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Paige swung the spoon in the air. “Humor me.”
“I wouldn’t want you to bite your tongue in half.” He lowered his voice to a mumble. “From the pain.”
“Bite my tongue in half from the pain?” Paige exclaimed, leaping from her seat with the wooden spoon clutched in her hand and raised overhead.
The spikes on Dewey’s head wiggled, and he huffed, a puff of smoke popping out of his nostrils. “Look, this treatment isn’t easy to bear.”
“Well, maybe we shouldn’t do it, then!” Paige shouted, her voice an octave higher than normal.
“Pain is a perfectly normal part of the process. It doesn’t indicate anything has gone wrong. Quite the opposite, actually.”
“I don’t care!” Paige shrieked at him. “Enough pain that I’ll bite my tongue in half seems like a terrible idea.”
Dewey pounded the bowl down on the counter. “What’s a terrible idea is not treating your wound. It will only grow worse and continue to endanger you. You’ll die from it. Death would be much worse than temporary pain.”
Paige covered her face with her hands before sinking down onto the stool again.
She blew out a long breath and nodded. “Okay, you’re right. Fine. Maybe it won’t be that bad.”
Dewey retrieved the bowl. “Turn around and bite down on the spoon.”
With a deep inhale, Paige spun around. She rolled her shoulders back and pulled her ponytail over one shoulder. She squeezed her lips together and blew out a shaky breath before she clamped her teeth down on the wooden spoon.
The dry wood crunched between her teeth and rubbed across her tongue. The delicate hint of a variety of spices the spoon had stirred in the past flitted across her taste buds.
As she identified the taste of cayenne pepper, searing pain shot across her shoulder. Her features twisted in agony, and her teeth tightened against the wooden handle. A muffled moan escaped from her open lips.
While the remedy Dewey smeared across her wound burned, she could endure it. She wrapped her fingers around the cool granite counter. She gripped it hard, turning her fingers white as the burning became more intense.
Beads of perspiration formed on her forehead, and another groan escaped her. Pinpricks of pain peppered her back, starting at her shoulder and strafing the length of the wound. Her eyes filled with tears, and her face pinched as the pain intensified.
Each swipe of the goo onto her back felt like the lash of a whip. A whiff of burning flesh wafted past her nostrils. Smoke rose from the wound, swirling above her head.
Paige ripped the wooden spoon from her mouth.
“Stop!” she yelled.
“No can do, Paige. This has to be finished.”
Paige tried to escape the torture as he continued to plaster the beast’s mark with the remedy. Still gripping the counter, she pulled herself up to stand. Her knees wobbled, and she collapsed back onto the stool.
“Stay still and put that spoon back in your mouth.”
“No, stop, please,” she cried with tears streaming down her cheeks.
“It’s almost over. Hang in there.”
She sobbed as her trembling limbs attempted to hold her up. “Stop. I can’t take anymore.”
Her breathing turned into gasps. She squeezed one hand into a fist until her fingernails dug into her flesh, piercing the skin. Blood dripped from her hand onto the floor.
“Breathe, Paige,” Dewey said.
He sounded miles away from her. Her vision blurred, and sounds muted. The coolness of the granite below her fingertips slid away into nothingness as her senses dulled.
A weak, breathy, “no” escaped her lips as the world closed in around her and she slid into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 18
