"A little more!" Jake called out, his voice squeaking the tiniest bit.
"Do you see anything?" Sasha asked. Her arms were getting tired.
"No. Not yet."
Sasha was beginning to get impatient. She was holding onto Jake by his legs as his upper body dangled in the dumpster behind the school she had threw him in yesterday. She was really beginning to regret that.
Jake squirmed about in her grip. "I don't think they're here."
Sasha cursed to herself. "Shit! How long do you think it would take to get all the ingredients for the counter curse again?"
Jake's voice echoes from within the dumpster, like somebody talking into an empty tin can. "It took me hours to get the first set together. I dunno. Um, can you pull me out? I think all the blood is rushing to my head."
Sasha sighed and heaved Jake's small body out. She was lucky he wasn't any heavier. "Tell you what, kid. I'll help you collect the stuff you need. I'm good at finding stuff. Especially stuff I'm not supposed to have."
Jake was hesitant to get Sasha involved so directly, but he didn't see any other way. "Alright. Just, please, don't tell anybody else about this, okay?"
Sasha let out a chuckle, despite herself. "Oh, don't you worry. This isn't something I plan on telling anybody anytime soon."
Jake reached into his back pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. "We'll we're going to need 7 red candles, 1 toenail from a man on his way home from work, 5 jellied - "
Jake was interrupted by the appearance to two men around the corner. One man was tall and thin, with messy reddish hair. The other was short, not much taller than Sasha, but very wide with muscle. His dark hair was buzzed close to his scalp and dark stubble lined his jaw. He crossed his hairy forearms and grinned at Jake and Sasha.
"Hey, fuckers."
Sasha put a hand to the bridge of her nose. "Oh my god. Dave? Ross? Well, that was fast."
Jake's skin paled. "Yeah. Really fast."
Dave laughed, his deeper adult voice reverberating about the back lot. "Hell yeah! I gotta hand it to you, Voodoo Boy. That gypsy shit of yours really does the trick."
Sasha stood between Dave and Jake. "What do you two creeps want?"
"Nothing from you. We just want a few things form inside is all. Don't worry about us. Oh, and if you tell anybody you saw us..." Dave punched his palm with his hairy fist. "... You're dead."
The two men walked past Jake and Sasha and into a backdoor to the school.
Sasha sighed. "Idiots. Come on, Jake. We gotta... Jake? What's wrong?"
Jake looked very pale, and Sasha could see hes hands were shaking slightly. He looked like he was about to cry. "I did it again. I screwed it up!"
"What? What's wrong?" Sasha knelt down to his level and tried to console him.
"They're supposed to age three years every time they do something delinquent or take advantage of their maturity. Just like Will. But..." Tears began to well in his eyes. "I used two papers because I thought I needed one for each. And... and... Now they're aging too fast!"
"Calm down, Jake. We don't know that. Maybe they've just been very busy, huh?" Though, with a sinking feeling, Sasha knew they couldn't risk assuming that. They had to get those ingredients. And fast. "Alright, Jake. If we're going to find that stuff, I need you to man up for me. Okay? Can you do that?"
Jake sniffed and nodded, blinking away his tears. "Yeah."
"Good. Now, read off those ingredients and I'll tell you where we can start."
------------------
Dave and Ross quickly made their way to the school's sports storage closet. Ross had recalled that, while it was looked most of the time, the gym teacher usually unlocked it during 3rd period Gym, when he taught basketball, or tennis, or whatever. Rifling through the sports gear, it wasn't long before they'd found what they were looking for.
Dave held aloft a heavy, aluminum baseball bat. "Oh, yeah. That's what I'm talking about. You find what you're looking for, Ross?"
Ross pulled out a pair of catcher's masks, perfect for hiding their faces.
"Excellent! Now, let's go get ourselves some moo-lah!"
The cashier behind the counter of the gas station convenience store had been having a slow day so far. Though, he suspected things were going to pick up once he saw two weirdos wearing catcher's masks and holding baseball bats walk in. Somehow he suspected they weren't with the local baseball team.
