Freddy was out on his deliveries when rustling echoed from the basement. Hermione crept down the stairs, wand drawn, and found an athletic woman in a tube skirt rummaging boxes.
She readied herself. A stunner should be plenty, but Wesen were blindingly fast in close quarters. Her body was prickling with magic. The girl didn't even turn. "Which box is it in?"
"Excuse me?"
The girl spun around, woging into a Fuchsbau with her claws and fangs barred, but froze when her eyes landed on Hermione.
She pulled her spell at the very last instant. The cutting curse slashed past the girl's neck, slicing a beam and splashing sparks off the stone walls.
The girl transformed back into her human form. She backed into the dark wall and raised ger hands while mewling, "No. Please don't kill me."
Hermione's fingers were trembling. The owner's daughter missed decapitation by a hair's breadth. "Rosie? You scared me to death. What are you doing?"
The girl flattened herself against the wall and eyed the stairs. "They were black! Your eyes. I swear I saw them turn black."
The girl's olive skin had a greasy sheen and her eyes were dilated. She was stoned out of her wits. Hermione focused her powers and laid a hand on the girl's arm. A calming spell rippled through, settling the girl's nerves. Hermione continued. "Rosie. You remember me? Kay. I mix potions with Freddie."
A mild smile bubbled across the girl's face. She slowly babbled, "But your eyes? They were empty holes with my reflection floating in them. I saw a Grimm."
Of all the drunken crazy she never expected to hear, that beat all. The girl was clearly high as a kite. "Shhh. It must have been a shadow. There are no Grimms here. You're safe."
The girl's attention shifted to the lumps swirling across her belly. Hermione rubbed over her stomach. "Did your brother tell you the news? I'm due in a few weeks."
She brought the girl upstairs and they talked while she scarfed down a bowl of coffee yoghurt topped with a healthy dose of tumeric and three pickles. Freddy returned and scowled when he saw his sister. He patted her arm but his forehead wrinkled when she mentioned Hermione's Grimm eyes. The girl was clearly strung out and hallucinating. To calm his sister, he woged and stared into her eyes but shrugged. "Rosie, you know Kay is a vorrherrscher witch. I've woged dozens of times around her. So have Mom and Dad and all our customers. Her eyes don't change."
The girl thought for a minute, shrugged, and changed subjects. "Hey, me and the girls are going out. I need you to hook us up with some Jaye."
Freddy frowned. "You're not supposed to be in that stuff. It will kill you."
"Then why are you dealing?"
"You know its the only thing keeping this place afloat with the supermarket pharmacies taking insurance. The new WalMart opened and it cut our sales twenty percent."
The girl pushed her hands into her hips and shrugged. She wandered out the back door and came back in with a dark haired girl whose skin tight black dress and red top may as well have been painted on. Her older friend flounced over to Freddy and threw her arms around his neck. She slid into his lap and pulled his hand onto her thigh.
Hermione had the distinct impression that the new girl was the sort who twirled around a pole whilst shedding her clothes. She had that mercenary look that said she could be whoever you wanted her to be, and Freddy was her prey tonight. She twisted her head and slick black spotted white fur slicked her body. Her face flattened into a feline profile. Short, pearly white fangs poked past her lips and long whiskers sprouted. Her hand drifted up and down his chest and a purr rumbled out of her chest. The woman's lips drifted over his neck. "She just wants to go dance at the club. You know I won't let her get into any trouble."
He seemed to melt under the woman's touch. The woman ran a furry hand through his hair and teased, "Looks like you knocked that one up pretty good. You holding out on me?"
He stammered and muttered excuses about his father helping out a girl whose parents had died. The woman chuckled. She clearly loved twisting him like this. Hermione's frustration grew with the woman making sport of him, so she flicked a pinch of wordless magic into her. He deserved a couple hours of fun.
Rosalee disappeared down the stairs while her "friend" curled around her brother. A few minutes later, his sister reappeared with a baggie of the crystalline powder extracted from jacine mold.
