But it’s not Grayson. It’s a pink pig. A big, beefy pink pig.
Milton.
And he’s not alone. I guess Grayson rallied a little pig army for me. A dozen market boars swarm Cressida, who has been pushed to the ground and is desperately trying to keep the pigs from trampling her.
I guess she doesn’t have a spell to ward pigs away.
Forcing myself up, I blast her with a containment spell. There’s no dodging this time. Cressida Caine, aka The Witch, is caught.
I slump to the side. “Wayne, are you okay?” I call, looking around to see where he is.
He’s off to my left, sitting up. “I’m okay.” He rubs his head. “I think.”
I sag with relief. It’s over. We survived.
“Olive!”
It’s Grayson, throwing himself down at my side, his hands running over my arm. “You’re hurt. Let me?—”
He’s naked. Well, not totally naked. He has a strip of red, white, and blue bunting wrapped around his waist like a patriotic version of Tarzan.
“Does this hurt?” he asks, and then he yanks on my arm.
“Ow! Yes, that definitely hurts.” His prodding hands aren’t exactly gentle, and I use the last of my energy to pull away. “You have a terrible bedside manner, do you know that?”
The dimple flashes in his cheek. “You’re the first of my patients to ever complain.”
“They’re lucky they’re all dead,” I grumble. “You’d be a terrible doctor.”
Beside me, Milton finishes grunting at the chained-up Cressida and nudges me with his nose. “He’s checking on you,” Grayson says softly.
I rub his cool head. “I’m okay, buddy. Thank you. You saved the day.”
He lifts his head, his piggy eyes meeting mine. And I can’t be sure, but I’m pretty sure he understands. Then he flops down onto his side, wriggling his body a little.
“He wants belly rubs,” Grayson tells me.
“Then he gets belly rubs,” I say, reaching out with my good arm to scratch at the pig’s massive underside.
Grayson finishes messing with my hurt arm long enough for me to mutter a healing spell. Wincing at the wave of pain that accompanies it, I pull myself up until I’m not sagging like a sack of potatoes.
“It was you, you know,” Grayson says. “You were the one who saved everyone. If you hadn’t figured out it was Cressida behind this all along, she would have gotten away with it. We would all be dead.”
I can’t bear to think about it. Not now when we’ve managed to avoid the worst. I don’t want to think about Cressida ever again. I don’t want her voice in my head.
I want to think about what comes next, now that we know there is a next. I want to think about Grayson picking me up after work on a Friday for dinner at the local Thai place and a little Netflix and chill at my place. I want to think about waking up in the morning with him, and arguing with him about the best way to load the dishwasher, and secretly steal his socks because they’re better than mine.
I want to make salads with him. Maybe give wind-surfing a whirl.
I want the boring, remarkable life that Cressida knew, deep down, she would never be able to stand.
But I suppose we should probably start with a first date.
Wayne gets to his feet and walks over to where his belt buckle landed. “It’s all melted,” he says, scooping it up and bringing it over to show us.
Poor Wayne. His prized belt buckle. “Don’t worry,” I say, reaching for it. “I think I might be able to fix it.”
But Wayne isn’t looking at me. He’s looking toward the bleachers, where a group of preteen girls have emerged from hiding, their eager faces turned his way, giggling and blushing, one of them pointing at him and whispering to her friends. “Uh, no, that’s okay,” he says, pulling it away from me and working to reattach it to his belt. “It, uh, looks cooler this way.”
