CHAPTER 7: IN WHICH THE CRAZINESS BEGINS
There was a buzzing going on in Mya’s head. She couldn’t believe that Leo had the nerve to show up on her door again! Seriously, if he wasn’t careful she would strangle him with her bare hands. He’d gotten rid of her grandfather’s shotgun (She’d forgotten about those lightning fast reflexes...her grandmother would kill her if the gun was lost!) but she could totally hit him with another concussion spell, and then strangle him when he was down. No, she didn’t want to kill him while he was unconscious; maybe she would use a paralysis spell instead. That way, he could watch while she murdered him. While these crazy thoughts were going through her head, she watched him walk toward her until he reached just outside her gate. The buzzing in her ears hadn’t stopped, but she could see that he was talking. He seemed to be doing some more fake apologising by the way his face was arranged to look contrite.
Now? Should she do it now? She was still pondering on when exactly she should strangle him to death when she realised he was calling her name...repeatedly.“MYA!” He practically shouted in her ear. She started back frowning and rubbing her ear, “Why are you shouting?” she asked with a frown.“You had the thousand yard stare”, he said, waving his hands placatingly, “you looked like you were planning something that was going to be painful for me”.
“You’re not wrong there...” she mumbled, not expecting him to hear. He laughed softly which maddened her and she surprised herself by shouting, “Don’t you laugh!”
He promptly wiped the lingering smile from his face, which for some reason annoyed her even more.“Mya”, he said softly”, there is nothing I can say to make up for what I did to you. All I can say is I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please let me do what I can to make it up to you. Let me be your slave for two weeks. Please?”
“I don’t...” she started to say then it hit her what he was saying...slave? Hmmm, this might have possibilities. “What I meant to say is, when you say, ‘slave’, what exactly do you mean?”He smiled again, but she ignored it and waited to hear what he would say.“Mya, ‘slave’ could mean just about anything you want it to “She didn’t really care for his tone, or the look in his eye, but she ignored it in favour of asking, “ So, if I tell you to run after me for the next two weeks, scattering petals in my path, you would do that?”“Yes.” He said, but in a tone which suggested he wasn’t expecting to be asked to do any such thing. The way his eyes held hers, with the memory of the last time they were alone together shining out of them...She turned away and asked, “Well, I can think about it right? Get back to you?”“Of course Mya, anything you want” he said, and turned away to leave. Almost nine months they’d hung out together and he’d said her name more times in the last half hour than he ever had in all the time they’d known each other. She snorted as she turned back to the house. Well, if he thought he could charm her into forgetting what he did...he was in for the shock of his life! She went up the porch, but turned to reactivate the concussion spell just in case he came back. She’d used his sperm to personalise it – she hadn’t been sure it would work as well as blood but it was all she had and she wasn’t leaving herself unprotected in case he came back for another round. If the concussion spell hadn’t stopped him, she had put a trip jinx on the top stair so he would trip, fall, and bang his head hopefully on all five steps going down the stoop. If that hadn’t worked, the door was spelled so that only she and her grandmother could open it. She wasn’t taking any chances. She wasn’t ready to become Leo’s...sex thing mistress or whatever. She knew that people thought she was some kind of deranged, half-wit type person, just because she lived with her grandmother, practised magic and didn’t keep up with the latest trends in Teen Vogue. That didn’t mean that she was willing to let anyone take advantage of her, especially not Mr. Fancy Pants Bolt. He was about to find out just who he was messing with. ‘The shotgun! ‘, She turned around and shot down the steps and across to the tall grass that grew on the other side of the road to search for it. Luckily it was lying in plain sight and didn’t look damaged at all. Not that it was functional – it was about as old as her grandmother and had belonged to Grandpa George who fought in the Second World War. She picked it up and ran back into the house. Being outside the protective barrier she’d put up for herself scared her a little – ‘what if he is lurking nearby?’ and she realised that she was just a little bit traumatised by the events that had happened in the last three weeks or so. Leo, specifically, was freaking her out more than she cared to admit. She’d been trying like hell not to think about what had gone down in her living room a fortnight ago. She didn’t understand why it had happened, whether it was something she’d said or done that had made him jump on her like that. She’d tried to resist, she thought, but he was strong; and maybe she hadn’t fought hard enough. Maybe he thought she wanted him to jump on her? – The way he’d looked at her today when she’d asked him about the petal thing – clearly he assumed she had feelings for him. But did she? Was he seeing something that was there and she was just in too much denial to see? As far as she knew, the answer to that question was a huge No. But still, the questions went round and round in her head. But even though he thought she had feelings, did that give him the right to make use of her body like it was an appliance? And what was she to do about it anyway?
Mya cut off this line of inquiry as futile and she thought about a programme she had once seen where people overcome their fears by confronting them. So that one girl who was terrified of chameleons was put in a tank filled with them. It was supposed to cure her of her phobia. So maybe that is what she should do – saturate herself with the presence of Mr. Fancy Pants Bolt until he didn’t unnerve her anymore. And while she was at it, maybe she could get some payback...