Page 27 of Witch You Would

Seeing Leandro spill our potion had hit me like a punch to the gut. Having him suggest using the pressure cooker had stressed

me out immensely because of what had happened the first and last time I’d done it.

And then... this.

The fire. The screaming—some real, some in my head, in memories that still gave me nightmares. It was a hundred times worse

than Leandro’s trick in the first round. I’d gone so deep into a panic attack that I thought my heart would explode. I couldn’t

think, couldn’t breathe.

Leandro finally got through to me enough that I could remember the exercises my therapist taught me, back when I had health

insurance in college. First, box breathing. Then, listing things I could see, feel, hear, smell, and taste.

At first, it was all Leandro. His ridiculous shirt, with shapes like construction paper cutouts, in black and red and yellow and pale blue.

Silky material against my cheek, his arms holding me tightly, like he was afraid I might fall if he let go.

He whispered to me that it would be okay, everyone was okay, other stuff I couldn’t understand in another language.

Italian? I could smell him, apples and lavender and sweat.

Adrenaline made my mouth taste sour and sharp, like licking a battery.

The panic drained slowly as a clogged sink. Now I heard Isaac yelling, and people moving around, here on the soundstage and

outside. Even though the ceiling in the warehouse was super high, the smell of smoke still lingered. Someone, maybe more than

one person, had done a brine and confine—salt water to neutralize the spell, plus the containment circle to hold any other

magical blowback. They’d be able to tell whether it was truly inert soon, but meanwhile, this kept everyone safe.

Tori came back through the hallway entrance and clapped; even though I was looking right at her, the sound still made me jump.

Leandro hugged me harder.

“We’ll film the elimination as soon as the area is secure,” Tori said. “Give me shots that don’t show the mess on the floor.

Upper bodies, faces, whatever.”

Cameras were shifted into new places, with Nate moving to the back of the room.

“Mic checks,” Tori said. “When I point at you, say ‘check, one, two, three,’ got it?”

We all got it, and did as we were told. I made myself step away from Leandro, who didn’t seem happy to let me go.

Are you okay? he mouthed at me.

I nodded. Total lie.

The judges, who had left to discuss point allocations, came back in with Syd and took up their positions. They very carefully

did not look at the mess of Amy and Jaya’s spell.

Now that my brain was climbing out of its screaming panic pit, it started yeeting thoughts at me. The biggest one was a single word, all caps, in huge font: SABOTAGE.

This was the second spell that had gone catastrophically wrong. On a typical season of Cast Judgment , there might be problems here and there. Contestants were expected to be good at casting after so many rounds of auditions,

but nobody was perfect, and magic played by its own rules. Random factors could throw off a spell in unexpected ways.

The celebrities, though? They were all professionals with their own businesses and shows and stuff. They might make mistakes,

too, but not like this.

Would the producers have to stop the show and start over? They couldn’t just play this off like it was nothing, could they?

Even after Isaac’s speech this morning, I couldn’t believe that. They had to know this was messed up. There were laws about

tampering with competitions.

We moved to our places and Syd gave their speech about people winning and people going home. Just like the last round, we

all knew what was coming as far as losers went. Only the winner might be a surprise.

Felicia and Charlotte got it this time. I was so sure it would be Dylan and Zeke again, but apparently the judges were more

impressed by the degree of transformation in the Cinderella spell. Harder to go from gourd to carriage to moving people and

back than it was to shift chocolate and cake to differently shaped chocolate and cake, no matter how good it looked and tasted.

Leandro and I were separated again after a short joint confessional.

I didn’t know whether they rushed us because our day had already gone too long, or they didn’t want us spilling any tea about what had happened.

Por qué no los dos? Either way, I barely remembered what I said.

Something about how we’d keep learning and upping our game.

On the drive back to the hotel, I tried to organize what I was going to say to Leandro about his potion-spilling shenanigans.

Brain fog from the panic attack and not having slept enough made it hard to do more than have a pretend fight with him inside

my head—and even that was mostly just me asking him, “How could you?” while he smiled his himbo mustache smile.

It didn’t make sense. Yesterday, and in the first round, he’d done silly stuff that looked like his usual Mage You Look oopsies, but none of it had actually affected our spells. We’d talked about how important it was for both of us to win. We’d

made a plan! A schedule! Why would he intentionally wreck things today?

