Miss Mayhem (Rebel Belle #2)(28)

David nodded, then reached up to scratch his shoulder through his ugly T-shirt. “I’m sorry,” he said.

I looked up, surprised. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

He frowned, clasping his hands in front of him. “If I didn’t suck so much at being an Oracle, maybe I could’ve found her earlier, you know?”

I dropped my gaze from him, watching my fingers as they traced over the little flower on the pillow. Aunt Martha had made this for me. Or had it been Aunt May? One of them. And maybe if I stared hard enough at the stitches, David wouldn’t see the guilt on my face. If I hadn’t messed around with his visions, could he have seen Bee?

David sat back in my chair, and it creaked slightly. “And of course now, I’m completely useless.”

There was a bitterness in his voice I hadn’t heard in a long time, and I set the pillow back on my bed, getting up to go to him. “Hey,” I said softly, brushing a hand over his jaw. The stubble there was rough against my fingers, and when David looked up, I moved my hand to the back of his neck. “Just because you can’t see the future right now doesn’t mean you’re useless.”

One corner of his mouth kicked up in a smile. Or a grimace. “I guess I could make a dirty joke about what uses you might have for me,” he said, and I rolled my eyes, letting my hand drop away from his neck.

“What I meant,” I told him, going back to sit on the edge of my bed, “is that David Stark the person is worth a lot more to me than David Stark the Oracle.”

Snorting, David crossed his feet at the ankle. “Yeah, well, David Stark the person just annoyed you. He didn’t ruin your life.”

There it was again, that bitterness I definitely didn’t like. “Could you not say stuff like that?” I snapped. “I think I can decide who and what ruins my life.”

Downstairs, I could hear pans rattling as Mom started dinner, and Dad’s low voice talking on the phone. David glanced toward the door and heaved a sigh.

“I’m sorry, Pres,” he said before standing up. “I’m embracing my inner emo, I guess.”

I stood up, too, crossing the room to wrap my arms around his waist. “Well, that would explain the T-shirt.”

He smiled then, a real smile, and after he kissed me, I said, “Why don’t you stay for dinner? I don’t like the thought of you in that big house alone.”

David’s expression didn’t change, but I could feel his hands tighten on my waist. Then he shook his head and stepped back. “Thanks, but I’m not great company tonight. Besides, I have some stuff I need to work on for school.”

I was going to ask what stuff exactly, but David was already picking up his bag and heading for the door. I walked him down, stopping so that he could say good night to my parents, and then followed him out to where his car was parked in the driveway. He opened the door and threw his satchel inside before turning back to me, that familiar wrinkle between his brows. “Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I just drove out of town, you know?”

His tone was casual, but something about those words made goose bumps break out all over my body. “You can’t,” I told him, my voice stiff. “I mean, right now, you literally can’t since Alexander had Ryan put up all these wards, but—”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, David leaned forward a little. “What? Why?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “Apparently the one time Ryan decided to take the initiative, it potentially screwed us over.”

With a groan, David tipped his head back. “It would be awesome,” he said, “if people would stop doing things that affect me without, you know, asking how I might feel about those things.”

I swallowed hard.

David tilted his head back down and gave me a steady look, his hands still in his pockets. For a moment, I thought my guilt must show clearly on my face.

But he didn’t ask me anything about his visions. Instead, he studied me and asked, “If you could do it all over again, don’t pretend that you never would have gone into the bathroom that night.”

I blinked, thinking about Bee. About Saylor and the Cotillion and all the lying I’d done to my family.

Smiling as best as I could, I raised up on tiptoes and kissed him. “Of course I would have.”





Chapter 13


“SO THIS IS a thing that’s happening?” David asked as he sat against the fence in my backyard.

Pulling my hair up into a high ponytail, I sighed around the rubber band in my mouth. “Yes,” I mumbled. “And if you mock it, I’ll never ask you to come back.”

“No mocking,” David replied, laying his arms on his upraised knees. His wrists looked bony underneath the cuffs of his (both ugly and seasonally inappropriate) plaid button-down. “You’re going to train for whatever trials the Ephors may have coming your way by . . . spinning a baton? Because I was honestly kidding about that earlier.”

Hair secured, I propped my hands on my hips. “It’s not like I can practice dagger swinging or karate kicks in the backyard. But baton twirling is totally socially acceptable, and it lets me both work on my agility and wield what could be a weapon.” I gave the baton a few experimental twirls, and David laughed.

“Your ability to multitask is truly extraordinary, Pres.”