Katherine stood at the foot of the stone steps peering up at Max and Mabel who stood laughing into the quiet night like old friends. She couldn't remember a time she had seen Mabel laugh so hard or look so happy the way Mabels' eyes squinted shut from the wide smile that spread across her face. It brought a half smile to Katherine's face that didn't quite reach her eyes. It felt like the version of Mabel Katherine had grown up with was a completely different person than the one that stood in front of her.
Katherine watched the smile slip from Mabel's face as they made eye contact, as if she was doing something she wasn't supposed to. Mabel said one last thing to Max, then bounded down the stone steps, heels clicking with each step, toward Katherine.
"Don't stop on my account," Katherine expressed as an odd feeling bubbled in her chest.
"He had only told me a funny joke, no need to be jealous," Mabel responded with a sly smile. Katherine scrunched her face in disgust, she was not jealous in the slightest, she just didn't know how to feel about her little sister getting cozy with a wolf. Not just any wolf, this particular wolf who looked at them like they were little lambs he was waiting to gobble up should the opportunity present itself.
"I think we can trust him," Mabel declared with a nod of her head. Katherine tilted her head in confusion at the unprecedented words, Mabel hardly trusted Katherine let alone a wolf she just met today. Why did she decide to trust Max of all people? Because he made her laugh with whatever idiotic joke that came out of his mouth? Had the world been turned upside down when she died?
"You are clearly not yourself," Katherine scoffed as she motioned for Max to come down the stairs. She didn't have time to entertain Mabel's words if she wanted to make it back into The Valley before midnight in one piece.
"Actually, I've never been more myself," Mabel retorted sticking her nose up in the air, then turning her back to Katherine causing her short dark hair to swish around. Mabel stomped away down the lamp lit cobblestone street disappearing around the next corner.
Max sauntered down the steps to where Katherine stood, with his hands in his coat pockets. Before he reached the last step, Katherine whipped her head to look at him.
"I want you to stay away from Mabel," Katherine scolded raising her index finger to point at him, "I don't want you talking to her, or looking at her, and don't even think about thinking about her."
Max threw his hands up in defense at Katherine's lecture, with his usual smug grin. She wanted to make sure he was telling the truth in the bathroom when he said he was poisoned too. The last thing she needed was to lower her guard for him to strike again, poisoning one of her sisters.
"What about you?" Max asked with a wink.
"What about me?" Katherine questioned, annoyance creeping into her voice.
"Am I allowed to think about you?"
Katherine rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. This man had some nerve to try to flirt with her, now that she thought about it, he flirted with her back in the forest too. Katherine forced her eyes closed not wanting to think about how she flirted with him back, forcing the memories to burry themselves behind the fact that she still believed he had a hand in her poisoning. She had to worry about that later, right now she needed to focus on the task at hand for the time being above all else.
Katherine was not going to give Max the option of stopping her from taking them to the human realm. She pulled the piece of paper from her paper and held it up between her two fingers, she took a step toward Max grabbing on to his dark green suit with a coy smile on her face, mocking him. Katherine watched a small sheen of sweat formed on Max's forehead, and his mouth slightly parted at her action. Was he nervous? Katherine internally cackled at the thought.
The wind picked up around them as Katherine closed her eyes to focus on the small amount of magic she still had. She could feel the faint hum of an electrical current start in her fingertips, then radiate throughout her body. The wind now picked up dead wet leaves and circled them rhythmically around Katherine and Max before enveloping them completely. The air whooshed past Katherine's face, her hair whipped around like long wild tendrils while her ears popped.
When Katherine opened her eyes again she was greeted with bright lights that flashed from red to yellow that blurred all together making her nauseous, all around her were honking of car horns and the voices of people laughing and yelling into the night as they traversed the sidewalks. The buildings towered so high above her she thought she would break her neck if she tried to see where they met the sky. The Electronic signs on the buildings changed faster than she could comprehend, it was too much, she was too overwhelmed. Her chest started to tighten, causing her breathing to become shallow. Why had her mother sent her on an errand to this strange place? She felt the back of her coat tug as she stumbled backwards into a dark damp alley away from the lights and the people.
Max held her shoulders as he bent down to say something to her but Katherine didn't hear him. She was still reeling from the chaos she teleported into, she started to feel light headed as Max gently shook her.
"You need to breathe Katherine," Max instructed, then shook her again, "So you can tell me why the fuck you brought me here."
Katherine snapped back into her surroundings, and shrugged Max's hands off of her shoulders. She unfolded the piece of paper to look at the address written but she had no idea where to even find the place.
"I had an errand to run," Katherine said dryly, then turned to him, "I need to find this shop, but the address doesn't make sense."
Max snatched the paper from Katherine's hands and exited the alleyway to look at the front of the building next to them. He looked back and forth between the two buildings at the little numbers fixed to them, before he walked away out of Katherine's line of sight. Katherine wrung her hands together, she didn't want to go back out there with all the lights and people, but if she wanted to get the package to her mother before midnight she had to suck it up.
Katherine peeked her head out of the alley into the blinding lights to see Max leaned up against the building waiting for her. She walked slowly toward him pressing her side against the building to stay out of the way of the moving crowd of people but some still bumped and brushed against her making her cringe every time.
"We'll get nowhere if you move at a snails pace," Max said as he grabbed her hand, "If you hold on to the back of my coat, no one is going to touch you,"
"I would rather die," Katherine panted as she gripped to the building for dear life. She must have looked pathetic but she didn't care, she wanted the lights to stop flashing and people to stop touching her, but she didn't want to be looked at like a puppy dog trailing after Max.
"Then you leave me no choice," Max declared as he scooped Katherine up for her to be carried in his arms.