Chapter 14
Grayson whips around, crouching between me and the door, one hand braced on the table leg, the other on the ground in front of him like a runner getting set for a race.
This, I realize, is just the kind of person is he—putting himself between me and the danger without even thinking about it.
But he’s also the civilian here, and so I put my hand on his shoulder and lean forward to whisper in his ear. “It’s okay,” I say, and he jumps as my breath hits his earlobe. “I’m trained for this.”
He hesitates but then gives a curt nod, scootching back a little to let me in front.
The door opens enough to let a person through. And though it’s dim with only the emergency lights on in the barn, I can just barely make out a pale, thin face, a hood covering what I’m assuming is long, dark hair. She’s alone, but she’s got something in her arms.
A box. Like exactly what one might need to carry a bomb.
The second she’s fully inside the barn and the door closes behind her, I spring into action.
“MBI! Freeze!” I shout, bursting from beneath the table as quickly as I can given that my right foot is apparently half asleep.
The woman whirls in my direction, and I get a stunning spell off before she can react.
Unfortunately, the box deflects most of the spell, and instead of being fully stunned, she winds up only a little slowed down.
Which, considering the pins and needles jabbing my foot, is just great.
She turns to flee, and I lunge as best I can, covering the distance between us quickly if not exactly gracefully. Then I throw myself at her legs, which buckle under her as we both collapse onto the soft dirt floor of the barn. The box goes flying.
“Grayson!” I say, hoping that he understands I need him to secure the box and make sure there’s nothing in it that could hurt us. Because I apparently have a fight on my hands.
The woman may be thin, but she’s feisty. She manages to flip over under me, punching and kicking as much as possible under my weight.
“Let me go!” she shrieks, getting a pretty good elbow jab in to my stomach as I pull myself up her body.
“Stop fighting!” I order.
“You stop fighting!”
I try to get her hands pinned, but she gets a fistful of hair before I can stop her. I see stars as she yanks, but there’s no way I’m letting go. If she is The Witch, this is the most important collar of my career.
“Uh, Olive,” Grayson says from a few feet away.
“Gimme a second.” I realize she’s coming for my face with a pretty decent set of fingernails and whip my head to the side just in time. “Stop resisting!”
“Then let me go!” Her eyes are wild but not crazed, and she’s breathing hard.
“It’s paint, Olive.”
It takes me a second to realize Grayson is reporting what’s in the box, and in that second, the woman manages to rear back and bash her forehead against my nose pretty hard. “Crap,” I say as I hear a crack and blood spurts out.
Honestly, it takes every ounce of training I have not to roll off her and let her go while I heal my nose.
“Gross, you’re bleeding all over me,” the woman says, her hands flying up to cover her eyes.
“You’re the one who made me bleed!”
“I wouldn’t have had to if you had just let me go!”
“Olive, oh my god, are you okay?” Grayson is at my shoulder, his hands hovering close to my face. I nod, then instantly wish I hadn’t as the room swims before me.
“It’s just my nose.” I close my eyes for a moment, muttering the healing spell that will stop the bleeding and keep my nose from turning into a swollen marshmallow. It doesn’t help with the pain as much as I wish it would, but I can grit my teeth through that as long as the bleeding stops.
“I thought…” Grayson stops before finishing that thought. “You’re okay. That’s what matters.”
“I’m okay, too, if anyone cares,” the woman under me complains.
“Sorry. You’re not a super high priority at the moment.” I aim a restraining spell at her wrists, giving me some breathing room. “So what’s in the box?”
Grayson drags it closer so I can see. “It’s just paint. Red paint.”
This has to be a trick. Maybe a bomb disguised to look like a can of red paint?
But the can has already been opened once and so it’s not super hard for me to pry the top off, not even while sitting on top of a woman who’s no longer fighting but is now bitching up a storm—about the blood, about how much I weigh, about how I need to let her up right now.
It’s literally just a can of paint.
“What the hell?” I ask, not sure whether I’m asking the woman or myself. “What were you planning on doing with the paint?”
The woman mumbles something.
“What?”
“I was going to throw it on the pig people,” she says. “We wanted to make a splash. So to speak. Can you let me up now?”
“No.” I stare down at the paint can. This woman really is just a vegan protestor. She’s not The Witch. And while she has plans to sabotage the show, she certainly isn’t planning on blowing the place up. It’s just a stunt.
“I really need to go.”
I consider calling the local police—the park is closed to the public after dark, so she’s definitely trespassing—but I don’t want to call too much attention to myself here. If the vegans aren’t the real threat, then it’s still out there.
“You can go in a second. Let me just—” I realize my mistake just as I feel the dampness seeping into my pants leg. “Wait. Did you just pee?”
“I told you I had to go!”
“And so you just peed on me?” Technically, she didn’t pee on me, but the floor has enough of a slant that the liquid made a beeline for me, apparently.
“I’m 43 and I’ve had three kids,” she says, working herself into a sitting position using only her elbows. “My bladder is the size of a walnut, and you tackled me. What did you expect to happen?”
Well, not that.
I look helplessly at Grayson, who looks like maybe this has been the best night of his life.
“Do all your stakeouts end like this?” he asks.