Chapter 16
“Oh, this is not good, this is not good,” Eric muttered, pacing back and forth. “Scott hates closed-off spaces. I thought he’d be fine but…shit, I shouldn’t have let him go in there. Okay, you all wait here, I’ll go get him,” he said, about to marchin.
Dina put out a hand to stop him.
“Eric, I’ve got this.”
“No, Dina, it’s on me,I—”
“ You can stay out here and think of something that will take Scott’s mind off this when I get him out. All right? As you said, I have the sense of direction of a bloodhound. I’ll be in and out in no time.”
“Are you sure?” Eric frowned.
“Babe, it’s Dina we’re talking about. She’s got this,” Immy reassured him. Dina didn’t want to waste another second. Without hesitation, she plunged back into the maze.
Dina thought about how long it had taken them the first time. If Scott was freaking out in there, then she needed to get to him quickly.
The tall hedges of the maze huddled around her, giving away none of their secrets. She took a few right turns, and stopped, now firmly out of sight of the others. She needed to cast a spell. It would need to be a little more powerful than the average spell to help her locate Scott, so she pulled out the amethyst pendant she wore around her neck. It would act as a conduit of sorts.
Dina reached into her pocket and pulled out a few stems of chamomile she had foraged earlier. They were such delicate, beautiful little things, with their sweet honey scent, and they would work perfectly.
“Sorry,” she whispered to the flowers, before crushing them in her palm. Dina didn’t often use this kind of magic, because truthfully she rarely needed it, and because it involved destroying life. A little devastation here, a pinch of ruin there; it gave the magic that extra bit of oomph. Given that it was Samhain, there should have been enough magic in the air to tap in to that this kind of spell wouldn’t be necessary. But the maze dulled it somehow. Perhaps it was all these neatly manicured hedges—there was something distinctly clinical about them that felt at odds with her magic.
She felt the spell take effect. Scott, where are you?
Dina took a deep breath, closing her eyes and focusing her mind. She thought only of Scott. And how much she wanted to find him. The amethyst pendant tugged her forward, her eyes flying open. She held the chain of the necklace, but the stone itself was pulling her forward, and now to the right, as if it were being pulled toward a magnet.
She powered on, following as the amethyst led her around twists and turns. She didn’t bother to keep track of the path. She could use the same spell to get them out if she neededto.
Dina heard Scott before she saw him.
Panicked, shallow breaths came toward her from across a hedge, and when Dina turned a corner she found Scott sitting on the ground, his back against the hedge, head buried between his legs.
Dina fought the urge to smother him with a hug. If he was panicking, too much physical contact could make it worse. She’d seen that before.
“Scott?” she said. His gaze shot up, his eyes reddened with tears. When he realized it was her, he quickly wiped his cheeks.
“I’m fine,” he said, clearing his throat.
“I don’t think you are,” she said, kneeling down beside him. “The claustrophobia?”
Scott sucked in a breath and nodded. “I lost the group and I just—”
“I get it.”
Scott raked his fingers through his hair and turned to Dina.
“Not very manly to be caught crying by the woman you’re trying to impress, is it?”
“According to who?” Dina laughed. “You’re still trying to impress me then?”
He stood, brushing dirt off his trousers.
“Is it working?”
“Hmm, you’ll have to wait and see. Let’s start by getting you out of here, shall we?”
“You’re my knight in shining armor, Dina. I’d follow you anywhere.”
There was a seriousness in his tone as he spoke those last words, and Dina found herself reaching out toward him. Cupping his face between her hands, she brushed away the last remnants of tears from his cheeks. God, his eyes were maddening. She could look into them forever.
“For the record,” Dina said, “I do think it’s manly to cry. It shows that you’re not afraid of expressing emotion, and that’s fucking hot.”
“Is it now?” Scott grinned fiendishly.
“Did someone tell you it wasn’t?” she asked out of curiosity. Scott frowned, as if he was remembering something painful, and she felt a sudden distance between them. Someone had made him feel that way, and he didn’t want to talk to her aboutit.
“I’d like to get out of here,” Scott said, changing the subject. “But honestly I might have another panic attack if I get lost again.”
“That’s okay, I have a way of getting us out quickly.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I memorized the route.” He looked at her with an edge of suspicion, but was clearly too stressed to really give it much thought. The way he was looking at her was too raw; Dina could barely meet his eyes and at the same time she couldn’t look away. Before she did anything stupid she blinked her gaze away and pulled a silk scarf from her pocket.
“Do you want me to cover your eyes?”
“You want to blindfold me? I would have thought a common first date was more like dinner, maybe some drinks—”
“He had a panic attack two minutes ago and now the man is attempting banter,” Dina deadpanned, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“What is the purpose of said blindfold?”
“I figure if you can’t see the maze, then maybe you aren’t as likely to have a panic attack. But granted, I don’t know what triggers them for you,” she hastened to say.
Scott looked down at the silk scarf in Dina’s hands.
