I dial Camilla on speaker phone, and when she answers after one ring, I hold the phone toward Gemma. “Tell her,” I say.
She lifts her shoulders with aTell her what?expression, and it takes everything I have not to lunge at her and use my long acrylic nails to claw her fucking eyes out. “Tell. Her.”
“Hi, Camilla, it’s Gemma. I, um, sort of gave Dominic too much of a sleep aid from the apothecary and was wondering if there’s anything I can do to wake him up.”
“Wow, really, Gemma?” Camilla replies, her tone a deadly slither. “You drugged Dominic.” A statement, not a question. “Describe what you gave him.”
The apothecary is run by the town coven. They all take turns managing the place. I’m lucky that one of Camilla’s shifts is happening right now.
“It’s a gray powder,” she says, her feet shifting from side to side.
“She’s fucked,” Vyla whispers in my ear. “It’s over for her.”
I don’t entirely know what that means, but from context, I assume Gemma’s in a lot of trouble, and she knows it.
“Did you mix it with water before putting it in his drink?” Camilla asks.
“You roofied him?” I bellow, and Vyla has to restrain me again, but she struggles as my rage builds. “You…you knew his rut was about to start, didn’t you? What, so you were going to drug him and then…” I don’t need to finish that sentence. We all know how it ends.
She waves her hands in front of her frantically like she’s trying to cool herself down. “Relaxed! I just wanted him relaxed!” she shouts back. “I thought if I could get him to chill,I could remind him of how much fun we used to have together. Then his rut would make it hard for him to deny me.”
“You vile piece of shit!”
I fight against the strong hands that keep me in place, but then Vyla says, “Don’t, Linds. You touch her without consent, and you’ll end up in jail too. You’ll never be able to come back here.”
My breaths are coming out in labored pants as I sag against Vyla, feeling powerless and hating it. Camilla’s voice fills the room, and I realize my phone is on the floor. “You guys still there?”
“I’m texting Otto,” Vyla whispers.
The sheriff with tentacles who arrested Finn on Halloween night. Good.
I look back at her and nod.
“Yeah, we’re here,” I say to Camilla.
“Gemma, did you hear my question?”
Gemma picks at her red nails, looking everywhere in the room but at me. “I didn’t put it in his drink, no.” She clears her throat. “I, um, mixed it with saline and sort of…injected it into his neck.”
“Jesus Christ, are you serious?” Camilla asks.
Her tone alone sends me careening off the edge of fury and into something so deep and hot there’s no English word to accurately capture it. Interestingly, though, I don’t lash out this time. I remain still. Something thrums in my belly, barely noticeable at first, but present. The feeling starts to grow, and my eyes drift to the floor-to-ceiling bookcase behind Gemma, almost overflowing with books. If she were anyone else, I’d compliment her shelf game and ask for recommendations, but since she’s a fart in the shape of a demon, I focus on the eerie pull I feel from the top of the bookcase.
The tingle rises from my belly and into my lungs, and as alien as it is, I let it chart its course. It creeps up my spine and circles my neck and warms my cheeks. Gemma and Camilla are still talking, but I’m no longer listening. All of my focus is on the bookcase, and I feel compelled to keep my eyes on it, waiting for…a signal, maybe? Not that the bookcase feels sentient, or anything, but there’s something about it–
I hear the splintering of wood first, and then the books fall. Every book blasts off the shelves and straight toward Gemma with a force that doesn’t fit the scene. The bookcase is collapsing, but it sounds and feels like it’s exploding. The books pummel Gemma, one by one. She cries out at first, holding up her arms to block her face, but there are too many of them and they just keep coming. She staggers to her knees, whimpering. Then a particularly thick hardcover book hits her square in the temple, and she drops, out cold. The shelves fall on top of the pile in jagged pieces, and the room goes quiet.
Somewhere beneath that pile of rubble is my mortal enemy, and I can’t help but smile.
“Oh. My. God,” Vyla says beside me. She scrambles to pick up my phone. “Camilla, you need to get over here right now.” Then disconnects the call.
Nic is still out cold, though I’m not sure how, with all the ruckus. That drug must be crazy strong.
Camilla shows up a few minutes later, and surveys the scene in the bedroom. She quickly checks Nic’s pulse, lifting his eyelids to check his pupils. “He’ll be fine, I checked with the coven. He’ll probably sleep for another day or so while it wears off.” Then she looks at the bookcase, and back at me. “You did this.”
It’s not a question, but I’m honored she thinks I’m capable of this.
“Uh, no. The bookcase fell over. I was just enjoying the show.”
