Page 75 of How to Flirt with a Witch

“Okay, okay.” I stop thrashing, grabbing the tightening noose. My hands meet something cool, rough, and too uneven to be a rope. It smells like damp earth.What’s happening?

Distantly, Natalie’s voice comes out of my phone, which slid across the ground and bumped into the sedan’s tire. “Katie? Hello?”

“Shit,” Oaklyn whispers, looking at the phone.

Hope surging, I yank whatever is around my throat. It snaps at the back of my neck, coming free. I grab Oaklyn’s hand holding the blade and use all my strength to keep it away from me. “Natalie! It’sOakl—”

Her knee hits my ribs, and I splutter, the wind knocked out of me. Everything spins as she wraps an arm around my neck and drags me toward the FJ. I gasp for air, choking in the crook of her elbow.

Dizzy, I fight back instinctively, kicking her shins, clawing, biting. Nothing works. She opens the car door and shoves me, my hip hitting the back seat.

“No!” I roar, bracing myself against it, refusing to go an inch further.

“Hey, what’s going on here?” someone shouts. A young Black man with a backpack rushes toward us, his eyes wide in alarm. “Let her go—”

Oaklyn releases me and punches him in the jaw. Hard.He crumples, unconscious before he hits the ground.

I shriek, using the seat for leverage to kick her in the gut with both feet. Maybe it’s adrenaline combined with fury over her knocking out someone who was trying to help, but my kick lands harder than expected.

Oaklyn slams into the sedan behind her, the breath knocked out of her. The car alarm erupts.

I leap out of the FJ and run.

I make it two strides when something trips me. My hands and knees crack against the pavement again. I cry out, pain and frustration bursting from my lips. How did she trip me from two steps back?

Then, above the car alarm, a groan reverberates through my bones. The ground rumbles.

Crrrack!The pavement splits in the middle of the parking lot, and dread grips me. What’s she doing now?

But Oaklyn screeches. She tries to stand as the ground shakes, only to fall back to her knees.

My skin prickles like a static charge has filled the air. My hair lifts, dancing in a sudden wind.

Hope crashes over me. This quake isn’t from her.

“Natalie!” I gasp.

At the end of the line of parked cars, Natalie stands with her fists clenched, her stance wide. Even from a distance, her eyes flash dangerously.

Awe fills me as she charges toward us.Shemade the earthquake. Now, as the tremors subside, she raises her hands, summoning a swirl of dust and pebbles that circles us like a tornado.

I scramble to my feet, backing away from the cars.

Natalie’s eyes narrow, focusing on Oaklyn. “You’ve graduated from theft to kidnapping, I see.”

“Whatever it takes to make you share.” Oaklyn slashes her dagger, and dark, fibrous ropes erupt from the tip, twisting through the air like snakes.

Roots.That’s what she wrapped around my neck. But… how?

A chill sweeps over me. I thought Oaklyn was lying about using earth magic.

Natalie’s face hardens. She swings her arm, and a boulder soars through the air, knocking the roots aside with acrackbefore they can reach her. The boulder slams into the pavement, shattering it. The roots smack against the sedan and leave dirty streaks.

I drop to my knees beside the guy who tried to help me, tapping his face. “Hey. Come on, you need to get out of here,” I whisper, checking over my shoulder.

Oaklyn swipes her dagger again, unleashing a knot of roots. Natalie counters with a chunk of pavement. They collide in an explosion of dust and dirt.

My mind is hazy, my balance unsteady. Grit stings my eyes and coats my throat.