Page 8 of How to Flirt with a Witch

“Ones most people have never heard of.”

“Try me,” I shoot back.

The corner of her mouth quirks, but she just lifts the kennel to peer into it again. Lucy growls.

Annoyance twists in my gut. I don’t like her lack of answers or eye contact. Is her work so classified that an infected person can’t know what they’ve contracted?

“You’re young to be a vet.” It’s not an accusation, exactly, but this is all really weird.

“I did an accelerated program.” She’s still inspecting Lucy. “I knew what I wanted to be from a young age.”

I cock an eyebrow. “So you’re a genius too?”

“What do you mean,too?”

Heat rushes into my cheeks. She must know she’s a knockout, right? Like, people must always tell her she’s the full package of looks and brains?

I cross my arms, wincing as the boils press against each other, and redirect the topic. “I guess that makes sense. I also knew what I wantedto be as a kid. I’m taking psychology, and I used to make my sisters lay on the couch and tell me their problems like I was psychoanalyzing them.”

There’s a pause, and the heat in my face intensifies. I was hoping to make her laugh. She doesn’t.

Well, we found out why I hate talking to strangers. Dammit, Hazel.

Abruptly, she grabs my upper arm, pulling me toward her. My heart jumps, both at her strong hand and the suddenness.

As our chests bump, a burst of debris smashes over the ground and hits our ankles. The loose ceiling tile I was afraid of lies in a dozen pieces, a cloud of dust rising.

I cough and wave my hand, turning my face to avoid inhaling it. Doctor Zacharias’s expression hasn’t changed—like she’s as unsurprised by the event as I am. Did she even flinch? The way she grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the way was so calm, like she might as well have said, “Ah, yes, this again.”

We’re close enough that I can feel the heat of her body. As we lock eyes, she drops her hand, leaving my arm tingling.

She nods firmly. “We’ll call you when your cat is cured and ready for pickup.”

She leaves the room with the kennel, plunging me back into silence.

I huff, my frustration replaced by a hollow sense of loss. I didn’t expect to be returning to my place alone today.

I step around the debris and shrug into my jacket, today’s events swirling through my head. Doctor Zacharias’s vague diagnosis isn’t enough to explain it all. Rather than answer my questions, she planted a seed of suspicion. What’s she keeping from me?

I pull out my phone and open the browser. Something is going on—something bigger than a disease. She’s hiding the truth, and I’m going to figure out what it is.

Chapter 3

Friends on this Side of the Country

As the boils subsideover the following days, I keep my phone beside me, which becomes both a source of hope and a torture device. Every time it buzzes, I fumble for it, the jolt of anticipation followed by a sinking disappointment. By day five, a dreary, rainy Monday, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve called Helping Paws to ask for an update.

“I just want to know if Lucy’s okay,” I tell the annoyed vet tech, pacing my room. “Can I please speak to Doctor Zacharias?”

“I’m sorry, but we can’t give out her number. We’ll call you.”

I hang up without a goodbye and throw my phone on my bed. A hot surge of anger rises in me. Would it kill her to relay a message? I fight the urge to pick up something else and throw it too. This state of not knowing is eating me alive.

My fingers tremble as I weave my hair into its familiar braid over my right shoulder. As I pull on a knit sweater and jeans, with nothing but swishing clothes and pattering rain filling my ears, a lump forms in my throat. Lucy’s absence leaves a void, not to mention a constant reminderof this freaky mystery. To ward off the homesickness, Hazel and I have been video chatting every night—sometimes, we’ll leave our call running in the background while we study in parallel. It helps a smidge.

When I get to the biology lecture hall, amid a hum of conversations and the shuffle of papers and backpacks, I grab a seat along the far left wall. The cavernous room is cold, smelling like damp coats and old books. The tablet-desk seating is designed for right-handed people to write in tiny notebooks, so I carefully balance my phone in the space beside my laptop.

My browser is still open to a page on rare infectious diseases. I close it quickly before anyone can look over my shoulder and see the wordsfull-body skin boils. All this gory research and I still haven’t been able to figure out what Lucy had. Should I be worried about more cats like her popping up? Are there any lasting effects of whatever I contracted?