Toxic

Chapter 6

Ruby and Lola are in the conservatory when I get home, Ruby flicking through a magazine, Lola painting her nails.

Ruby is the oldest of us all, eighteen, and her chocolate brown hair matches her eyes - she's the spitting image of our Mum.

I'm sixteen, and my hair was brown too before I dyed it the garnet shade it is today.

Lola's fourteen, with long dark curls and bright blue eyes.

Whereas Ruby's quite fiery, I'm more chilled out, and Lola's a mixture of the two.

"So, where have you been?" Ruby asks.

"Just round to Grans."

"All this time? There's only so many minutes I can stand to listen to her go on about her glory days." Ruby scoffs.

The sound of her smirk startles Lola, who jumps and knocks the nail polish from the table.

Before Mum's new floorboards are splattered with purple glitter, the bottle zooms upwards into Lola's hand. She blinks in surprise.

"Did you do that?" I look at Ruby.

She shakes her head. "Lola must have."

"I thought I was the only one of us who could do magic," I comment.

"Oh, please, I could move fire since I was ten," Ruby smirks.

"I can control water and ice." I announce. "So Lola's powers lay in...air and earth?"

Lola is mesmerised by her new found strength.

"What's up with Andre? You guys are inseparable" she remarks.

"He's not well."

Lola seems satisfied and carries on doing her nails but Ruby just stares at me.

"Didn't he cheat on you with Carly Remington?"

"She threw herself at him, not the other way around."

"That was a bitchy thing to do." Lola hugs me.

"I wouldn't mind if she wasn't a witch."

"I'd call her more than a witch if she tried it on with Dylan." Lola decides. "I wouldn't fancy her chances against Ruby, either, if she went after Hamish."

"No, she is an actual witch, Lola."

"So that's why she tried to get off with Andre" Ruby realised.

"It's worse than that though, he's turning into some kind of...snake."

"How has that happened?"

I can barely bring myself to explain it. "Carly, well, her real name is Rosalind, has snake's venom in her veins. She drank from her serpent familiar and its blood mixed with hers, combining their powers. Normally when she kisses boys they die soon after, but Andre didn't, because he is connected to me. If I was not of magical blood myself, he would be long dead. So, although he was not killed, a bond of sorts was formed between them, and thus the snake poison went into his veins. As he is not magical, it's changing him into some sort of...abomination" I finish.

Ruby and Lola pull me into a hug.

"We'll help you get rid of her." Ruby affirms, and Lola does not question her plan.

A few hours later, I'm practising my ice bomb, hoping to somehow merge it with Lola and Ruby's powers, when I hear my name being called.

"Thorn, could you come down here a minute please?" Dad calls up.