Portion Disaster

by Zoe Arden

  I shot a look toward the counter and saw Lucy watching us. She mouthed something to me that looked like, "Run," but there was no reason to run, I reminded myself. I just had to put a stop to this. Now. There was one simple way to do that.

  I opened my mouth and, in the clearest voice I could muster, said, "Colt, Damon's got a—"

  "Real nerve coming here," Colt finished for me.

  I shook my head. He hadn't let me finish.

  "No, no, no." I was starting to panic. I'd seen that look on Colt's face before. He didn't show this side of his temper often but when he did, he could rival Sheriff Knoxx. And Colt didn't even have any goblin in him.

  "Look," Damon said, trying to take his hand back now. I was glad. He'd decided that he'd had enough. "Whatever you're thinking, you've got the wrong idea."

  Colt let Damon's hand go. Damon had pulled away first, and I was sure that in Colt's mind that made him the winner.

  "I think the idea's pretty clear," Colt said through gritted teeth. "I walked in here and saw you holding hands with my girlfriend." He paused. "My girlfriend," he repeated.

  Colt knew our history, and he also knew that Damon had broken my heart when he'd left Heavenly Haven. It was the only reason I could think that he was blowing this so out of proportion. He'd once told me something his mom used to say growing up—"If you break a girl's heart, they're yours forever." I thought that was a terrible thing to tell a kid, and it wasn't even true. Yes, Damon and I shared a bond but it didn't mean I wanted to be with him. I didn't. We'd already tried that and it had failed miserably.

  "Look," Damon said. It was the last full word he got out before Colt punched him in the face. Damon rolled backward over the table we'd been sitting at. His drink spilled over. Mine managed to stay upright.

  "Stop it!" I yelled.

  The rest of Coffee Cove watched in silent suspense as Colt and Damon went at each other. Damon grabbed a pile of sugar packets and flung them in Colt's face. They bounced off his nose like a deflated rubber ball. A couple slid down the inside of his shirt.

  Colt grabbed my iced latte and threw it at Damon. It splashed over his face and soaked his shirt.

  Oh, jeez. Another food fight. Or would this be a coffee fight? Damon grabbed a cinnamon roll off a nearby table and chucked it at Colt, answering my question.

  William Carney ran over. One of the owners of Coffee Cove, he was found roaming the beaches of Heavenly Haven whenever he wasn't here, especially on the weekends. He liked sunlight and tourists. He was a laid back, mellow sort of guy. An old beach bum surfer who wanted nothing more than to sell coffee to people and make them happy.

  So, it was particularly jarring when he cried out, "STOPPPPPPPPP!!!!!" His voice carried across the room without even having to use a bullhorn charm. The way that people flinched, I suspected they could hear him even with the silencing charms around their tables to drown out noise.

  Melbourne grabbed ahold of Colt, easily keeping his grip on him despite Colt's struggles to get away. It was one of the perks of being a vampire—you were always the strongest one in the room. Damon seemed better able to control himself. I wished I could have said the same for myself. I lost it. My nerves were already on edge, and I didn't need something like this egging them on.

  "You golf ball!" I yelled at Colt. Lucy was standing near me now. She cleared her throat and shook her head, mouthing something at me. I replayed what I'd just said. "I meant goofball!" I waved my hand through the air, irritated at everyone around me, including myself. I pointed a finger at Colt, wagging it under his nose. "Goofball!" I cried again. "Both of you!"

  "Me?" Damon asked. "He started it."

  "You didn't have to keep it going," I said. "And you should have thought better than to just show up here after all this time unannounced. You could have texted me. Called me. Sent me a letter. Something."

  Colt chuckled, and I rounded on him. "And you," I snarled. I must have looked crazy because Melbourne let him go and took a step back. "I tried to tell you but you wouldn't listen. Damon has a girlfriend."

  Colt's face paled. "He does?" he asked, his voice low.

  "Yes. So, if it's not too much trouble, maybe you could stop beating up people who want to be my friend!"

  "Ava, I'm sorry."

