Gail’s mind battled with the reality that Joel was going to leave her soon. Also, she couldn’t get angry at the fact. His pack and werewolves needed him. She refused to get depressed over it, either. Gail would not be the type of girl to mope over a guy, even if that guy was as incredible as Joel. She also didn’t want him to feel guilty for leaving. It had to be done and Gail would do her best to make it easier for him when the time came.
“Everything okay? You’ve been quiet since we left,” Joel asked, his fingers drumming against the passenger side door. He was still human, and if the past had anything to show, he would be for almost another hour still.
“Yeah, everything is as it should be,” she told him, then added for good measure, “It was interesting being the one that people suspected.”
“They mean
Gail was going to put herself first. Just like her aunt told her to. She waited for Joel to wake up from his nap and told him her plan. ‘Should I be there? I mean, perhaps it’s best if it was just the two of you.’ “We’re talking about your family, too. You should come,” Gail told him. ‘Alright, let’s go then.’ He followed her downstairs and into her aunt’s office. “We need to talk,” Gail said as soon as she walked into the room. Her aunt looked up from the laptop on her desk and stood. She walked around the desk and asked, “Talk? What about?” Her tone sharpened when she saw Joel. “Oh, you’re here then I can only imagine.” “Aunt Rose,” Gail said, matching her stern tone.
‘Sorry, I didn’t think she would react like that,’ Joel said, sitting at Gail’s feet and glancing back at the door. “Yeah, no kidding. Neither did I,” Gail admitted. “What did you say to her?” ‘Nothing that warranted that reaction.’ Wow. That explained everything. Gail crossed her arms and looked down at him. “Meaning?” ‘I just told her how I feel and as you saw, she didn’t like it.’ “What are you feeling?” Gail repeated. What did that mean? And why did her aunt react like that? “And that means?” She let some of her irritation at his evasiveness show through. ‘Just what I said. It’s not important. What is important is you don’t believe I would do any of tha
Gail sat in an overstuffed chair of the library, her legs hanging over the side. She was still in her pajamas, having woken up long before the sun rose. Gail stared at the three photographs. She couldn’t shake the feeling that if she looked at them long enough, they would tell her everything she needed about the past. Gail knew it was stupid, but that sensation had caused her a restless night. By her father’s beard, these photographs had to be taken within the year or so of their death. Her dad had started growing it out a year earlier and at the time of his death, it had only just became something that looked like an actual beard. Her dad was cursed with, as he called it, a baby face and he wanted to grow out the beard to look more ‘manly’. Gail remembered he was talking about letting it grow super long, so when he went gray, he’d look like a real wizard.
Gail’s elation at breaking the curse vanished when she saw her aunt. Closing the book she was reading, Aunt Rose stood. Her expression pinched and Gail had never seen her aunt with a frown so big. “Hey, Aunt Rose, I got some good news.”Aunt Rose crossed her arms, giving her a down right glacial glare. “Do you now? Which good news is that? That you ignored me and broke the werewolf’s curse and now you have made yourself a threat to Ricinius or the fact that you ignored me and got emotionally entangled with the werewolf.”“Uhm, I was going to tell you about the curse,” Gail replied. “Why are you so mad?”Aunt Rose scoffed. “Why am I so mad? Why? Have you not been listening to me at all lately, Galiena Faye Palmer?”
Gail went upstairs to look for Joel when a strange warmth filled her. Gail paused, rubbing her arms and trying to free them from the sensation. It lasted only a second before it was gone. She shook her head, figuring it must have been one of her aunt’s protection spells. Perhaps she was reinforcing them in expectation of trouble from the coven, since she was so convinced that Ricinius would know that she broke the curse.Much to Gail’s irritation, Joel wasn’t in his room. Her irritation turned to anger when she didn’t find him anywhere in the house. Where was he? Why did he choose now of all times to be difficult to find?Gail finally found him in the yard, picking cherry tomatoes right off the bush and eating them. That, too, fueled Gail’s anger. She doubted he asked her aunt to pick those tomatoes. Extremely rude, if you as
It took Joel almost an hour to walk far enough to reach the town, but his anger still burned through him. He couldn’t believe he trusted Gail. How could he have been so blind? She was just like every other witch. He walked through a small park, looking for someone not paying attention to his phone. Joel finally found one next to an elderly man. The older man had chosen a newspaper over the phone. Joel deftly took it from the park bench. Ducking out of sight, he called Elijah.“Hey Elijah, it’s me,” Joel said once his brother cautiously answered the phone. “I need you to pick me up. I’m done with those witches.”“Sure, tell me where you are?” Once Joel told him where he was, Elijah asked, “What happened?”“She—” Joel started, then pau
Once Gail was sure her aunt slept, and she wouldn’t have to see that old bat’s face, she gathered up the duffel bag with what little clothing she had left. Her anger hadn’t cooled since her fight with Joel that afternoon. God, she was an idiot. How could she trust him? Or her aunt, for that matter? Did everyone see her as some gullible, naïve pawn that they could play with as they pleased?Gail slung the duffle up onto her shoulder and left the room. Despite her anger, she tried not to make any noise as she left the house. “Good Riddance,” she said to the dark house before getting in her car. No longer worried about making noise, Gail slammed the door.Pressing on the gas, she backed out of the driveway, spraying gravel everywhere. Gail sped out of the driveway and down the tiny road. She didn’t know where she was
Aunt Rose waited for Gail on the porch when she got back to the house. Gail turned off the car, got her duffel bag, and joined her aunt on the porch. “What happened?” She asked. As she drove back, Gail wondered how the spell got past her protections.“I don’t know,” her aunt admitted. “I thought I had the protections keyed to keep anything harmful out, whether it was a spell or a physical person or object.” Aunt Rose shook her head. “I plan to be going over all of them in the morning. I also want to say I’m sorry. I should’ve realized a spell was active on all of us.”“Perhaps it’s the subtlety of the spell,” Gail said. “Since anger isn’t overtly harmful and since we were all already tense, it didn’t need much to push us over the edge.”