoe whined like an injured dog, snot still oozing from his nose. The strap securing his muzzle wasn’t on that tight, so he could still breathe through his mouth.
I walked out of the room before closing the door behind me as Adam crept through the hallway.
“Ew! What the hell happened to you?”
“Bad life choices,” I muttered, scratching my arms before stepping into the bathroom. “What do you want?”
“I want to know what you did to Austin.”
“What are you talking about?” I stammered, trying to choose my words very carefully. “I just told him to give you more attention.”
“You fucked him, didn’t you?”
“I most certainly did not!”
Adam pulled me into a hug, which wouldn’t have bothered me had my skin not been licked by the leafy tongue of Satan himself.
“Ow,” I said, trying to push him off me.