His concerns were confirmed when the shorter one started shouting at him while pointing the bat at him as if it were some sort of goddamn gun. "Hand over the money or I'll bash your fucking brains out!"
The cashier had to resist the urge to sigh. He'd had such high hopes for the day. "No problem, man. Just chill." He began tapping a code on the cash register as he hit the silent alarm with his foot.
The short guy continued shouting, which was beginning to give the cashier a headache. "Hurry the fuck up, man! Faster! Faster!" The short guy turned and nodded at the tall, skinny guy. "Show him what happens when you don't move fast enough."
The tall guy nodded back and swung his bat into the clear doors of the walk-in coolers. He then started reaching in and pulling out six-packs. Jerks.
With a "DING!" the register flew open and the short guy practically dove onto the counter, grabbing at the money in the tray.
The cashier did sigh this time. He backed away from the register, giving the short guy space to rifle through the register. "Yeah, help yourself." The cashier reached into the manager's office and pulled out what they called the "Safety Stick", which was in reality a 12-gauge shotgun. He whistled loudly to get their attention. The both stopped what they were doing, looked up at the cashier, and froze.
He allowed himself a smirk. "I'm going to give you until the count of five to get the fuck out of my fucking store." The would-be robbers both stood there, frozen in place. "1..."
The short one scrambled and shoved himself off the counter and ran out the door as fast as his stubby legs could carry him, a bat in one hand and a fistful of cash in the other. The tall one did the same, except he left his bat behind and can out with two six-packs of beer.
After a few seconds, the cashier lowered the Safety Stick. Too bad. He'd been kinda looking forward to using it.
--------------------
Dave and Ross didn't stop to look back. They'd run as fast as they could to where they'd hidden their bikes and peddled full speed to the usual place. The usual place was the abandoned gas station they occasionally hung out. It was where Will had revealed his transformation into an adult to both of them and Sasha. It was only there that the pair stopped and caught their breath, completely winded.
As they rested, the enhanced curse on them took effect, and the pair began to age from 19 to 25. Ross was already at his peak height, so he did not grow any taller. However, he did feel pinpricks of pain down his left arm. He rolled up his sleeve to reveal a swirly, tribal design tattoo itself into existence. Though he couldn't see it, a small pair of stylized, black angel wing tattoos appeared on his back. His eye sockets sunk in a bit and the skin around his eyes turned a shade darker. His nose bent at an odd angle, as if he'd been in a fight. Sinewy muscle covered his skinny frame. While he wasn't buff, he was still strong and fit. The scruffy stubble on his chin grew out, giving him sparse but long chin scruff.
Dave was also at his peak height, just above five feet. The hair covering his body filled out to its final coverage, making him a very hairy man, much like his father. His muscle bulked up just a bit, filling his frame out, making him look just as wide as he was tall. He was mostly muscle, though. His washboard stomach was just as tough as any six-pack abs. Pinpricks of pain alerted Dave to tattos forming on his knuckles. On his left fist, the word L-O-V-E appeared, as did the word H-A-T-E on his right. Underneath the substantial hair on his left pec was the tattoo of a flaming, red heart with a dagger stabbed into it. His facial stubble grew out some, threatening to become a beard if he didn't shave within the next day or so. The hair on chin and upper lip grew out some more, forming a goatee.
His breath caught, Dave ran a hand along his facial hair and peered into Ross's bike's mirror.
"Nice," he said. He voice sounded a little deeper before. Or perhaps he was only just now noticing.
Dave reached into his back pocket, pulling out the money he'd pulled from the register. He counted the crumpled bills and swore to himself.
"Fifty-two dollars? What the hell, man? What went wrong? We did everything perfect!"
Ross shot Dave a look.
"Oh, don't you dare!" Dave exclaimed. "I know what you're going to say. And, no! We do not need Will! We're just fine on our own. We don't need him."
Ross rolled his eyes, but said nothing.
"Besides," Dave continued. "There's plenty we can do with fifty-two dollars."