Page 45 of Magic Blooms
A gator had intervened, a blessed gator!
The beast was huge and determined, but Fawn was powerful, too.
She broke loose of its hold and sent an inferno spiraling in its direction.
No!
I couldn’t let her hurt it. I had to do something, and fast.
My magic!
I was surrounded by an entire arsenal out here in the swamplands. I just had to use it. Bracing myself, I called out to every scrap of plant life I could find and stuck my feet and hands as deep into the muck as they would go. I shut my eyes tight and called the swamp to me, respectfully requesting that it do my bidding. Willing it to protect me.
I didn’t have a plan. Only one desperate word reverberated through me: help.
When my eyes snapped open again, the gator had gone. I prayed it wasn’t too late for him. Wasn’t too late for me as Fawn rose to her full height and glided toward me, both hands raised above her head as she geared up for one final show of power.
I stood frozen, completely out of options now but also not ready to die.
Fawn smirked, knowing she had me.
But then something shot out from the water and wrapped itself around her wrist, yanking it down and away from me. The very earth was rising up to help me!
Fawn gasped and tugged at her arm, but then another vine shot out and grabbed her by the waist. Annoyance turned to panic as more and more vines emerge from the depths to ensnare her.
All I could do was stare as Fawn struggled and cried, my jaw agape as I watched the horrors unfold in front of me. The vines now acted as one, tugging Fawn beneath the water and out of sight, only a few bubbles left in their wake.
It was over. I needed to go, needed to run.
But I’d used up all my strength to plead with nature. I didn’t have anything left.
Would Fawn survive under the water this time? Without first conducting her strange ritual? As wrong as it felt to wish for her death, that’s exactly what I did. I needed her to be gone, to not come for my friends once I had left.
Slowly, I twisted myself back toward the shore. Or at least tried to.
Everything hurt.
The swamp in front of me parted, revealing the back armor of a large gator. He was coming right for me, but I wasn’t afraid. Was this the same one who had risked his life to save mine?
The water grew shallower as the great beast approached, and he dunked beneath the surface. When he rose again, he wasn’t a gator anymore…
But rather a human man.
One I knew quite well by now.
Joshua.
twenty
Joshua pulled me into his arms and carried me out of the swamp. "I don't know what you did to her, but I don't want to be here if she manages to escape it."
I wanted to protest, say that I could walk on my own—but we both knew that wasn’t true. “You’re here,” I said instead.
“I was here the whole time,” he said as we picked up speed and he broke into a run.
I clung to him tightly as we flew across the terrain. “But you said to do whatever she needed, that Karen’s sacrifice was worth it, and?—”
“I know what I said,” he growled, but then his face softened and he slowed to a walk. “But I also promised you we’d both be in it to the end.”
