“Okay, so we have two Holy Grails. Do you want to dicker about numbers or do you want to make a plan here?” Greta asked.
A plan. She’d never felt more inferior in her entire life. She was a mere werewolf, with nothing but brute strength on her side. How did you fight off crazypants with a good right hook?
A good right hook.
If she could knock that box out of Kirby’s hands and someone could grab Nash and Winnie, they might stand a chance.
Turning to the group, she said. “Okay, here’s the plan…”
“Kirby? Hey, honey. What are you doing?” Calla asked softly, strolling through the barn doors and across the floor littered with straw and dirt. She refused to even look at Nash, or she might break and take Kirby out before it was time. It was all about the timing.
Kirby whirled around, the box firmly in her grasp. Her eyes were glazed and shiny, her skin damp with perspiration. “Calla!”
Calla smiled, focusing on one thing, and one thing only. Getting that damn box. “Oh, Kirby,” she chided softly. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you just come to me and tell me how you felt?”
Kirby’s mouth opened but no words came out.
Calla clucked her tongue. “I’m so hurt.”
Kirby faltered, her eyes darting around the room before she focused on Calla’s again. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “I…I didn’t mean to hurt you. I love you. I love you so much, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. He doesn’t love you. He forgot all about you!”
Calla kept approaching, her feet shuffling in slow, forward steps. “He did, didn’t he? Kind of a jerk, right?”
Her face went ugly then, distorted and so unlike the Kirby she thought she knew. “He’s no better than a trough of pig slop. All men are filthy creatures. All of them!”
“So why all the fuss, Kirby? I’ll go with you, if you want.” She smiled then, tamping down the greasy slime of her disgust.
Kirby’s face brightened in surprise and hope. “You…you will?”
“Of course I will. All you had to do was ask. Now, give me your hand and let’s walk out of here before we find ourselves in a whole lot of trouble we don’t need. Okay?”
Kirby’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying!”
Calla continued to move toward her, her hand outstretched. “Why would I lie to you? You’re my friend, aren’t you? Friends don’t lie to each other.”
But Kirby began to back away. “Don’t come any closer or I’ll disappear forever and take that stupid bitch’s magic with me! I hate her, too! All of her crappy stories about how awesome it is to be a good witch. I hate the timed showers and cooking meals for those idiots who are simpletons with brooms. I hate the smell of the seniors and their stupid dentures. The only thing I loved was you, Calla. You and the center. Because you loved the center.”
“That’s true. I do love the center, Kirby. But I love you, too. So if that means leaving the center behind, we can start one somewhere else, right?”
There was a long pause—long enough for Calla to see Kirby was trying to process her offer, wrap her twisted brain around the idea that she would go with her willingly.
And that all changed in an instant. “You. Lie!” she roared, her face red, her eyes on fire.
The moment Kirby snapped was the moment Calla lunged for her, pulling her arm back with the speed of light and landing a punch square in her jaw. The crack of her bones echoing in the barn.
Chapter 12
Kirby wobbled, the box teetering in her hand before it fell to the ground.
“Dive!” Calla screamed at Greta, who charged in and lunged for the box.
But Kirby was back on her feet faster than Calla would have ever given her credit for. She nailed Greta in the head with her foot, stomping the side of her skull and scrambling toward the box, now lying halfway across the floor.
Calla made a run for it as Daphne waved her hand and shot upward, pulling an unconscious Winnie from the rafters and back to the ground.
“Calla!” Nash bellowed. “Duck!”
Just as her fingers almost had the box within their grasp, a loud crash quaked the floor, followed by the creak of wood.
A piece of the barn wall came crashing down, narrowly missing her head as she rolled to the left, trying to relocate the box.
A high-pitched yell pierced through the barn, with Gus kamikaze-ing right behind it. He leapt through the air and landed on Kirby’s back, wrapping his arm securely around her neck. “That’s for not letting me have Cheez-Its!”
But he was no match for Kirby; she flung him off like a speck of dust before setting her sights on Daphne.
Calla pushed herself upward, blocking out everything but getting to that box and Nash. It was almost at his feet. She crawled across the floor as the room began to collapse around them, dust choking her and filling her eyes with a haze of sheetrock.
Clive made a run for Nash, zipping around behind him. “I got him, you get the box, Calla!”