I had taken a sip of Coke—the regular kind this time. Planning requires both sugar and caffeine. “What’s there?” I asked.
Blythe had wrinkled her nose at me and tapped the spot again. “Trust me, okay? We can talk about it when we get there.”
“Why not now?” I’d asked. “Because you feel like being mysterious, or because you know that I won’t want to go if you tell me?”
This time, I got an eye roll in addition to the nose wrinkle. “Can you just trust me?”
“No,” I’d replied immediately, and to my surprise, she’d smiled.
Sitting back in the booth, Blythe had watched me for a long moment. Her dark hair had been loose for once, and it made her look younger. I had to remind myself that I hardly knew anything about her. Maybe she was my age. Another teenage girl caught up in something she didn’t understand, but one who, I think we can all agree, had really run with it.
“Has it occurred to you,” she asked, leaning forward to rest her arms on the table, “that I’m putting a lot of trust in you, too? I mean, I’m getting into a car with a Paladin and her best friend, both of whom have more than enough reasons to want to hurt me. So can we just make a deal to trust each other the best we can, and stop thinking the other is looking for a backstabbing opportunity?”
“Literally,” I’d quipped, and while she hadn’t exactly offered her hand for us to shake on it, I felt like a deal had been made.
So I hadn’t pressed her any more. It was my car we were taking, after all, and while I wasn’t sure I believed that Blythe wanted to help out of the goodness of her heart, I believed that she wanted to undo what she’d done the night of Cotillion.
I was distracted from that line of thinking by the sound of a car turning down our street. It wasn’t Ryan’s SUV, though. It was Aunt Jewel’s massive Cadillac, and I grinned to see it. I’d hoped to get a chance to say good-bye to her, and when I saw that Ryan was in the passenger seat, I smiled even more. She must have gone by to pick him up on her way over.
The giant Cadillac careened to a stop at the end of the driveway, and I grimaced as Aunt Jewel’s bumper took out one of our trash cans.
The car parked, she got out, wearing yet another rhinestone-studded sweater, this one in a pale pink with matching slacks. She was holding a plastic Piggly Wiggly sack, and I went around to her side of the Cadillac, giving Bee and Ryan a little bit of privacy on the other side.
“I knew that boy would be late if left to his own devices, so I decided to swing by and get him myself,” Aunt Jewel said, taking my proffered hand and hefting herself out of the driver’s seat. “I can still do that, right? Even though y’all aren’t together anymore?”
She didn’t even wait for me to answer, instead thrusting the Piggly Wiggly bag at me.
“Here, baby.”
I took the shopping bag and glanced inside. A rainbow of Tupperware stared back at me, along with several plastic sandwich bags, all holding, as far as I could tell, different types of cookies.
Reaching in, I lifted one napkin-wrapped bundle and held it up to my aunt, my eyebrows raised. “Um. Cake?”
Aunt Jewel shrugged and fiddled with the appliqué hummingbird on her shirt. “You girls will get hungry, and Lord only knows what you’ll find to eat out there. I figured better safe than sorry. And your aunt May went ahead and put her best cooler in the trunk, so make sure you grab that, and if you’ll just stop and pick up some bags of ice—”
I threw my arms around her before she finished, squeezing tight.
“I love you, Harper Jane. And I want you to promise me you and these girls are going to be very careful. And call me every night.”
“Every night,” I vowed, grateful for about the hundredth time that I’d decided to tell Aunt Jewel my secret.
Ryan and Bee had apparently said their good-byes, because they crossed around to the front of the car, their arms around each other’s waists. Blythe stood off alone but didn’t seem all that self-conscious. That wasn’t a surprise, I guess, seeing as how being self-conscious probably required an amount of self-awareness I doubted Blythe possessed.
“So how long will y’all be gone?” Aunt Jewel asked, and I stood up a little straighter.
“Two weeks. We’ll be back by the end of the month.”
Reaching down, Aunt Jewel plucked at her lace collar. “And if you don’t find David?”
“We come back anyway,” I said, enjoying how resolutely I said that. I just wished I felt as resolute. If all of this ended up being for nothing, if I sent myself traveling all over who knew where just to come home empty-handed . . .
No. Thinking like that had to stop. We had two weeks, and in that time, we were going to find David, find out what had happened to him, and stop it from happening anymore.
Somehow.
For now, I just gave Aunt Jewel another hug, and then, as Bee went to hug her, too, I turned to Ryan.
He stood there in another T-shirt and his basketball shorts, familiar as always, his hands held out to his sides. “Do we, uh, do we hug?”
I punched him lightly in the bicep and then wrapped my arms around his shoulders, giving him what was basically the most platonic hug known to man.
When we pulled back, he met my eyes, hands braced on both my shoulders. “You remember?” he asked in a low voice, and I glanced over at Bee, trying to keep my hand from straying to the bandage still taped over the tattoo on my back. It was just a ward, for the most part, but Ryan had added something extra to mine, something that could only be activated with a certain collection of words he’d taught me.
Something Bee didn’t know about.
I turned back to Ryan and nodded. “I won’t have to use it.”
“Let’s hope,” he answered, and then moved away from me.
