Turning away, Bee headed for the little stairway that led to the backstage area, undoubtedly to change, and I breathed a little sigh of relief.
One that, unfortunately, Abi saw. “So y’all are fighting?” she asked. “That’s what Amanda thinks. Is it about Ryan? Amanda said she saw Bee getting a ride home with Ryan after school yesterday, and—”
“Oh, shut up, Abigail,” I heard myself say. “I try to do nice things for you, like save you from a dude who will ruin your life, and all I got for my time was a ruined pair of shoes and a dress that still smells like beer, and now you’re with him anyway, and you’re giving me crap, so honestly, why do I bother? Why do I bother with anything?”
I hadn’t realized that my voice was getting so loud, but from the way Abi blinked at me, I thought maybe I’d gotten close to shouty on that last bit. But I felt shouty. All I ever did was try to help, try to make things better, and it seemed like I was failing all over the place. Sure, I’d gotten through the first trials, but I was wearing a leotard in the rec center, I had no boyfriend, things with me and my best friend were intensely weird, and I’d been insulted by a munchkin wearing fake teeth.
There was only so much a girl could take.
Except apparently the universe wasn’t through screwing with me, because when Abi glanced toward the back of the auditorium, I saw someone standing in the doorway.
David.
“I . . . I’m sorry for the yelling,” I told Abi, ignoring her when she asked, “What did you mean about Spencer?” and moved up the aisle toward where David still hovered.
It was stupid to feel embarrassed, but David seeing me in my leotard left me feeling weirdly exposed, and not because of all the skin on display. The old David would have watched me with twitching lips before making some kind of annoying joke about how I clearly had a future in leading parades. But now, it was like he wasn’t seeing the costume. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt in a shockingly nonoffensive shade of blue that brought out the color of his eyes.
Holy crap. His eyes.
When I looked closely, I could see light glowing there. Not brightly, but still there and not a reflection.
With a sigh, David whipped off his glasses, replacing them with a pair of sunglasses that he had hanging in the front of his shirt. “I’m guessing you can see it?” he asked, and I stepped closer. Behind me, I could hear the stereo system blasting “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” so I knew the little kids were still practicing.
Momentarily distracted by that, David gazed past me before shaking his head slightly. “This place is—”
“It’s a total freak show,” I confirmed. “But we can worry about that later. Why are your eyes all . . . like that?”
Reaching up, David ruffled his hair. “They just are, okay?”
“That is like the least acceptable answer in the history of unacceptable things, most of which, I should add, involve your wardrobe,” I told him, folding my arms and trying not to notice the clatter of plastic gemstones. “David, what’s going on?”
For all that his eyes were freaking me out, I wished I could see them right now. I could read a lot in his face—the tightness of his mouth told me he was going to be stubborn about this, the tugging at his hair meant he was nervous—but his eyes would’ve told me more. How freaked out he was, for example.
“I’ve been trying some things,” he said, and I blew out a breath that ruffled my bangs. A few days ago, I’d thought about how much I didn’t like him alone in that house, obsessively going through Saylor’s things. Hadn’t I thrown myself into time with Bee and pageant practice to distract me from our breakup? What had David been distracting himself with? It wasn’t like he could see the future anymore, after all. Alexander had seen to that.
But if that was the case, why the heck were his eyes Oracled out? Again, I remembered him in the Fun House, floating in front of me, his eyes nothing but that golden light.
My knife at his throat.
Pushing that image away, I leaned in closer. “What kind of things?”
He’d tugged his sleeves over his hands. The music had stopped now, and I could hear Sara calling for all the Miss Pine Grove girls, but I kept my gaze on David. “What. Kind. Of. Things?” I repeated, and David looked straight at me. Even through the dark lenses of his glasses, I could see the twin sparks of light there.
“Visions,” he said in a low voice. “Alexander’s spell doesn’t work anymore.”
That startled me so much that my baton nearly slipped from my suddenly numb fingers. “What?” was all I could manage, and David’s mouth turned down at the corners. For the first time, I noticed that he looked even thinner, paler. Almost like he was fading away right in front of me.
“I don’t know why or how,” he continued, “but the other night, I . . . I saw something.”
I opened my mouth to ask what, but David held up a hand before I could. “It wasn’t clear. It was like before, when my visions were all muddled and cloudy. But I think . . . I think with help . . .”
It was my turn to hold up a hand. “Even if Ryan and I did try to help you have a vision, Alexander would know, right? He’d . . .Who knows what he’d do? That could disqualify me from the Peirasmos. It could kill me. Or you, or—”
But David shook his head. “This will work,” he insisted. “And think about it—if I can override his powers, maybe I could override . . . I don’t know, everything. Maybe this could end. If Alexander doesn’t have any power over me, he doesn’t have any power over you either.”
It was tempting. Really tempting. But if David was wrong . . .
Like he could read my mind, David reached out and took my hand. His skin on mine felt familiar and good, and I fought the urge to let my fingers curl around his.
“Pres,” he started, then moved in closer. “Harper. Trust me.”
