Poison and Paint by April Browne

Author:April Browne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Corbett Publishing

Ben shook her. Called her name. So far away. Her arm hurt. Her hand hurt. Fire—light?—burned in his chest. Blue, like the light dancing from her arms.

The glowing fox pushed against him, rubbed against him. Flames licked at him and her both. She was hot, but he didn’t seem to notice. Was the fire real? The dancing blue ropes twined from her fox into the coyote sitting in his chest.

No. No. Not real. Minnie whined and Daisy barked. But in her head, she could hear them yelling for him to help her. Real or not? She didn’t know.

Too loud, she closed her eyes.

Cool air hit her face, pushing into her nose and mouth. She coughed. A narrow ceiling rose above her.

An EMT hovered over her, examining the hand covered in thorns. A bright pink flame danced inside his chest. A wall of tiny drawers sat just beside her. An ambulance?

Someone squeezed her right hand. She turned to the other side. Ben sat beside her. She tried to smile at him through the mask, show him she was okay.

The glowing red fox and a glowing, dusky colored coyote nuzzled each other by her feet.

Sophia closed her eyes. Mama, at least, was gone for now.

The next time she opened her eyes, bright lights and light gray tiles filled her vision.

Her arm hurt. An IV needle stuck out of it.

“Sophia, what happened?” a man with a face mask asked her. Stethoscope around his neck. Doctor.

Beside the doctor, her fox and Ben’s coyote stared down at her, their mouths drawn in worry.

“Jimson weed. Backyard.”

The glowing ropes coming from her wrapped around Schmidt and his own deep blue ropes tangled with them, swirled around her, caressed her. Not real.

Ben’s eyes narrowed. “Sophia, you didn’t.”

“Thorns got me.” Sophia swallowed. “Water. Please.”

The doctor and some other people whispered to each other.

“Inhalation.”

“Accidental ingestion.”

“Some people try to burn it out of their yards.”

“I didn’t.” Sophia lifted her arm. “Thorns. And sap in my eye.”

Some sort of cream coated her arm. So they had seen the thorns then.

“Severe allergic reaction?” someone asked.

“Maybe,” the doctor said. “Jimson weed is nasty business.”

Sophia groaned. Over the next few hours, Ben didn’t leave her side. The ropes shrank, becoming threads. They floated between the two of them and around the room. The coyote and the fox danced around the room.

A nurse put something in her IV and her heart stopped trying to escape her chest and she drifted off to sleep.

Whatever had happened, the thing was stronger with her magic. The doctors had told her it would take hours to days for the hallucinogen to leave her system.

She woke up from a nap to find Ben gone, and Jaeger in her hospital room. Inside his chest, an ugly light shined brighter than any of the doctors’ light. He wore a rumpled suit, which seemed to be a requirement for detectives.

Wisps of salt and pepper hair puffed around the sides of his head. His glasses pulsed with a white light, which she took for the jimson weed’s work.

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