Miss Mayhem (Rebel Belle #2)(19)

“Brandon!” she cried as I squawked, “Bee!”

If only a handful of people had been watching this scene play out before, I was now pretty sure that every single person in the courtyard was paying rapt attention to what had just happened. I could hear voices not even bothering to whisper. One very loudly asked, “Who is that girl?” and Bee visibly shuddered.

David stepped forward, offering a hand to Brandon, who shook it off with an irritated glare before rising to his feet. “What the hell, crazy chick?” he asked Bee, who could only shake her head, and stammer, “I—I didn’t mean to.”

“Whatever,” Brandon said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He was a good-looking guy, all blond hair and cutest-boy-on-the-basketball-team face, but in that moment, his expression was one of the ugliest things I’d ever seen. He brushed past Bee without a word, and when she took a step after him, I pulled her up short.

“Wait,” I told her. “We can . . . We’ll talk to Ryan, and—”

Luckily, Ryan was already walking over to us, Mary Beth trailing in his wake. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s your sp—” I started, only to stop when I realized Mary Beth was right there. “Your spectacularly dumb friend upsetting Bee,” I covered as quickly as I could, then jerked my head toward the building. “Can we go inside and talk for a minute? All of us?”

“About what?” Mary Beth asked, and I practically groaned. I was getting used to the idea of her and Ryan together, but that didn’t mean I liked having to factor her into things like this. Right now, my main priority was getting Bee out of the courtyard and somewhere private. Tears were leaking down her cheeks, carrying a fair amount of her mascara with them, and I didn’t like the way that table of freshman girls was still watching her.

I nearly had to go up on tiptoes to wrap my arm around Bee’s shoulder, but I did it anyway, tugging her close. “It’s nothing,” I told Mary Beth, then flicked my gaze up at Ryan. “Can we?”

With that, I started pulling Bee toward Nash Hall. Maybe it wasn’t nice to let Ryan deal with getting rid of Mary Beth on his own, but that wasn’t my problem.

As we walked back into the school, a blast of air-conditioning washed over us, making Bee shiver, and I chafed my hand up and down her arm. “It’s okay,” I said again. It was becoming my mantra, no matter how untrue it was. Bee only sniffled in response.

“The newspaper room,” David said from behind us, and I started steering Bee that way. We were still getting a few confused looks, and I wondered if that was from Bee crying, or from no one remembering who she was.

I was going to throttle Ryan. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t entirely his fault, and the spell was bigger than he’d thought, but I needed someone to be mad at, and he’d do.

? ? ?

Michael and Chie were in the newspaper room, but when David asked if we could have a second, they cleared out. Chie glared at me as she picked up her bag, but I ignored that. I had bigger things to worry about right now than one of my boyfriend’s besties being hostile all the time.

Bee was still shaky when she sat down in one of the rolling chairs at the back counter, and David watched her with a slight frown, taking a seat on top of a desk. I went over to sit by Bee as Ryan walked into the room, closing the door behind him. He leaned against it, arms folded over his chest, the sleeves of his T-shirt tight over his biceps.

“Is there anything you can do?” Bee asked, raising her head to look at Ryan. She wasn’t crying, but she was still kind of sniffly, and I got up to go get the box of tissues on Mrs. Laurent’s desk.

I handed it to Bee as Ryan sighed and said, “I don’t know. This Mage stuff . . .” Trailing off, he opened and closed his hands. “It’s like I know how to use it, but it’s all instinct or something. Not real knowledge. I can do spells, but undoing them, or fixing them when they get screwed up?”

Reaching up, he scrubbed a hand over his auburn hair. I wondered if that was a habit he was picking up from David. “That I’m not so sure about,” he said.

Wiping her nose, Bee shook her head. “My parents remembered me. Not at first, but then after a minute or so, it was like I’d never been gone.”

“Maybe that’s because they’re your parents,” I suggested, leaning forward to rest my hand on her knee. Her skin felt clammy and cool. “You’d have a stronger bond with them than—”

“Than with my boyfriend?” she asked, her head jerking up. None of us said anything for a while, and the only sound was Bee’s harsh breathing and the rattle of David jiggling his leg up and down on the desk seat.

Finally, Bee wadded up her tissue. “I thought once I was back, everything would be fine. That’s all I thought the whole time I was with Alexander. That if I could get back home, this would all be over.”

She looked at me then, and I felt a lump rise in my throat. “But it’s not, is it? Hardly anyone can remember me, you’re a superhero who has to go through these . . . these things that might kill you, and if you do die, not only will I have lost my best friend, but I’m stuck protecting him.” Bee gestured toward David and then added, “No offense.”

“None taken,” he replied quietly. “Trust me, I’m used to being a pain in the ass.”