Our good-byes said (and Aunt May’s cooler packed in the trunk), Bee, Blythe, and I got in my car. I looked at my house in the morning sunlight and told myself that I should feel excited. Anticipatory. Other words that weren’t “scared out of my mind” and “freaked out.”
Bee clearly felt the same because she reached over and gave my hand a quick squeeze. “We’ve totally got this,” she told me, and I made myself smile back.
“Of course we do.”
Starting the car, I glanced back at Blythe. “What about you, Blythe? You got this?”
“I told you,” she said, tapping her chest. “I can feel the spell we’re going to need. You help me find him, I’ll help you fix him.”
“Awesome,” I muttered, plugging the address she’d given me last night into my phone’s GPS. “So here we go.”
And there we went.
• • •
The motel attendant looked like Harper.
But then it seemed like every girl looked like Harper lately, that he saw her heart-shaped face and green eyes on everyone who crossed his path.
As the clerk turned away, tapping something into the computer, David closed his eyes, sucking in a deep breath.
“If we go to prom, do you promise not to wear pastel?”
They’re in his bedroom, Harper sitting primly at his desk chair while he slouches against the bed, a book on his upraised knees. He looks at her and feels that giddy drop in his stomach he gets every time he remembers she’s his girlfriend. That if he wants to, he can get up and walk over to her, drop a kiss on her lips, slide his fingers under the heavy, silky hair that falls against her neck.
Harper Price. Pres.
His girlfriend.
It’s still such a weird thing to think that he almost misses her question, and when she just looks at him, eyebrows raised, he mimics her expression. “Pastel is off the menu, too?” he finally asks, then gives her the most serious frown he can muster. “First plaid, then stripes, now pastel?” Shaking his head, David closes the book with a thump. “You’re a fashion tyrant, you know that, Pres?”
&
nbsp; Harper smiles, making a dimple dent one cheek, and there’s that stomach swoop again. Reaching over to his desk, she picks up a pen, tossing it at him. “You love it,” she counters.
I love you, he thinks, but doesn’t say it.
“Are you okay?”
Startled, David raised his eyes back to the motel clerk. His head still felt full of Harper, but looking at the girl in front of him now, the resemblance wasn’t as strong. Still, his pulse seemed to speed up, and there was that feeling in his chest, a tightness like someone was reeling in a line looped around his heart.
She was coming for him.
Hands shaking, David fumbled with his wallet. He wouldn’t run from her. He would wait here, let her find him, let them end this, whatever it was. Maybe he could just go back. Harper wanted to keep him safe. Some part of his mind balked at that idea, but that wasn’t him. Not the real him, at least. That was the Oracle part, and it was the Oracle part that he had to fight. Sure, there had been the girl at the fast-food place, then before her, those girls in Alabama, but those had been accidents. Besides, once he’d come back to himself, he’d been able to pull the power from them, change them back into what they were.
Or at least he thought he had. He’d tried.
But when he closed his eyes—just for a second, trying to get his thoughts to settle—there were other voices in his head again. Other images.
Stand and fight, they whispered, the voices bleeding together. He’d heard these voices before, but it seemed like they were louder now, stronger.
He opened his eyes.
The girl in front of him was looking at him funny, and David knew he must be mumbling to himself again. He’d been concentrating so hard on keeping his eyes downcast—so she couldn’t see the glow through his glasses—that he forgot about what his mouth was doing. That was another thing, the way he couldn’t seem to control everything at once. He could talk but not look, look but not talk. And when he looked, half the time, he wasn’t seeing the person in front of him but . . .
Her name.
She had a name, the girl he was seeing. He had just thought it, had just held the name inside his mind, he was sure of it, but it was slipping away now, almost like it had never been there at all.
Paladin.
No, that wasn’t her name; it’s what she was.
The money tumbled from his hands, bills falling to the grubby carpet, change clattering against the desk. He was on his knees, and the pain in his head was a hurricane.
Yellow dress. Blood. Green eyes. Green eyes filled with tears, and a word booming around loud as thunder.
Choose.
The girl behind the desk was next to him now, crouching down. She smelled like strawberries, and her hair brushed his shoulder. It was brown hair, not black, but he could still swear it was that other girl next to him. The one whose name had slipped through his fingers like sand.
The last time the light poured out of him, he’d said he was sorry. He’d felt sorry.
He didn’t feel sorry now.
Chapter 14
I WONDERED HOW long it would take Blythe to notice that I wasn’t driving toward the address she’d given me. I had banked on her not being all that familiar with this area—we had no idea where she was from, but Blythe was a Yankee name if I’d ever heard one—so I figured it would take a while.
As it turned out, we were nearly to my destination before Blythe suddenly twisted in her seat and said, “Wait, why aren’t we on the interstate yet?”
“Because we’re not getting on the interstate,” I answered calmly, signaling to turn right onto a long four-lane highway bracketed with palm trees. We were farther south now, which meant the landscape was slowly sliding into beachy territory, white sand appearing between clumps of dark green grass.
Blythe turned to face me, frowning. “What’s going on?”
“A mutiny,” Bee said cheerfully from the backseat, and I gave an unapologetic shrug. “What she said.”