Behind me, Sara called my name, and I thought of what this would mean. I’d have to talk to Ryan, of course, and Bee, too, probably, since this affected her. The four of us—my two ex-boyfriends and my maybe-ex-best-friend—would have to work together.
It would be scary and hard and, if David was wrong, quite possibly fatal.
But in spite of all that, I squeezed David’s hand and nodded.
Chapter 28
I’M SURE there have been more awkward car rides than the one we took out to the golf course to have David’s vision.
I mean, Aunt May once told me a story about a funeral where the limo company screwed up and sent the same car for her cousin Roderick’s wife and his mistress, and they had to ride to the cemetery together. That was probably worse than this ride.
But not by much.
Ryan had agreed to drive since he had the biggest car, a nice SUV his dad had bought for him last year when the basketball team had managed not to come in dead last. But even with all that space, I still felt cramped, even though it was just me and David in the backseat. Apparently the weirdness between us took up a lot of space. Bee rode up front with Ryan, and she’d done a decent job of trying to keep small talk going, but after getting monosyllabic answers from most of us, she’d given up, and now we drove in silence.
Bee and I still hadn’t talked about that afternoon at the pageant, which, to be honest, was fine by me. Nobody can repress better than a good Southern girl, and I wondered if the best thing to do was to forget any of that had ever happened. So Bee and Ryan were a thing. So she hadn’t told me.
That was . . . fine. No big deal at all. I certainly wasn’t watching the two of them, waiting to see if their hands touched or if they glanced at each other the way they had that afternoon. And I definitely hadn’t spent a lot of time wondering if, no matter what they’d told me, there hadn’t been a spark of something there before.
No, definitely not wondering any of that.
Next to me, David felt like he was strung so tightly that he nearly vibrated, and I couldn’t blame him. There was this bizarre vibe in the car, like something bad was coming, but that could have been all the tensi
on. Still, when Ryan made the turn onto the highway out to the country club, I almost told him to turn back. Which would have been dumb, of course. I’d promised David we could do this, but if I was being honest, I didn’t expect anything to happen. Alexander had taken David’s powers from him, and no matter how much David thought he could somehow overcome that, I didn’t have particularly high expectations. If anything, this felt more like a favor we could do for him.
That thought in mind, I laid my hand on David’s leg, trying not to notice how he flinched when I first touched him. But then he glanced over at me, his blue eyes bright behind his glasses, and he linked his fingers with mine. It had been a while since we’d touched, and I was surprised by how good it felt to have his hand in mine, even if it was only for a second.
The big stone and wood sign announcing the Pine Grove Country Club was lit up, but everything else was dark as we turned down the winding drive. Ryan rolled down his window, waving a card in front of a sensor, and the gate slowly swung open. Technically, the club closed at seven, but since Ryan’s dad owned the place, he could come and go as he pleased. And if his dad asked him why he’d been out at the club on a Wednesday night at ten, Ryan could always say he’d been cleaning the pool or something. That’s what he’d said on the nights we’d come out here after hours—memories I didn’t want to dwell on right now.
From the almost embarrassed way Ryan’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, I didn’t think he wanted to stroll down memory lane either.
We’d decided to come here for a couple of reasons. One, in all of David’s readings, he’d realized that the past Oracles were always having visions in nature-y places like caves or forests. There were a few woody places around Pine Grove—there was a reason the town was called what it was—but since none of us were in the mood to tramp through underbrush and risk snake bites, ticks, and God knew what else, we’d chosen . . . civilized nature. Plus it was a nice, private space still in town, but not too close to anything else, just in case this got out of hand.
The country club was a pretty building made to look like an antebellum mansion, and as we drove past it, spotlights on the tall white columns, giant tubs of azaleas by the front door, David snorted. “I feel like I should start humming ‘Dixie.’”
“Have you never been out here?” I asked, and he shook his head.
“Saylor came out here for lunch sometimes, but it’s not exactly my scene.”
There were still shadows under his eyes and his nails were bitten almost to the quick, but in that moment, there was enough of the old David in his face to make me feel a little better about what we were about to do. David’s powers still scared me, and for all that he wanted to use them to the best of his abilities, I thought they scared him, too. And with the Peirasmos still going on, what if him doing this . . . violated that somehow?
I didn’t want to think about what the repercussions of that could be, but I felt like this was something I owed David. He was asking me to have faith in him, and the least I could do was try.
Ryan’s SUV drove silently over the asphalt lane winding its way to the golf course. We’d decided to attempt this on the eighth hole. Well, Ryan had decided, pointing out that that part of the golf course was hidden from the main road by a hill, plus there was the lake to one side, and trees to the other.
Once the car was parked, we piled out, and for a moment, we all just stood there, looking at the fairway.
“We’re really going to do this,” Ryan said, his hands in his pockets.
At his other side, Bee nodded. “We have to.” She looked over her shoulder at me, tucking a strand of hair behind one ear. “Right, Harper?”
I nodded without thinking. “Right. So let’s get started.”
All four of us tromped down the hill, and once we were near the eighth hole, I gestured for us to sit. We did, forming a semicircle with David in the middle, Ryan and me on either side of him, Bee across from us. Overhead, the moon was high, reflecting on the pond. I could hear frogs croaking and the occasional chirp of bugs, but there was no breeze. The night was still and warm, almost too warm, but I still felt chilled.
