Page 56 of Witch You Would
Sabotage. No way. It couldn’t be. Could it?
“Shut it down,” Tori said into her collar mic. “We have a problem.”
Chapter 12
Gil
We didn’t get to work on our spells for the rest of the day. Tori shut down the production, and a team of quietly freaked-outpeople invaded the supply area. Big Manny and another burly PA stood guard at the entrance like bouncers, I guess to makesure no one could get in and mess with the auditing or whatever.
Eventually Isaac Knight roared in. His hair looked like he’d been grabbing it, all clumped together and sticking up in differentdirections. He climbed onto Dylan and Zeke’s table, ignoring their disgusted looks.
“Listen up,” Isaac said, clapping for attention as if we weren’t already staring at him. “I don’t know what the fuck is goingon here, but if any of you is doing anything you shouldn’t be doing, I’m going to sue your ass so hard, your great-grandkidswill still be paying the lawyers.”
Tori cleared her throat like she wanted to talk, but Isaac pointed at her, then made a fist. Her face went blank.
“I’m told this may just be an ‘accident’ with our suppliers,” Isaac continued, his air quotes audible and sarcastic. “In which case, Frogtail is going to be the one hearing from our lawyers. I don’t give a shit who pays, but someone is going to, and it won’t be me.This is fucking with my production schedule. This is fucking with my budget, and I don’t need the accountants up my ass more than they already are.”
Tori’s left eye twitched.
Isaac pointed his fist at the rest of us, snarling like an angry dog. “If any shit-sucking, mud-fucking journalists hear evena whisper about anything that leads to questions about the integrity of this competition, I’ll fucking end you. I’ll buryyou in anonymity until not even your friend’s daughter’s basement podcast will want to interview you, and you won’t be ableto get a job that doesn’t involve an ugly polo and the words, ‘Thank you, come again’ repeated eight hundred times an hour.”
Tori said, “Isaac, we agreed—”
“Shut up, Victoria,” Isaac said without looking at her. “None of you knows anything about any problems here. You don’t knowanything, nobody around you knows anything, and none of you are going to talk about the nothing you don’t know about. Notin public, not in private, not to anyone else on this production, past or present. Zip your lips or I’ll zip them for you,capisce?”
He climbed back off his pedestal and stormed out, Tori following with her shoulders near her ears. I felt bad for her. Dealingwith Isaac seemed to require selective hearing and a suit of medieval armor.
“Do you think he’s serious about the lawyers?” Penelope whispered.
“Probably, but the network decides that stuff,” I said. “All he can do is yell.” I was pretty sure, anyway. But Penelope seemedto be freaking out, and I didn’t want to make her more anxious.
Jaya talked quietly to Amy and rubbed her arm while Amy wiped away tears underneath her glasses. Dylan and Zeke stoodstoically, arms crossed. Felicia checked her spell components the same way Penelope had, while Charlotte had cornered Big Manny and was telling him something that made him alternately nod and shake his head. Syd and the judges had left, presumably to go back to their trailers.
“Funny that Isaac thinks the worst he can do is make us work retail,” Penelope said. “Clearly he forgot that was literallymy job.”
“Do you think he’s worked retail before?”
“No way. Can you picture him at a store?”
I gave her an angry glare and did my best Isaac voice. “Are you gonna buy that shirt? It’s puke green! It’s giving ‘baby doesn’twant to eat his peas, so he threw them at you.’ Come on.”
Penelope stuck her fist in her mouth and tried not to laugh.
I kept going. “Why don’t you buy the black shirt? If you spill something on it, there won’t be a stain, just a smell. That’swhat body spray is for. Hey, where are you going? You didn’t buy anything! Fuck you, too!”
“I’m dying,” Penelope gasped. “I can’t breathe.”
I almost made a joke about giving her mouth to mouth, but we were in public. Unfortunately that sent my thoughts spinningoff in other directions.
That kiss yesterday. Holy shit. I’d spent all day today playing it cool when I wanted to drag her into an empty office anddo it again.
She’d said we should talk later, and we hadn’t. Maybe she’d changed her mind and wanted to pretend nothing had happened? Ihad to know. The only way to find out was to ask.
Except we were stuck here. No privacy. All I could do was not “overdo” flirting and tell bad jokes.
The inventory check took so long, we were eventually hustledback to the hotel. The sun had almost finished setting, high-rises around us casting their long shadows on the roads and shorter buildings. Penelope sat next to me, making her duck-lip thinking face, her leg touching mine. I wasn’t sure if she noticed, but I extremely did.
Dinner would be on the pool deck again since the bar-slash-restaurant was open to regular customers at night. I ran up tomy room and peeled off my mustache, cleaned my skin, and moisturized. As I rubbed lotion into my upper lip, I wondered iftaking my mustache off was the equivalent of someone with boobs taking their bra off at the end of a long day. For me, therewas the extra layer of shedding my Leandro persona, going back to being Gil Contreras. Grandpa Fred’s rule number four: leavework at work. I’d have to put the mustache back on to go get food, though, so I wouldn’t have a naked upper lip for long.
