Twisted (Editing)

Chapter 8 (Jonah) (Edited)

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I don't know how to explain why it happened: how I got a tube of Imani's toothpaste in my hand, how I actually agreed to smell it, and why I decided that there was something I could do at that moment. Maybe it was a miracle. I can't say.

But it began with the twins: Thea and Ramona. I'd known them since we were all kids. They lived three blocks from me. We used to play together in the fields after school, and while we weren't as close as we had been, I respected them, I trusted them, and I always would. They were family.

So when they came to me with their blustery, breathless story about "smelling something wrong in someone's toothpaste," I humored them. I heard them out.

Thea launched into a story about her group⁠⁠—Group C⁠⁠—and how they had been building a tent when she smelled something strange coming from Imani's bag. Being curious (I told her nosiness would kill her), Thea opened the bag. The smell was coming from the toothpaste. And when she flicked open the cap, she knew exactly what it was.

"We're telling you," Ramona said, pushing the toothpaste into my hand. "It's wolfsbane."

"No way."

"You think we'd lie."

"No, but⁠⁠—"

"Smell it."

And I did. Sure enough, it did have the sickly scent that burned through my nostrils. But wolfsbane was...it would make a werewolf powerless. No connection to the female god, no shifts, no instincts. It was used to punish prisoners who had barely managed to escape the death penalty. And who even knew about a substance like this⁠⁠—maybe it would kill you if you had enough of it. Or had it for long enough?

So what was it doing in a tube of toothpaste?

"Do you think she was trying to poison us?" Thea asked.

"But she would've used it herself, wouldn't she? And if she meant to poison you, she wouldn't hand you the poison. Unless she's stupid."

"Maybe someone hired her to bring this into the camp. Maybe she doesn't know what she is, but someone close to her? Jonah⁠⁠—"

"We have seven days. Let's wait a few and see what happens to her. If nothing⁠⁠—then I call my father and she'll be interrogated. But if something..." My voice trailed off. Then she was one of us masking this whole time? She couldn't have known it or else she never would've moved to a town like this, where she was a sitting target. It was never our way to move about unaffiliated. It's not right, or legal among our laws. I scratched my head, turning over the toothpaste over and over. It said organic. Who knew, if I was lucky, by the end of all this, it would come up that a strange ingredient had been mixed into an "all-natural" toothpaste for the sake of having it there. Then, she could be made to forget the whole ordeal.

But until those forty-eight hours passed, anything could be true.