13. Freddie #3
His fingers dig into the side of my waist to get a grip, his broad hands spanning almost my entire torso, and my stomach does a quick, dizzying drop.
He takes up my whole backside, his shoulders spanning way past mine, and I suddenly don’t know what to do with myself.
I haven’t carried a human passenger on this broom in years, and Callum is definitely a hell of a lot more distraction than a sixteen-pound cat.
Taking a steadying breath, I clutch my piece of jerky between my teeth and reach down to grab the front handles. I kick my right heel hard against the wooden peg, murmur the activation chant under my breath, and push off the porch floorboards with both feet.
The broom lurches upward with a smooth, powerful heave. The air drops ten degrees instantly as the inn’s roof sweeps past us. Below, Alden and Delphi shrink into tiny figures waving from the porch, and then we’re clearing the treeline, shooting straight into the open sky.
Behind me, Callum chokes out something that sounds like holy fuck.
His hands yank back on my shirt, flattening my back right against his chest so hard that my teeth instantly clamp down on the jerky.
He’s gripping my waist like he thinks I’m about to dump him into the pine trees, his heart beating erratically right between my shoulder blades.
I pull the jerky from my mouth and laugh a deep, riotous belly laugh that gets snatched up by the wind.
“Holy shit!” Callum shouts near my ear. “Winifred!”
“Relax! I’ve got you!” I shout back, leaning into the bank as we curve toward the dark green horizon.
I forget how much I actually love this sometimes.
From up here, the world loses all its overwhelming edges.
All the noise in my head—the constant weight of my parents being away, the petrifying magnitude of the magic I keep locked down, the fear of failing everyone—just gets blown away by the biting wind whipping through my hair.
Down on the ground, everything feels confusing and complicated.
But up here, hovering between the clouds and the endless sea of pine trees, it’s just air and gravity.
It’s pure freedom. It’s the one place where I don’t feel like I’m running out of time, or falling short of who I’m supposed to be.
I take another salty, spicy bite of my jerky, grinning as the wind stings my cheeks, and feel Callum’s grip tighten just a fraction more against my waist.
“Cal,” I shout back over the rushing wind, craning my neck just enough to catch a glimpse of his face buried into my shoulder blade. “Open your eyes.”
“No,” he grunts, his mouth pressed so tight against my head I can barely hear him. “Hell to the fucking no.”
From her cozy, tangled spot in my hair, Twyla pokes her head out. “It’s really not so bad, Callum!”
“Just open one eye,” I urge, nudging my elbow back into his side. “Come on. You’re missing it.”
I tip my head back a fraction, watching out of the corner of my eye. After a long, agonized beat, one dark eyebrow twitches up. He cracks his left eye open just a sliver, blinks against the rush of cool air, and then opens both.
His grip on my waist tightens—not in panic this time, but in shock. “Holy shit,” he whispers right into my ear, his breath hot against my cold skin. “It’s…god, it’s so pretty.”
And it really is. Below us, the endless forest looks like a tangled, burning carpet of deep maroon, burnt orange, and vivid mustard yellow.
Golden larch trees bleed into thick patches of dark green cedar, and the winding river cutting through the valley looks like a ribbon of silver reflecting the pale afternoon sun.
The air up here smells completely different, too, like crushed pine needles and incoming rain.
“How are we even doing this?” Callum asks with genuine, stunned bewilderment.
“Magic, baby,” I say with a grin, chewing down on the rest of my Reaper jerky.
“I can’t handle this,” he mutters, shifting his weight just enough to make the ash handle sway. “I’m gonna be sick. How are you so eerily calm right now?”
I shrug, the wind pulling loose strands of hair across my face. “I love it up here. I always have.”
The biting wind stings the corners of my eyes, making them water. Without thinking, I take my hand off the front grip and use my fingers to swipe a couple of tears off my cheeks and away from my eyes so I can see.
But the second my skin touches my eyes, my entire body stiffens.
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
A white-hot, blinding inferno instantly explodes across my right eyeball. The Reaper oil—the concentrated extract of the literal hottest pepper on planet earth—is now smeared directly into my tear ducts.
“Oh, fucking fuck,” I whisper, my jaw dropping. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”
“What?” Callum asks, full-blown panic flooding his voice. “Winifred, what? What happened?!”
“My fucking eyes!” I yell, completely abandoning the handles to press the heels of my palms hard into my face, trying desperately to rub the fire out. “The Reaper oil is in my eyes!”
The moment I let go, the front of the broom dips sharply to the left. The whole six-foot log tilts into a steep bank, heading straight toward the treeline.
“Freddie!” Jett screams from his carrier, his claws frantically digging through to my shirt.
“I can’t see for shit!” I shout back, my eyes watering so much it feels like liquid magma is pouring down my cheeks. It stings so bad my teeth are literally throbbing. “It burns! God, it feels like someone shoved a blowtorch into my optic nerve!”
“I told you!” Callum yells from behind me, his hands flying up to grab my shoulders as the wind rushes past us. “I told you eating that chemical warfare jerky up here was a terrible fucking idea! You never listen to me!”
“Shut up! Now is not the time for an I told you so!” I scream, blinded, crying, and blindly patting the air in front of me trying to find the handlebars. “Oh my god, it hurts so bad!”
“I’m gonna be sick,” Callum groans as the nose of the broom dips lower, pitching us forward into a stomach-churning dive straight toward the canopy. “Winifred, I am seriously gonna throw up on the back of your bloody head!
In the front carrier, Jett lets out a high-pitched whimper.
“I’ve got you, buddy,” I gasp, shoving one arm around Jett’s carrier to cradle him tight against my chest. With my other hand, I wave blindly through the freezing air, my fingers frantically scraping against the rough grain of the ash handle.
My palm slips right off the smooth wood.
Fuck. Fuck the Reaper jerky, fuck my stupid habit of snacking while driving, and fuck my entire life.