Bewitched (Betwixt & Between #2) - Darynda Jones Page 0,80
Fact
“But I keep screwing up,” I said to Ruthie. Roane and I found her hanging with my dads and Minerva in the kitchen, which was a big step up from the basement. “Now I don’t know how to change her back.”
“Hmm,” she hmmed, handing me a cup of tea even though I needed a shot of something stronger. Like coffee. Or tequila. Or electroshock therapy.
When Ruthie turned her back to dish out some of Papi’s beef stroganoff, Roane switched my tea for coffee. That’s when I knew. Really knew.
He completed me.
I gazed up at him as he raked an ink-covered hand through his hair and winked, which somehow caused my nether regions to flood with warmth.
“I just keep almost getting people killed,” I continued, turning back to Ruthie. Annette had refused to come downstairs, she was so embarrassed. And Roane . . . the memory of him taking my injuries into his own body clenched my stomach. “I keep hurting people.”
Ruthie handed me a plate. My dads sat on barstools while we took over the table. Minerva ate like she hadn’t eaten in weeks—Papi’s beef stroganoff did that to the best of us—but she kept rapt attention.
“How did you know what that spell would do?” I asked Ruthie.
“Which one?” Which one? She knew full well which one.
“The one you drew after the witch hunter knocked me into oblivion. The one where I transferred my injuries and pain to someone else. How would you know something like that?”
She took a delicate bite and swallowed before answering. “Defiance, that’s hardly important.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as they’d recently started doing when people tried to hide something from me. “It is, actually.”
She pursed her lips. She didn’t want to tell me, but I figured she knew me well enough by now to realize I wasn’t going to drop it. After filling her lungs, she said, “Because you used it once when you were a child.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“You broke your arm on the monkey bars at the playground.”
“Weren’t you watching me?” I teased.
“You were in so much pain.” Her smile was sad. “You didn’t do it on purpose.”
I stilled.
“Your magics took over. Self-preservation, I suppose. You grabbed another child’s arm and drew that spell.”
“Oh, no.”
“I didn’t know what it meant until after he screamed. His arm had splintered. And you’d given him all of your pain.”
“I—I broke his arm?”
“Yes. With that spell, anything that happens to you is transferred to whoever you touch, and you are healed. But you stopped yourself with Roane.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you didn’t want to kill him. You knew how much he could—”
“No, why would I do that to a child?”
“Defiance, you were only three. You had no idea what that spell would do.”
“Clearly, I did.”
“All right, then you had no idea what the ramifications would be.”
I scrubbed my face. “I can’t do this anymore. Up to this point, I’ve lived the most boring, mundane life imaginable. The most exciting thing I’ve ever done was open a restaurant, and then I had that stolen out from under me. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Ruthie”—I clued her in—“but sometimes I’m about as sharp as a marble.”
“Cariña,” Dad admonished.
“It’s true. I’m unlucky and jinxed and accident-prone to a ridiculous degree. And someone was delusional enough to entrust me with all of this power? Me? The same girl who once flashed a hottie in a Porsche because all the cool kids were doing it, only my hottie turned out to be an undercover cop?” I flattened my palms against the table and leaned closer. “I was arrested, Ruthie. That’s the kind of girl I am. Other girls could flash guys. I could not.”
Roane cleared his throat and hid a grin behind his fist.
“And that pertains to the conversation because?” Ruthie asked.
“Because I’m cursed!”
“Ah.”
“I don’t have the talent for this gig. Everything I do is wrong. It always has been. Everything I touch spoils.”
“Defiance.” Her tone stayed even. Placating. “Did you ever think that maybe all those things happened to you because you were an insanely powerful witch whose powers were suppressed?”
“How is that even relevant?”
She laughed. “You’re a charmling.”
“And?”
“Have you ever touched a toaster only to have it catch on fire?”
Dad nodded, and Papi held up two fingers. Dad lifted the third for him.
“That’s my point exactly! Everything I touch breaks. Or catches on fire. Or explodes. Well, that only happened once.”
“Sweetheart, just because your powers were suppressed, didn’t mean they weren’t there.