I think David felt the same sense of wrongness. “Maybe this is a bad idea,” he said in a rush, and a sudden whoosh of relief shot through me. Yes, let’s go home, I thought. Forget this whole idea. Again, I saw David like I’d seen him in the Fun House—his skin glowing, his eyes pure light.
My dagger at his throat.
But that was the girl thinking, not the Paladin. It wasn’t my responsibility just to keep him safe; I needed to make sure he could do everything he was meant to do, fulfill his destiny as an Oracle. And that meant having visions.
So I reached out and took his hand. To my surprise, Ryan reached out and took David’s other hand.
“It’s what we came here for,” I said softly.
David turned to look at me, his eyes already bright. The light cast strange shadows on his face, emphasizing his cheekbones and the dark circles underneath his eyes. “And if it goes wrong—”
“It won’t,” Ryan said, his voice firm. “Me and Harper are here, and it’s . . .” His eyes met mine over David’s shoulder. “It’s going to be fine.”
It was the first time since all of this had happened that I honestly felt like that might be true. It was nice, going through one of these with everyone. Even with the oddness that was Bee and Ryan, I felt better having her here.
Reaching over with my free hand, I took Bee’s and gave it a quick squeeze before letting go and taking Ryan’s other hand.
“Ready?” I asked both boys, and they nodded.
There was a feeling in the air, a slight electric tingle that I recognized but still hadn’t quite gotten used to. My hair felt like it was crackling over my shoulders, and on the other side of David, I heard Ryan suck in a breath.
David closed his eyes, but I could see the glow brightening behind the thin skin of his eyelids, and his hand shook in mine.
The electric feeling in the air got stronger, almost uncomfortably so, and I opened my eyes to see the flag stuck by the eighth hole snapping like there was a breeze, but the air was totally still.
Frowning, I held David’s hand tighter. The flag waved again, then stopped, almost like it was frozen. Another ripple, but there was something off about it, something unnatural.
“Harper!” I heard someone cry. I thought it was Bee.
And then I didn’t hear anything else as the world shattered apart around me.
Chapter 29
THERE WAS a sound like something tearing, and I felt David’s hand fall from mine, but I couldn’t see anything. Nothing except this bright golden light, so bright that I had to turn my face away, covering my eyes and crying out. Underneath me, the ground rumbled, and I felt like my whole body was about to shake itself apart.
It was still so bright that I could barely see, but I held my hand over my eyes and I could make out David on his feet off to one side.
There was a sound like wind or the ocean roaring in my ears, and I gritted my teeth against the hammering in my head. I’d seen David have visions lots of times now, had seen Blythe’s ritual take him over the night of Cotillion, but this was something totally new. Something terrifying.
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and saw that the little pond next to the fairway was roiling, waves splashing onto the reeds by the shore, its entire surface practically bubbling. Bee followed my gaze, her eyes huge. “Harper!” she called out, but I only shook my head, my attention focused on David.
He was standing up straight, his arms rigid at his sides. At some point, his glasses had fallen off, but that didn’t matter since his eyes were just glowing orbs now.
David stared at me, and I waited for him to do his normal thing, spouting out a direction or a specific event we needed to beware of.
But he didn’t say anything at all. He kept looking at me, and I felt everything inside me go very cold. It was like what I’d seen in the Fun House, that sam
e amount of power and that . . . I don’t know, lack of David. He wasn’t a person; he was a thing, just like I’d always feared.
The longer he stood there, saying nothing, but with power rolling off him in waves, the colder I felt. He’d broken through whatever it was Alexander had done to him. What did that mean? And what the hell was he seeing?
But David just watched me, the light burning and hurting. Still, I wouldn’t look away. I couldn’t.
“What exactly do you see?” another voice shouted. Ryan.
He moved closer to me, the wind or whatever the heck it was blowing his shirt away from his body as he looked at David, one hand lifted against the light. “Give us something here, man.”
David’s bright gaze swung to Ryan, and I saw Ryan flinch against it, but he still stood there, his shoulders back, his eyes trying to stay locked on David’s face.
“Harper, what’s going on?” Ryan shouted, lifting one hand to shade his eyes. “Why isn’t he saying anything?”
I could only shake my head, and then there was this feeling, almost like a surge of power. I felt my hair blow back, and swore I saw the ground ripple. Bee gave a little scream, and when I turned toward her, I saw a small section of grass was on fire.
Bee rushed over to it, stomping out the small flames with her booted foot.
David’s eyes swung to me, but they weren’t his eyes, not even a little bit. He didn’t say anything, but I could feel something happening. He was seeing something, something to do with me. I couldn’t say how I knew it. It was more like I felt it, this certainty that whatever vision he was locked into, it involved me.
I thought again about my knife at his throat, the bright red of his blood when I’d jerked my arm, and felt my stomach roil.
There was another pulse of power, and the ground shuddered, a crack springing up a few feet away from me, snaking through the earth, sending up clumps of grass and red dirt. It was close enough to Bee that she had to scramble backward, tripping as the ground gave way underneath one shoe.