He wouldn’t. Not unless he was a lying liar who lies and I was totally wrong to trust him. Did I believe that? No. So something

else must have happened. Which meant I’d been an asshole to him again.

Maybe I should accept that the problem was me. Leandro shifted from flake to focused like he was changing a jacket, but it

was my job to compensate. And I didn’t even have to! He was doing the work, and I was refusing to meet him halfway when he

made reasonable suggestions for how to solve problems. He didn’t know why I couldn’t use that pressure-cooking method. It

probably would have saved our spell, and instead, we’d once again survived because someone else’s magic combusted. Literally.

I had to apologize ASAP.

We all climbed out of the van at the hotel, said good night, and separated to our rooms a mimir.

I thought about tracking Leandro down, but I was starting to get a forehead ache from working magic for too long on little sleep.

Thankfully tomorrow was our rest day. No filming, no field trips, no promo stuff.

That meant I should have plenty of time to make things right with Leandro.

Part of me wanted to avoid him, because apologizing was hard, and so was explaining why I’d freaked out. Another part of me

wanted to get it over with, rip off the bandage so we could get back to work—assuming he’d even forgive me, which, this was

the second time I was shitty to him, so maybe not.

The rest of me wanted to climb him like a tree, even with his awful mustache. I had dry humped the shit out of him on the

floor of that casting booth, and if the lights hadn’t gone out, my shirt probably would have come off.

What was I thinking?

I wasn’t morally opposed to one-night stands or booty calls or friends with benefits. I’d had random make-outs with near-strangers

at college parties twice, dates that had led to sweaty fun times, a couple of boyfriends who hadn’t lasted more than the few

months it took to get past the new-relationship energy. After I started working six days a week, I was too drained to even

think about opening a dating app. If I didn’t want to be alone, I’d hang out with friends. If I wanted an orgasm, a vibrator

was more likely to get the job done.

Leandro made me want things. He made me want him, specifically. Not that he was deliberately trying to get in my pants—well,

maybe he was, but he wasn’t playing me or manipulating me. He wasn’t leading me on. He’d told me he doesn’t date and why,

and his reasons made sense.

It must be the stress, and the fact that we were stuck together all day, every day. That was supposed to make people horny,

right?

As tired as I was, I lay awake with all these thoughts running around in my head like my aunt’s hyper dogs. Finally I managed to make myself relax by remembering I’d be able to talk to my sister tomorrow. Maybe she’d have some wisdom for me.

Sleeping in was amazing! Is a thing I wished I could say.

The hotel room had blackout curtains, so without an alarm yelling at me to get up, I figured I would chill in Club Cama until

my body was fully rested. Instead, stress dreams led to cold-sweat awakeness where I was absolutely, positively sure I’d be

late for work. Once I remembered I was unemployed and this was my day off, I was too wired to go back to sleep.

I couldn’t find Rachel, keeper of the cell phones, so I stole a million tiny waffles from the breakfast bar and stress-ate

them with my hands like chips until she made an appearance.

“Remember, you can’t talk about the show,” Rachel said as she handed me my phone from the magically warded box. “You can check

your email and voicemails, talk to your emergency contact, that kind of thing. Absolutely no posting on socials. If you have

any questions, let me know.”

I had a lot of questions, but none she could answer. I ran back to my room and threw myself on the bed, texting Emelia.

Me: got my phone back for the day

Me: can I call you

Me: say yes or I’ll have to day drink

Eme: free mimosas what what

Me: I wish

Me: just coffee and juice

Eme: boo

Eme: let me go to my car

Eme: for PRIVACY

I zoned out until my cell started playing Emelia’s ringtone. “Eme, ahh! Don’t ask me about the show because I can’t talk about

it.”

“What if I just ask yes-or-no questions?”

“No way! I don’t want to get jumped by lawyer ninjas.”

Emelia snorted. “Lawyer ninjas? Mira que tu hablas mierda. FYI, remember how you forwarded all your calls to me?”

“Yeah?”

“You have gotten so many spam calls! Is that normal? Why do they think you have a car warranty that’s going to expire?”

“I don’t know! Oh my god, and the ones that are like, ‘the IRS is coming for your sooooul’?”

“As if you have any money to give them. Especially now.”