Nina knelt down on her haunches, pushing some stray strands of hair from Poppy’s face before she ran the back of her knuckles over her cheek. “Not a fucking clue, Ball-Crusher. One minute you were there, the next you were flying across the damn sky like some kinda human cannonball. I’ve seen some shit, but that was crazy. It was like some damn invisible hands picked you up and launched your ass out here. We just followed the streak of light.”
Which was when she remembered what she’d said before everything went black. She forced herself to a sitting position, shrugging her way out of Marty’s steel grip. “Oh my God, Rick! Did his…” No. She couldn’t say it. “Does he still have his…”
“Head?” Rick asked, coming into view, his large form blocking out the moon as he knelt next to her.
She bracketed his handsome face with her hands and yelled, “Yes! Oh, thank God you still have your head!”
He gripped her wrist and smiled sheepishly. “I do. Not that I deserve it, but I still have it.”
Poppy scoffed, shoving his face away with a light push of her hands and mock disgust. “Oh yeah. You were being a jerk. I almost forgot.”
But he didn’t let go of her wrists. Instead, Rick pulled her closer, his nose almost touching hers. She smelled the faint hint of wine on his breath, they were so near. “I’m sorry. My only explanation is I have a long, not-so-great history with magic gone wrong, and sometimes that history gets the better of me. I overreacted.”
Upon reflection, she had to at least apologize for not telling him the whole story, but she’d been so focused on doing this right and then the thing with her neighbors and her apartment, and who she’d been before this became lost in the shuffle. But it certainly hadn’t been intentional.
“I’m sorry I didn’t give you the whole story. It wasn’t intentional, just circumstantial,” she whispered, her body suddenly warm and tingly with all sorts of heady vibrations and electric pulses.
Cupping her jaw, Rick sighed. “How about we start over?”
“Bacon?”
“Bacon?” he repeated.
“You could make me bacon. Bacon makes everything better.”
Rick chuckled, the sound low and deep in his throat. “Bacon it is.”
“So deal’s back on?”
“Like Donkey Kong,” he replied on a snicker.
Nina tickled the inside of Rick’s ear with a broken limb. “Hey, back up, buddy. You’re getting pretty cozy there. It’s damn cold out here. We need to get the kid back home and figure out what the hell just happened. Can’t do that if you’re tryin’ to stick your tongue down her throat. Now move, Slick-Rick, or I’m gonna give you a case of genital warts that’ll end up on some medical mysteries show.”
Poppy giggled as Rick backed off and grabbed her hand, pulling her upright. She swayed to and fro, leaning into the strength of his grip, her head still light and fuzzy. But she squared her shoulders and sucked it up.
“When we get back, I’ll tell you everything. Then there’ll be no loose ends.”
“Fair enough, and then we’re going to examine what happened here tonight. Familiars certainly have magic, but a magic this powerful? One that could send you clear across the woods? I have to wonder what’s happening.”
She squeezed his hand, liking the feel of his slightly callused palm against hers, and nodded with a shiver. But she put on a brave front with a smile. “Let’s do this.”
As they picked their way back to his house through the woods, everyone lost in their own thoughts, Poppy clung to Rick’s hand, trying not to think about what this all meant without having some solid answers.
To speculate could only make her already vivid imagination get away with itself. She’d spent way too much of her childhood pretending to be one fictional character or another, and making up stories in her bedroom mirror as she practiced for the long-awaited time when she’d leave Cincinnati forever to become a famous actress.
It was better she didn’t think too hard on this. Like for instance, maybe there was some evil force out there that didn’t want her around, and it was lurking in the shadows, waiting to snuff her out.
But that was crazy.
And dramatic.
Yes. That was crazy dramatic.
The next morning brought only more questions as they ate breakfast around the kitchen island before preparing to head off to Rick’s office.
“Okay, so we have two instances now that have been detrimental. My wrist, which, hey, Calamity, thanks for reattaching, and this thing with Poppy last night. We should be calling Familiar Central, because something’s not right,” Rick commented over his scrambled eggs.
Calamity had finally found a spell to literally knit Rick’s hand back onto his wrist. It had been a little horror movie-ish, but it had worked.