Page 45 of Baking and Angels

He nodded, his centuries of practice in the art of lying helping him not to oversell it.

“Is the Bless-ed French Toast ready?” Cindy called from the hall just as she entered the kitchen, actually dressed, tying her unwashed hair up into a ponytail. She stopped and picked up the canister that rolled away. Then she looked up at the scene in the kitchen. “What the heck isgoing on?”

Chapter 18

Mother of

Vengeance

“Uh, nothing,” Helena tried to cover. She came over to Cindy holding the open canister to show her friend. “I just brought you some tea. I got the recipe from my grandmother’s old church cookbook. I thought it would be fun to try.”

“She can’t drink something like this,” Ms. Hawthorn shouted. She crossed the space to place herself between them.

“Mom?” Cindy protested as she was jostledbackward.

“There might be a bad interaction with the medicine you’re now on!” she said, while staring Helena down, who also retreated before the other woman’s fierceness.

The doctor rolled her eyes. “I’m not taking what Dr. Mellon prescribed.” Then to Helena over her mother’s shoulder, she added, “It’s fine.”

“Why not?!” her mother demanded, whirling on her daughter, whose jaw stiffened in response. Helena took the opportunity to scurry back to her bag, stowing away the offending teacanister.

“Because the side effects are going to make me lethargic and foggy-brained,” Cindy countered. “Iactuallyread the study on it.”

“Dammit, Cindy!” Her mother slapped her hand hard on the cabinet by the door. “What are you doing with your life? Are you giving up? You need tofightthis!”

“There’s nothing to fight,Mother,” Cindyshot back.

“This is your fault!” Ms. Hawthorn said, whirling back to point at Helena with the accusatory muster of an Inquisitor.

“Don’t you dare bring Helena into this!” Cindyshot back.

Rafferty could feel it. The energy Helena was pumping out now was reaching a boiling point. Now, it was a defensive response as Helena panicked. She didn’t even seem to realize she was doing it, but the more she desired to fix things, the worse it was getting.

It egged on Ms. Hawthorn’s tirade. “You listened to her about taking the job in that city hospital instead of joining your father’s and aunt’s practice. You would have been successful there! They needed your help. We could have been here to support you and take care of you—”

“I’m not a fucking child!” Cindy screamed back.

“You’re acting like a fucking child, refusing to take your medicine, having a tantrum in your room, getting waited on handand foot—”

Cindy interrupted her mom, throwing her hands up in the air and spinning around. “You know what? I don’t have to take this, do I? I keep forgetting that I am a grown-ass adult, and I can just LEAVE!”

The shouting continued into the hall, and her mother started to go after her, but at the last moment, she spun on Helena. “Get the hell out of my house, youmonster!”

“Ms. Hawthorn, I—”

“And take this sinful stuff with you!” Ms. Hawthorn continued, picking up the second canister from the counter island to throwit at her.

Rafferty stepped between them as she did, blocking the too-light-to-do-any-harm object from hitting Helena in the face. Instead, it hit his shoulder, and the lid burst off, cascading the dried tea leaves everywhere.

“GET OUT OFMY HOUSE!”

More objects came flying, whatever Ms. Hawthorn could get her hands on, including her half-empty coffee cup. The innate desire to fight the thing that terrified her had possessed her; she was all animal brain and no higherthinking.

“Go, go!” Rafferty bodily pushed Helena toward the hallway, the way Cindy had gone. He knew the only thing they could do was run.

“My backpack!” Helena tried to go back for it, but he shoved her forward.

“I’ll get it! Let’s just get outof here.”

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