“Let’s try it. I think we should try it. Keep distracting me until we’re nearly out and then you can watch as I leg it for the exit.”
“Done. Bend down.” Scott did as he was told, and Dina wrapped the silk scarf around his eyes, tying a knot at the back of his head, not too tight. She felt Scott’s warm exhale against her cheek, and her body ached to close the space between them. It helped that he couldn’t see her, couldn’t see how dilated her pupils were, how the blush had stained her lips and cheeks. How easy it would be to kiss him again. “All done,” she whispered, pulling away.
Dina pulled out another chamomile flower from her pocket, redoing the spell to take them out of the maze. She pictured the exit and the sweeping fields that rippled out from it, and a moment later the pendant was pulling them down a path.
“Take my hand,” Dina instructed. She felt Scott’s warm grip in hers.
“I thought you were a curator—why do you have so many calluses?” She thought that perhaps chatting would keep his mind off being in the maze. They twisted this way and that, but Scott’s footing didn’t falter.
“Ah, that’d be the rowing. I have to keep them on my palms otherwise the blisters get very painful.”
“I forgot about the rowing. What was your nickname, the one Eric mentioned?”
“I was hoping you might have forgotten about that. The full eight.” Scott sighed.
“Ah yes, that was it.” Dina suppressed a giggle. Goddess, she was giggling now. If they hadn’t decided this was a weekend fling only, Dina might have suspected she was growing feelings.
“I love it out on the river,” Scott said, a calm note coming into his voice. “There’s so much space out there. No matter what the weather’s like, you can always be sure of two things: that going with the current makes you feel like the most powerful person in the world, and that no matter what you do, you’ll always get wet feet.”
“I’ve never actually been on the river—like, that close to it, I mean,” Dina said. It wasn’t as though she didn’t want to, but unless you took up rowing, got on one of those tourist barges, or had two hours to waste on a commuter boat up the river, there weren’t many options to see the Thames up close and personal.
“There’s nothing like it. You see London in a whole other way. There’s a moment, when you’re rowing out west, past Kew, when one second there are houses, and pretty little cottages and people cycling and walking their dogs. And then the next second, they disappear. The river bends, narrows, and suddenly it’s just brush, river reeds, and fields opening out on either side of you.”
“I’d like to see that,” Dina said earnestly.
“I’d like to take you there,” he replied, sending her insides tumbling.
And just like that, they turned a corner and the maze’s exit lay before them.
Dina held Scott’s hand until they were a few steps away. The sun had already rolled over for the afternoon, the mist that had gathered around them dissipating in the cold sunshine.
I don’t want to let go of his hand, Dina realized. Scott probably didn’t even realize that they were almost out of the maze. She could keep walking beside him for a bit. But then maybe he’d be weirded out when he saw how far she had walked him blindfolded.
“We’re almost out,” Dina said reluctantly.
Scott pulled off the blindfold and squinted in the light, looking down at Dina. He breathed a sigh of relief, his eyes dropping to her lips.
He smiled. “You didn’t have to come back for me, but you did anyway.”
“We’re not in bloody World War Two, Scott.” Dina whacked his elbow. All of a sudden she was off the ground, and in Scott’s arms. He held her close, the after-effects of his panic attack still apparent in the way his arms shook slightly.
“Thank you. I mean it.”
“You’d have done the same for me,” she replied, suddenly sure that it was the truth. If she’d been in trouble, Scott would have come for her. The witchy gut instinct did not lie.
She felt Scott’s hands firmly gripping her, and she wanted to be closer to him. Perhaps he sensed the way her eyes traveled up his body hungrily, because he didn’t put her down immediately, but drew her closer. Dina placed her hands on his chest, feeling the heat of him. He smelled warm.
“Dina, I—” Scott’s voice was rough. He was looking at her like he wanted to devour her. She wanted him to. Dina licked her lips, tipping her face toward his.
“Shh, I think they’re having a moment!” came Immy’s high-pitched whisper from nearby.
Scott lowered her back to the ground, but his hands remained around her waist. She spotted the rest of the group just outside the entrance to the maze.
“I see you made it out in one piece,” Eric said, clapping Scott on the shoulder. “Sorry, mate, I didn’t realize it would be so bad in there,” he said sincerely.
“Hey, it’s fine, I survived,” Scott replied. “Dina’s the one who needs the medal though: She had to deal with me in a less-than-ideal state.”
“The hero of the hour.” Eric smiled at Dina, nodding his head in thanks.
So much for keeping their weekend fling a secret. It was abundantly clear to all her friends that something was going on between them. Ah well, in for a penny, in for a pound.
Scott clearly had the same idea as they wandered back to the house. He bent down and planted a kiss, barely a brush of his lips, on Dina’s temple.
A soft shiver rippled over her skin. The kiss was a promise. Tonight, after her Samhain ritual, Dina knew exactly what she was going to do to Scott Mason.