Frog Kisser

chapter seven

The last thing I could remember was someone's strong, stable arms slipping underneath me and sweeping me off the ground as easy as picking trash off the floor. The pounding in my head was so massive, I couldn't open my eyes. A demon had a sledgehammer, pounding my brains and skull, creating dents and cracks. I couldn't open my eyes. The light was too bright. The house was too open. I wanted to be wrapped into a cocoon to be crushed.

"Take this..." Someone said, unlike the unfamiliar voice before. This was smooth, sliding out of her throat like melting butter. "When you can move again. You look awful."

"Come on! Come on!" Another girl insisted, showing her young age. The room shook too, like she was bouncing. "Babe, I wanna see how fast I can run with two legs!"

"Okay, okay. We're going. Don't do anything stupid while we're gone, Cal. I'm giving you one of those pills mom takes after she drinks a lot of wine and some water too. Drink all of it."

The girl slipped something into my hand and then, disappeared. Groaning, I swallowed whatever that person gave me and immediately fell back to sleep. It wasn't a peaceful sleep. It was like closing my eyes as I tossed and turned, sleeping on a rocking boat when it was pouring rain and I was getting drenched. I groaned the same way an old ship would, nearly tossing myself overboard on several occasions.

"Cal!" Another voice, but they were shouting. They sounded pissed. This one, I recognized. "Cal!" David's warm hand grabbed my shoulder and shook me harder than any sleeping person would like.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I groaned, waving my hands and lightly bumping into David's chest. "What is it? What's burning? Who's dying?"

"I could ask you the very same question."

Peeling my eyes open, I was nearly knocked back unconscious by a wave of nausea. Even my eyes felt as dried out as his tongue and throat. I itched for a cool glass of anything. I looked up to find David and his furrowed brow, a look he inherited from his uncle.

David's uncle, Hyrum used that same solemn expression when I was a teenager blabbering all kinds of excuses during a lecture, like the time I brought a Pilfer—a magical creature that looks like a cat that walks on its hindlegs. Just with funnier colored coats and two extra eyes—to school. It had burned its hand, thinking something was in the belly of a fire he could steal. I tried telling Hyrum that my house was out of the right burn cream for his fur type and that all the stuff the Pilfer stole could be replaced.

The emotions Hyrum Hale lacked should've warned me he didn't have a heart.

I got detention for a whole month.

"David? What are you doing here?" I asked, glancing around my room. Sun filtered through the curtains and I looked at the array of clothes thrown about my floor, which was odd because I didn't remember doing that.

"I was worried, and it was a good thing I came!" David yelled, probably to punish me more than possible, like the kind of person that enjoys pressing someone's bruises without mercy.

"Can you lecture me quietly?" I winced, wriggling deeper back into the covers. "I can listen just as well at a library level of volume."

"You're lucky I didn't call the police or worse, your parents. I've been trying to get a hold of you since yesterday. At first..." David went on talking, but the words he said didn't make any sense. Confused, I reached for my nightstand, but my phone was dead. I tossed it back.

With a grimace, I sat up and rifled through David's pockets while he scolded me, "I thought you were still upset with me, so I wanted to give you space, but then Gretchen told me what happened with Jeremy, so I thought this was a curled up in a ball on the floor situation."