  "Don't tell me," I yelled, "tell him." I pointed at Damon and stormed out of the coffee house. This day was turning out to be almost as bad as yesterday. All it was missing was one dead body, and the way things were going, I wouldn't be surprised if one turned up.

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

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  I'm sorry.

  I closed the text from Colt and went back to rolling out dough. My phone buzzed again.

  Plz talk to me.

  I picked it up, glanced at it, and set it aside. It buzzed a third time.

  I luv you. I'm sorry.

  This time, I grabbed my phone and threw it across the room. It landed in a container of flour. A giant white cloud poofed out and sailed through the air, making its way toward Trixie before slowly disappearing.

  Snowball lifted her head, opened one eye, then went back to sleep. The other familiars had opted to stay home today, bored with bakery life. Snowy hadn't wanted to leave me alone since the night of my party, though. Even though it had been a few days and everyone was fine, I thought she was still paranoid that the hexed macaroons might have some lasting effect. Dr. Dunne had run several tests and determined that a hallucination hex had been used. None of us who'd eaten the macaroons could trust what we'd seen that night.

  "Colt again?" Trixie asked, adding more strawberry to her frosting. It turned a shade darker. She stuck one finger in and brought out a large dollop of buttercream, licked it off her finger, then smiled. "Perfect," she said. "Unlike people, frosting can be tweaked to your satisfaction."

  I glared at her and pounded my fist into the cookie dough. "I'm not trying to tweak Colt to anything. I just want him to stop acting like a fool." I forgot what I was doing, scooped up the dough, and started to roll it out all over again.

  "Are you sure you're not being just a little hard on him?" Trixie ventured.

  "Yes," I snapped.

  With her eyes still closed, Snowball said, "Mama very mad at detective man. He texted her all night two nights in a row. Snowball likes detective man. He gives Snowball tuna."

  I shot Snowy an annoyed look then felt guilty for it. Snowball liked almost everybody, as long as they were a good person. Which reminded me that I hadn't heard from Damon. Unlike Colt, he hadn't texted me once. I wasn't sure which was more irritating—no apology from Damon or too many from Colt.

  I rolled the dough out one last time and began cutting it into little stars with a cookie cutter. Sugar cookies were the easiest thing to make. Fifteen minutes, tops. I'd spent the last two hours trying to get them together and still hadn't succeeded.

  It was weird being in the back room. I kept looking at the spot on the floor where they'd laid Trevor's body. The teddy bear he'd given me sat perched on my dresser at home. I wanted to catch his killer more than anything but it seemed like things just kept getting in the way. I hadn't even had a chance to tell Colt what Blossom had said about the mist.

  I suddenly realized that I had my own wizards and witches right here in the bakery. Between Eleanor, Trixie, and my dad, one of them was bound to have a few ideas about the mist that Blossom had seen. Unless it was her imagination, I reminded myself but shook it off. Something told me it wasn't.

  "Hey," I said to Trixie, "do you know anything about black mist?"

  "Black mist?" Trixie asked, scrunching her brow.

  "Yeah, like is black mist considered some sort of omen or something?"

  "You mean like..." She conjured a strange mist in the air with a wave of her hand. It was dark and smoky and flittered through the air in small waves, like a tiny ocean. She lowered her hand and
it disappeared.

  "I don't know. I guess. But bigger. Much bigger. And more opaque."

  I wished that I'd asked Blossom to describe it better. At the time, black mist had seemed descriptive enough. Plus, I'd wanted to get out of there before she pawned off any more of her dark magical goodies on me. The container she'd given me was still sitting in Eleanor's car. I'd gotten so worked up over Damon and Colt the other day that I'd forgotten to dump it. Those cookies were probably growing mold by now.

  "Well," Trixie said, "there are all types of reasons for black mist. If someone conjured a mini hurricane the wrong way, that would do it."

  I crinkled my brow. "What if it wasn't a hurricane? Or anything weather related."

  "Dark magic," she said promptly.

  "Like demigone and quartz ink?" I asked, thinking of the items I'd seen in Creams, Cakes, and Creations.

