Page 85 of The Magic We Made

“Oh, no, I missed!” cries the girl.

“That’s okay, I got him in the balls,” shouts another.

I’m writhing in pain on the deck. She got me, all right. She got me good, right in the tenderest place on a man’s body. I’ve been in fights before—not many, thanks to my being so funny and charming, but some—and the only other time I’ve ever been hit in that area, it was by a woman. Men know the pain of a knee to the balls too well, and so rarely inflict it on other men.

Women have no such reluctance.

“Stop.”

The rough hands that had been holding me to the ground suddenly disappear. I open one eye to see what’s happening and spy Haley looking down at me. In her white robe, with her long, somehow still-lustrous blonde hair framing her face, and the glow from one of the dock lights forming a sort of halo behind her head, she looks almost angelic.

Until she leans even closer and opens her mouth.

“We know who you are,” she says to me. “You’re Ashraf Merit. You’re one of her grandchildren.”

“I’m not.” My voice sounds strangely high. I clear my throat. “I’m not. My name is—”

“Ashraf Merit.” One of the girls who tackled me holds up my wallet, open to my driver’s license. “It’s him, all right.”

Shit.

“Look,” I say. “I don’t think we got off on the right foot. Yes, my name is Ash Merit, but—”

“You know, I wasn’t sure this was going to work.” Haley sounds weirdly pleased. “But here you are. Your timing really couldn’t have been better.”

I try to get away, but it’s hard to move when there are several people pressing their knees into your back. “My timing?”

“You heard me.” Haley leans down until her lips are only an inch or two from my ear, then whispers, “Look, I know who your grandmother really is. And can I just tell you how flattered I am that Gaia would send you, her favorite grandson, to try to stop me?”

It’s hard to tell which is making me feel more nauseous, the fact that Haley knows who Gaia really is, or the pain in my balls. “I wouldn’t say I’m herfavorite—”

“You are. Everyone knows how much you mean to Gaia. Which is why you’re going to make the perfect sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice?” This is bad. Really bad. “Me? No, no, you’ve got the wrong guy. You don’t want me. Gaia doesn’t care about me. I’m just her financial advisor. You want my uncle Derrick. He’s Gaia’s favorite. That’s why I got her a house here, so she can be closer to Derrick.”

I know I should feel bad about throwing Derrick under the bus, but I don’t. He’ll be fine. He always lands on his feet. And he’s got Jessica. I have no one.

But Haley isn’t listening.

“I also know how much money Gaia really has,” she goes on. “And I have a feeling that she’s going to be willing to part withquitea lot of it for your safe return.” She holds up my phone, whichthe other girls had dug out of my pocket along with my wallet, and grins. “Why don’t I just give her a call and find out how much? I assume she’s your emergency contact, right?”

I blink up at her, horrified, as the true reality of my situation sinks in. Haley isn’t only a powerful witch. She’s also a con artist, out to scam as much money as she can from the witch influencer community... and my grandmother.

But before I can say a word to warn her—or, more importantly, her followers, who haven’t done anything to deserve the reign of terror that’s about to befall them—Haley straightens and shouts, “Tie him up!”

Her lackeys hurry to do so, using the blue bow line from my own now almost completely sunken boat.

“Wait,” I say. I struggle, but there are so many of them, and they’re surprisingly strong for having spent so much time eating nothing but acorns. “You don’t want to do this. My grandmother will never—”

Negotiate with criminals, I’m intending to say. But before I get the chance, Haley leans forward again and whispers, “So you aren’t going to play along, huh? Big mistake. I’d have been willing to cut you in if you cooperated. Oh, well, I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.”

And then, without another word, she raises her hand and gently blows. Black powder flies toward my face, and the next thing I know, I’m coughing.

“Wait,” I say again. Only it’s getting hard to breathe. “Wh... what was that?”

“Nothing for you to worry about,” I hear Haley say.

But I am worried. Because suddenly, I can’t see her anymore. It’s like someone switched off the dock lights. But that’s impossible because the switch to the dock lights is all the way up at the top of the stairs leading to my back deck, and we’re all down here....