Miss Mayhem (Rebel Belle #2)(30)

“Have you come to mock with David?” I asked, and she shook her head, a few tendrils of hair coming loose from her own ponytail.

“I actually thought we should join forces on our talent. Do some kind of dual baton thing. Especially if I’m right about the pageant being one of the trials.”

“That was Bee’s idea?” When I glanced back, David was sitting up a little straighter, his eyebrows raised. “I thought you put that together, Pres.”

Irritation bubbled up in me, which was probably stupid, since what did it matter whose idea it had been? But I didn’t like the sharp, interested way David was looking at Bee. He was thinking . . . something. I wasn’t sure what, but the wheels were clearly turning.

I shrugged, sweat rolling down my spine. The late afternoon was getting warmer, and I was about to suggest going in when Bee held out one hand. “Here,” she said, nodding toward the baton. “Let me try.”

The baton was a little slick with my sweat—more from the warmth of the day than from any real effort—but I tossed it to her.

The baton turned end over end in the air, but before it had even completed one full rotation, Bee had launched into a forward handspring unlike anything I’d ever seen her do in cheerleading. Heck, Bee had been so bad at jumps that it was sort of a joke. She’d always said it was because she was too tall, but apparently that wasn’t a problem anymore.

Bee was a blur of motion, and then the baton was in her hands before rising back into the sky. Another series of easy, effortless flips, and she caught it again, beaming at me triumphantly.

And then from the fence, I heard David breathe, “Holy crap. She’s better than you.”





Chapter 14


“OKAY, WELL, let’s not go that far,” I joked, and Bee stepped up beside me, frowning at David.

“No, I’m not,” she said, but David was already standing up, shaking his head.

“No, no, I didn’t mean, like, better better,” he said as he shoved his hands into his back pockets. “I just meant . . . you’re good. It’s one thing to know you’re a Paladin, but it’s another to see it in action, I guess.”

David was still watching both of us, eyes bright behind his glasses. “What if . . .” He stopped, holding up both hands even though neither Bee nor I had said anything. “Hear me out,” he added, and I knew that whatever was going to come next was not going to be something I’d like.

“Okay, so if Harper fails the Peirasmos, you become my Paladin, right?”

Bee shifted her weight, looking at David like he’d started speaking a foreign language. “Harper can’t fail the trials,” she said, and I noticed her fingers tightening around the baton. “She’ll die.”

“I know that,” David said. “But is there any way she could maybe, I don’t know, opt out? Let you take over?” He lifted his hands. “Not that I want you to die, obviously.”

The words hit me square in the chest. “You don’t want me to be your Paladin?” I asked, and David’s gaze swung to me.

“Don’t you get it?” he asked. “It’s perfect.” David was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, his blue eyes bright when they looked over at me. “This is the solution to everything, Pres. Bee can be my Paladin, she can do this”—he waved one hand in the air—“Peirasmos thing, and we can just be us.”

He was smiling so big, looking happier than I’d seen him look in a long time, and all I could do was stare at him, suddenly cold despite the warm afternoon.

“But . . . Bee doesn’t want to do those things.” I turned to her, pushing a stray strand of hair off my forehead. “You have powers, and that’s awesome, but this is my problem. I’m not going to foist it off on you to make my life easier.”

David blinked rapidly, like I’d smacked him in the face. “Pres,” he said, shaking his head again, “we’re not talking about making Bee do anything she can’t do.”

Now the cold was fading, and I felt something hot and angry rise up inside of me. “She was kidnapped,” I said, gesturing toward Bee with my baton, “and she just got back, and you want her to go through something that might kill her?”

He frowned, eyes darting to Bee. She was still standing there, arms folded over her chest, watching the two of us. Even though we were talking about her, I had the sense that she wanted to stay out of this.

“Of course I don’t, but I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn about this. If Bee can be my Paladin, that makes things less complicated for us.”

“And totally screws up her life,” I argued. “My life is already screwed up, so we might as well leave things the way they are.”

Tugging at his hair, David tipped his head back to look at the sky. “Or maybe you like doing everything in the whole freaking world.”

“Like?” My voice got louder. I wasn’t shouting, not yet, but we were getting close. “No, I don’t like having to do all of this, but that’s the way it goes. Sorry that I won’t throw my best friend away so you can have a regular girlfriend. Not that you could ever be a regular boyfriend, so what does it even matter?”

“Everything okay out here?”

I turned to see my dad sticking his head out the back door. His expression was fairly mild, but I saw the grip he had on the doorknob.