Page 4 of How to Flirt with a Witch

My heart does the same thing against my ribs, fear smothering my victory as Lucy’s eyes blaze. Stinging everywhere, I grab the handle, praying the vet will know what’s happening to us.

Chapter 2

Doctor Zacharias’s Diagnosis

As I burst intothe waiting room in my balaclava, the vet technician behind the front desk freezes, her eyes widening. I guess I do look like I’m about to rob the place.

I set the hissing kennel at my feet. “Help. My cat has something contagious, and now I have it, and I’m sorry for coming here with an infectious disease but I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Okay,” she says flatly—and oh, the things this young woman must have seen to react so calmly. She reaches for a clipboard, glancing past me to where half a dozen people with dogs and cats fill the sterile white room. “We have a bit of a wait, but—”

“I can’t wait.” I’m breathless as panic tightens my chest and the boils prickle my skin. “I need to cure her as soon as possible. You don’t understand.”

I’m not sureIunderstand, but what I know is that the bus broke down on the way here, and while walking a half-hour in the rain, my shoulder got clipped by a car mirror, I stepped in something brown and sticky, and I rolled my ankle on the curb hidden beneath all the dead leaves. And Iswear to God, this is Lucy’s fault. In the four days since I adopted her, each day has been worse than the last. It feels like my luck is about to run out at any moment—like the kennel at my feet is housing a ticking bomb.

“I can relay your concerns to the vet,” the vet tech says, her calmness infuriating, “but we have a priority sequence—”

I splay my gloved hands on the desk, standing on my toes to lean closer. “This is your new top priority!”

She pushes the clipboard toward me, her expression blank, totally impervious to my panic. “Please fill out this intake form, and we’ll get you into the queue.”

Frustration and disbelief bubble inside me. Sweat prickles under all my layers. Can’t she see my desperation through the slit in my balaclava?

The clipboard slips off the counter and lands on the toe of my sneaker, corner first. Pain jolts through my foot and up my leg. “Motherf…”

I grit my teeth against it. The stroke of bad luck isn’t even surprising.

“I don’t—have time—for paperwork.” My voice is quiet and desperate. With how things are going, I’ll bleed out from a paper cut if I try to fill it out.

Another vet tech, a twentysomething woman with a purple bob, sidles behind her and rummages through a file folder, casting me nervous glances.

“I understand how stressful it is when our pets are unwell,” the first one says, her expression pitying.

The door to an examination room opens, and an elderly man walks out carrying a chihuahua. Flanking him is a middle-aged man in a white coat.

The vet!

“My kitten is making me break out in boils!” I shout, stepping closer. I peel off a glove to show him my disgusting, lumpy hand. “It might be a parasite or something,but—”

The vet puts his palms up. “Miss, I need you to wait your turn—”

“This is urgent!” I’m aware of the eyes on me and the hush that falls over the room. But public humiliation is the least of my worries right now.

“You’re at the emergency clinic,” the first vet tech says, standing. Her calm demeanor is starting to crack. “Everything here is ur—”

“My window opened without my control when I was trying to crate her,” I say. “Her food bowl melted to the floor this morning. I found a dead scorpion in my slipper last night with her little teeth marks. Ascorpion. InCanada. Doctor, please.”

The entire waiting room goes still. The vet drops his hands, staring at me.

My insides twist. I shouldn’t have said all those things. How must I sound?

The doctor turns to the vet techs, his expression solemn. “Get her into quarantine. Call Doctor Zacharias.”

Both girls freeze. Their shoulders tense, their eyes going huge. They exchange a glance I can’t interpret. Fear? Excitement? Both?

Whatever their reactions mean, it doesn’t matter. He’s put a name to the solution:Doctor Zacharias.My savior.

Without a word, the girl with purple hair leads me into a windowless room at the back of the office. Pictures of puppies hang on the pastel blue walls, an attempt to cheer up the clinical space. The door slams with a little too much force.