After his sister and her friend left, Freddie pushed his face into his palms. "I don't know what to do. If I quit selling it, we'll go out of business."
Hermione thought for a while. "I can probably help get her clean for long enough to get her into rehab. She'll have to move somewhere else to get away from it."
His eyes were swollen and red. "Mom and Dad would have to sign the paperwork."
"I might be able to help with that too."
"I can't drag you into my mess."
She was in no place to argue. It was closing time. The other lady was back to go home with Freddy, much to his sister's protests. Hermione excused herself from the unfolding drama and waddled towards the bus stop.
-/-/-/-/-/-
Hermione was choking, her brain burning as bubbles rippled past her. She kicked her feet down, jerked her arms up, and her head burst into the air. Water vomited out of her lungs. Streamers poured out her nose as she gasped and sneezed water out of her brain. Her skull and lungs were burning as the first pink of dawn rippled through the treetops.
How in the hell had she ended up in a fountain?
She was shaking as her fingers inspected her belly. This was the third time in two weeks, and she had no idea where she was. The chlorine burned her eyes. Wide blotches of crimson stained her pants and blouse. She slogged out huddled behind the bushes to cast scourgifies and drying spells.
Her hands cramped as her sobs shook her belly. The ancients were no longer making requests. They were demanding her baby because of continued insubordination. She was fighting as hard as she could, pulling out every trick she knew, but it was when, not if.
The girls asked about her tears and her depression, but she dared not utter a word. Truthfully, she needed them away from her. They didn't deserve to bleed out. Instead, she plotted on saving her baby. She had cut her wrists, slit her throat, and poisoned herself so many times, but they simply snatched the reigns. A bullet to her brain was her only option, but she had to wait till Mark could survive without her. The library provided everything except for the one thing. For that, she needed Chica.
She made up a story and breeched the topic after chapel. The girl's gold teeth shined. Of course the girl knew how to get a pistol. That night after work, she met the Venezuelan and rode the bus to Woodlawn Park.
The two of them waddled past the basketball courts to the corner of the playground. Two men with faces full of five-day scruff eyed them. A third wearing a Portland Trailblazers jersey ambled over. "You girls lost?"
Chica puffed her breasts out. "You Mojo?"
The man eyed their swollen bellies. "Whose askin?"
"We need a little something."
"Really, and I thought you were just here for the conversation."
"Her old man is a lying sack of shit. Knocked her up and now he's sleeping with her best friend. She confronted him about it and he beat her up. Punched her in the belly."
The man smirked "And?"
"He swore he's going to kill her. She needs a piece."
The man hemmed and hawed about cops until both of them showed their breasts. He fondled them a bit and then nodded. "Seven hundred."
Chica nodded at Hermione. She brushed the tips of her fingers up the inside of the man's leg and dragged her tongue across her lips. "Maybe I could get a better price."
He brushed her back. "More problems I don't need. Money talks. Drama walks."
They haggled a bit and settled on six hundred fifty. A wad of cash went one way and the little, silver pistol, complete with a cardboard box of bullets went the other way.
Back at the church, Chica showed her how to clean, load, and shoot the little gun. The girl tested it by sticking a pencil down the empty barrel, pointing it straight up, and pulling the trigger. The hammer snapped and the pencil launched, sticking into the ceiling. The girl nodded. The gun theoretically worked, but they still needed to fire it.
Her hands trembled as she practiced pushing it against her temple, ear, and under her chin. According to the medical manuals, halfway between her chin and throat was best, but the gun had to be angled a little backwards. Straight up and she would likely blow her teeth or eyes out of her skull, but leave herself alive.
She was crying more and more as each day passed. Her appetite disappeared until gnawing hunger forced her to fill the tank. This is what it must have been like for Harry, knowing he had to die at the battle of Hogwarts. Unlike Harry, though, she was the problem. She had to save her baby.