  She shook her head. "Like hauntings and poltergeists. Ghosts maybe. And tricksters."

  I opened my mouth to ask more just as Eleanor pushed through the door. She was holding a dozen red roses. "They just came for you," she said, grinning at me. I took them reluctantly. "There's a card," she added.

  I was unable to stop myself from inhaling the floral scent of the bouquet. They were beautiful roses. Big and open and dusted with a hint of gold glitter. Baby's breath had been placed strategically throughout. I was a sucker for roses and Colt knew it.

  I opened the card and read Colt's scribble, which he liked to call handwriting. As neat a dresser as he was, his handwriting was almost illegible.

  "What does it say?" Trixie asked. She and Eleanor were leaning over my shoulder, trying to read it.

  I sighed and read aloud. "Dear Ava, I'm sorry. I was a toad. Please forgive me. I love you." I glared at them. "Happy now?"

  "The card says 'happy now?' " Trixie asked uncertainly.

  A giggle bubbled up out of me. "No, I was saying that. Are you two happy now?" Eleanor and Trixie exchanged a look. "You're right and I'm wrong," I told them, irritably. "I'm being way too hard on Colt and I know it." I let out a sigh.

  "We didn't say a thing, dear," Eleanor said. "Though now that you mention it, it had occurred to me that Colt might have had reason to be jealous, considering you and Damon were holding hands at the table."

  My eyes widened. "How do you know that? I didn't tell you that."

  "You know how word travels around here," Trixie said.

  I sighed and tossed the cookie dough aside. I was never going to finish it. Not now. I untied my apron and set it on the counter.

  "Taking a break?" Eleanor asked knowingly.

  "Yes," I said. "I'm going to see Colt. Happy?"

  "Yes," Trixie and Eleanor said together.

  My father smiled at me as I walked through the main room and out the front door. He liked Colt a surprising amount. I think he hoped we might get married one day. Colt and I had talked about it before but we'd never seemed to do more than talk. I was more reluctant to discuss it than he was. When he'd first mentioned it, I'd been thrilled. The last time he'd tried to bring it up, though, I'd pretended to be sleeping.

  I liked the idea of marriage but I was only twenty-two. Colt was twenty-six. He might not be stationed on Heavenly Haven forever. And I might want to live here forever. Or maybe not. Who knew? I supposed it was uncertainty more than anything that kept me from bringing it up.

  I made my way to Colt's apartment, wondering if I should apologize, too. Didn't it usually take two people to make a mistake? That seemed like the sort of thing my father would say. He probably had at some point in my life.

  I paused at a crosswalk, watching the faces of the tourists as they walked by. Trevor's death had been announced as an accident in the Heavenly Haven Gazette, just in case there were any tourists keeping tabs on what happened on the island.

  You never knew when someone from Mothers Against Paranormal Predators might show up. The way they talked sometimes, they were getting ready for all-out war with us. That would never happen, though. Their group simply wasn't large enough to compete against all the witches and warlocks in the world but that didn't mean they wouldn't try. I shivered as a woman passed me by. She smiled and kept walking but I felt her eyes linger on me a moment longer than I cared for. I shook it off, knowing that I was just being tired and paranoid. I focused on Colt and crossed the street. The sooner we made up, the better.

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

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  The walk to Colt's was a short one. His father, Russell, opened the door and greeted me warmly. His complexion was pale, as always, but his smile was genuine. I knew there were people who still doubted whether he should've been pardoned by COMHA but I thought that Dean Lampton and the rest of the Council on Magic and Human Affairs had done the right thing. Russell was a good man. It wasn't his fault he was a vampire.

  "Is Colt here?" I asked, stepping inside.

  "No, he was going by the bakery. Just left a few minutes ago."

  "Shoot, you mean I just missed him?" I asked as he shut the door.

  Russell shrugged. "He'll be back."

  "Maybe I should head back over there."

  "If you do that, you might miss him again. Stay here a minute and keep me company."

