Page 8 of Livewire Witch

“Your asshole of an uncle attacked the mini mage.”

“What?”

“Seb. Your uncle lost his ever-loving mind, thought he needed to die for the curse to go away and for him to fulfill his evil villain dreams or whatever. Sounds like he’s kind of lost his damn mind.”

“What?” I gape at him. If I ever held the end of the thread of this conversation, I’ve lost it now.

“The ritual thing worked, by the way. Your bro is all cured. But Silver went all mamma bear on the mini mage and got him out of there before Uncie Felix could do any actual damage.”

“He—” My brain short-circuits. That must be why it takes me far too long to notice he’s talking without even moving his lips.

“Dude, are you a ventriloquist? It’s something I always wanted to try, but a trick I never could make my bitch.”

That earns me a half-smirk. “Can you react a little quicker? I’m guessing you don’t want any of this shit getting heard by the wrong people.”

“Not a ventriloquist.” I don’t say the words out loud. I manage to keep my mouth shut and them firmly inside my head.

“Definitely not.”His voice sounds in my head, sounding drily amused.

Holy shit. He’s a telepath.

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah. Now you’re going to keep your mouth shut about this, aren’t you?”

“About Felix going nuts? Can’t say it’s all that surprising.”It really isn’t. The guy has always been a Grade-A asshole and I don’t know why we trust him to tell us what to do.

“About me, numb nuts. I better not get brought in by the authorities. I’m taking a leap of faith here since Silver seems to like you and she doesn’t trust many people.”

Well, doesn’t that make me feel all warm and fuzzy? I beam at him.

“She does?”

He just shakes his head like I’m hopeless, and I realize I said the words out loud. Must have just got too damn excited about her trusting me.

I’m not so self-centered that I don’t recognize that’s a big deal for someone with her walls up as high as Silver.

“They’re all safe for the moment. Hiding out right now. She wanted to get out of the city with the mini mage, but it’s not proving easy.”

Hold up. My bouncing brain hovers over a new thought.

“Did one of them beat the shit out of Felix?”Calling him ‘uncle’ has always been about paying lip service, even more so now he’s tried to hurt Seb. That kid’s a good one. My little gaming bud.

The guy snorts. “Silver’s instincts got the best of her and she blasted him with something, knocked him out. I told her she was an idiot for not just throwing him off the roof. Fucker deserved it after he threatened her and then with what he tried to do to baby Nightshade.”

“What he... what?”Record scratch. “He threatened Silver?”

He shakes his head. “Not my story to tell. Anyway, I think she’s leery of coming out of hiding. Not too sure how you and the puckered-butthole-face one will react to what went down.”

“Seriously?”

I mean, we’re nottight-tight, I got the impression she has her secrets. So do the rest of us and I wasn’t about to start digging.

Surface level flirting, a good time guy. That’s me.

Except, I kind of hoped we might get beyond that. Her sky-high walls might lower just enough for me to slip over.

Guess I need to do a better job of showing her she can trust me. Us.

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