Page 134 of How to Flirt with a Witch

“What thefuck?” Hazel shouts, picking up her phone and smearing blood on the screen.

“Shit, shit…” I fumble for my own phone, dropping my purse in the process. “We need to get to CSAMMnow.”

“Get towho?Jesus, why won’t this pause?” She jabs her thumb at her phone screen, getting more blood on it.

I punch Natalie’s name, and she answers calmly, her voice low and breathless. “Katie, I’m glad you called. I’ve been—”

“The Madsens delivered a curse to my doorstep!” I shout over the chants of Baha Men. Snatching up the plush dog, I leave my purse on the ground and shove Hazel toward the street. “Maybe Oaklyn, based on the note, or Freddie, based on the dog. We’re catching the first bus downtown. Meet me part way.”

She hesitates for the briefest moment as she absorbs my frantic explanation. “Did you touch it? Who’swe?”

“Hazel. She picked it up first, so the curse is attacking—gah!” I break off as she stumbles and crashes into me.

“Ow! Dammit.” She groans, limping. “I rolled my ankle on a freaking pebble!”

I wrap an arm around her waist and hold her to my side, my voice quaking. “Natalie, what if we don’t make it?”

There’s a pause that holds an unbearable weight—her mother’s death, their inability to get to her in time, the emptiness in her life since it happened.

The song reaches the first verse, a stab of annoyance pulling me out of my spiral.

“Fuck!” Hazel screams again, waving her arms to defend herself from the bird.

“You will,” Natalie says, firm and steady. “I just left CSAMM to head to a different curse location. I’m turning around.”

I cling to her reassuring tone, gripping the phone tighter. “Thank God.”

Hazel gives up on her phone and pockets it, flapping her hands in her signatureoh-my-god oh-my-godgesture. “She’s coming with the cure?”

“She’s already in the car.” I keep a tight hold on the plush dog, ready to throw it under the vial the second we see Natalie. It feels cheap and hard, the synthetic fur abrasive between my fingers.

“Is this the first you’ve heard from the Madsens since you left?” Natalie asks on the phone.

“Yes.” Awkwardness curdles in my stomach at the reminder of me leaving. “Have the Shadows seen them since?”

“Funny you mention it. We had a sighting an hour ago. Sky and the others are on it.”

I look around as if expecting to see the Madsens right here. “Where? Near me?”

Hazel and I make it to the bus stop, out of breath. The obnoxious music attracts the stares of everyone waiting.

“North Shore, actually,” Natalie says. “And we werealsocalled out to deal with a high-profile curse at the Convention Centre.”

I furrow my brow. “All this at once?”

“I know.”

Suspicious.Why would the Madsens be on the North Shore while delivering a curse to me in Point Grey at the same time? Not to mention the curse at the Convention Centre… Have they planted several incidents at once? And why?

“Bus, bus, bus!” Hazel cries, relief flooding her voice.

She tugs me closer to the curb as the bus pulls up.

The doors open—and it’s crammed full. Through the windows, teenagers fill every square inch of space. A high school class has apparently decided to use it for field trip transportation.

Everyone ahead of us at the bus stop scoffs and groans as they’reunable to get on.

I push Hazel onward before she can panic. “Keep walking. Natalie, meet us on West 10th.”