I was willing to concede that Blythe had something we needed, namely a bunch of magic Ryan didn’t know, plus what appeared to be a genuine desire to fix this mess with a specific spell. But that didn’t mean that I was giving her total control of this mission, no matter what she might think. We could follow her plan when the time came, but for now, there was a stop I wanted to make.
We passed a big wooden “Welcome to Piedmont” sign, and Blythe settled back in her seat with a huff, crossing her arms over her chest. “We’re going to see the girl who attacked you,” she said, and I nodded.
“The night she went after me, she was totally set to kill me until she wasn’t. I know from experience that Paladin fights don’t work like that. You fight—”
“Until you’re dead,” Blythe finished. “Yeah, I’m familiar with all that.”
Ignoring her snotty tone, I turned into the wide parking lot of a strip mall. There was one just like it in every town in Alabama, seemed like, and I could see that was true of Mississippi, too. A nail salon, a Chinese buffet, one of those places where you trade your car title for cash . . .
The store I was looking for was on the very end of the row, a knockoff card and gift boutique with lots of brightly colored quilted bags prominently displayed in the window.
According to the research I’d done (by which I mean I used Google for about twenty minutes), this was where Annie Jameson worked. It had been a real find, discovering her job, tucked into a little article about her when she’d been the Piedmont High Star Student Athlete. Rocking a 4.0 GPA and captaining her volleyball team, Annie also worked afternoons at her family’s boutique, according to the paper. I had no idea if she’d be there today, of course, but I figured it was easier to try to talk to her at her work than going to her house.
You should always plan the approach that will bring you the most success. I read that in an ACT prep book, but it seemed applicable here, too.
“So what are we going to do?” Blythe asked as we got out of the car. “Just walk up there, be like, ‘Hi, my crazy ex-boyfriend gave you superpowers, and I’d like to ask you some questions about that’?”
The sun was beating down, and I could feel sweat popping out on my forehead, but I shrugged. “More or less, yeah.”
Shaking her head, Blythe slammed the car door way harder than was necessary. “And you didn’t tell me about this why?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, adjusting my purse on my shoulder. “Maybe because you haven’t exactly been forthcoming, yourself?”
Blythe started to say something to that, but I cut her off with a raised hand. “No. I need you, but you need me, too, or you wouldn’t have come to me in the first place. So we’ll work together, but if you’re going to work your agenda, I’m going to work mine, too.”
A muscle in Blythe’s jaw twitched, and her lips clamped tight together, but after a moment, she shrugged, sliding her sunglasses down her nose. “Fair enough.”
That settled, I turned to start walking to the store, Bee right beside me. “What are you going to say to her?” she asked, her voice pitched low. “Is she even going to know who you are?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, answering both questions.
The paper had mentioned her being confused, having only vague memories of what had happened, so for all I knew, she was going to stare at us blankly and this entire detour would be pointless.
I wasn’t sure what bugged me more, the idea of not getting answers from her or the thought of how smug Blythe would be if it didn’t work out.
And sure enough, from behind me, Blythe piped up, “She’s probably not even here. She was just in the hospital.”
That was true and a good point. I had no reason to assume that Annie would be at the store today, but that Star Student Athlete piece made me think that Annie might be a kindred spirit in overachieving . . . and if it were me . . . Yeah, I’d be back
at my parents’ boutique, trying to get back to normal as quickly as possible.
Pushing open the door to the boutique, I put on my brightest smile and prepared to do my best Polite Southern Girl to whoever might be behind the counter, whether it was Annie Jameson or not.
But it turned out my gamble was right on because, sure enough, Annie stood right inside the door. She wasn’t behind the counter, but was instead next to a display of pretty, brightly colored glass bottles.
She turned to us, a smile already in place, and then I got a definitive answer as to whether or not she remembered me.
Barely missing a beat, Annie grabbed the nearest glass bottle and chucked it at my head.
I ducked fast and dimly heard the glass explode somewhere behind me, but Annie was already running, and so was I. She headed around the counter, and without thinking, I placed one hand on it, vaulting over easily and catching her arm just as she tried to slam the door to the stockroom.
We fell to the floor hard, and I tried my best to keep a firm grip without hurting her. Whatever Paladin powers she’d had that night at the pool, I could sense that they were gone now. Even though I wanted answers, I wasn’t about to go all Paladin on someone who couldn’t fight back.
“I’m sorry!” she was saying—nearly sobbing it, actually. “It wasn’t my fault, I didn’t mean to—”
I’d managed to get her pinned underneath me, being careful not to sit on her or hold her arms too hard. “Annie,” I said, trying to make her listen, but her big blue eyes were wild, rolling from side to side, clearly looking for someone to help her.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” I said, and she looked up at me, brow wrinkled.
“I . . . I tried to kill you,” she said, and I eased my grip on her arms just the littlest bit.
“I know this is hard to believe, but I’m not here for revenge or anything,” I answered, trying to keep my voice calm. But it was all too easy to remember that this girl had come really close to killing me. To hurting Bee.
I could swear my scalp still stung from where she’d grabbed my hair, and I gritted my teeth, reminding myself yet again not to hold her too hard.
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