  Russell smiled and I couldn't help but smile back. He was a likable guy. I wasn't at all put off by his status as a vampire. Melbourne was a vampire, too, and he was just fine. Trixie sure seemed to think so. In fact, of all the vampires I'd met—okay, that only amounted to a small handful but still—only one had really scared me. And he was gone forever. The majority of vampires were just like witches and wizards... with one small exception, of course. Blood. But who was I to judge?

  "Okay, I guess I can wait," I said, taking a seat at the kitchen table.

  "Hungry?" he asked me.

  "Thirsty," I replied.

  He went to the kitchen and filled a glass with ice water. "We don't have much right now. Neither of us have been to the store lately."

  "Water's fine," I said. He handed me the glass and sat opposite me at the table. "How is everything?" I asked. "Have you found your own place yet?"

  "Not yet, but I'm working on it. I'm sure I'll find something soon." His eyes glazed over slightly. I had the feeling that people were reluctant to rent to a vampire. They probably would have been okay with Melbourne—he'd been living in Sweetland for years now—but Russell was still relatively new and came with a checkered past.

  The last several months, Russell had been resigned to living with Colt. It was the only way that COMHA had allowed him to go free after some trouble he'd gotten into with another vampire named Vlaski. Russell had been released into Colt's custody and his every move monitored by COMHA until just recently, when they'd finally decided he was no longer a threat. Now that he was free to go about his life, he didn't seem to know what to do with himself.

  Colt had told me that, on a lot of days, Russell moped around the apartment alone. Colt had suggested everything from bird watching to golfing, hoping to pique Russell's interest but so far nothing had seemed to do the trick.

  We sat in silence for a minute but it wasn't an awkward silence. Russell had an oddly comforting aura about him, if vampires even had auras. I'd have to remember to ask Trixie about that later. Not having grown up on Heavenly Haven, I was still learning new things every day.

  "So, are you here to yell at him or make up with him?" Russell finally asked and I chuckled.

  "The latter."

  He nodded. "Good. I like you two together. I was worried the night of your party, when he and Sheriff Knoxx put you all in jail. I was afraid that might be it for you lovebirds."

  "It wasn't really Colt's fault," I said. "Besides, he got me out."

  "Still, a lesser woman wouldn't have let that go so easily."

  Russell's mention of my party got me thinking. I'd almost forgotten about the
strange look that had passed between him and Trevor that night. Russell had been on his way to say hi to me when he'd spotted Trevor talking to me and veered in the other direction. Trevor had glared after him and muttered something insulting about vampires.

  "Did you know Trevor well?" I asked.

  "Trevor?" Russell looked surprised. "No. Not really."

  "At my party, it seemed like he knew you."

  Russell laughed. "Knew of me is more like it, I imagine. You know how things have been for me since that whole business with Vlaski. The island is not always a friendly place to outsiders, especially vampiric outsiders with a past."

  "Yeah, I can imagine how hard it's been for you."

  "Some people have been very kind, though, don't get me wrong. You, your aunts, your father. Melbourne's been helping me readjust to society."

  "That's good," I said, treading carefully with my next question. "So, Trevor just had a problem with vampires in general, you think? Or you specifically."

  Russell's face tightened. "He and I did not get along."

  "I thought you didn't know him."

  "We didn't. I only meant that from what I knew of him, Trevor and I did not share similar beliefs."

  I leaned forward in my seat. "What do you mean by—" The glass I was holding slipped from my fingers. I waited for the crash to come as it hit the floor and broke into a thousand pieces but it never came. I blinked and realized Russell was standing beside me, holding it. He set it back on the table, still intact.

  "How did you..." I asked.

  "Vampires can move very fast," he said.

  "Yeah, I know. Or I mean, I thought I knew." I looked at the chair where he'd been sitting just a second before. He'd crossed to me so fast I hadn't even seen him leave his seat. I'd never seen anyone move so fast. My mind couldn't help drawing a connection between Russell's speed and the speed with which Trevor had been stabbed. It had been done quickly and with a lot of force. Russell was strong enough and fast enough to pull off something like that.