Miss Mayhem (Rebel Belle #2)(33)

There was no tightness in my chest, no sense that anything was wrong with him, but still, it was weird.

I racked my brain, trying to remember if I’d seen him this morning, all while studying the note card in my hand like I was going over my remarks. Okay, yes, he’d been in the parking lot, wearing some atrocious shade of green. So where—

Lucy’s elbow nudged my ribs, and I realized the gym was quiet, Headmaster Dunn waiting expectantly by the podium.

Shoot.

Rattled, I stood up, smoothing my skirt down over my thighs with one hand while the other clutched my note card. I usually breezed right through things like this, but right now I was unsettled. When I stepped up to the podium, the microphone released a shriek of feedback as I adjusted it, and I winced, tucking my hair behind my ear.

“Sorry about that,” I said with a pained smile. “Anyway, um, good morning, Grove Academy. As you know, I’m Harper Price, your SGA president, and I wanted to mention a few upcoming—”

It hit me like a brick.

One moment, I was fine, albeit nervous; the next, I was gasping and clutching both sides of the podium, my entire upper body in a vise. I could feel sweat break out all over me, prickling at my hairline and my spine, and when I managed to open my eyes, I saw that Bee had risen to her feet and was already moving toward me.

“Harper—” Headmaster Dunn said, laying a beefy hand on my shoulder.

I gritted my teeth, my knees feeling weak and watery, adrenaline racing through me, alarm bells going off in my head.

No, wait. Those weren’t in my head.

It was the fire alarm.

Easing me out of the way, Headmaster Dunn faced the six hundred or so students in the bleachers. “All right, kids,” he said easily enough, but I saw the furrows around his mouth deepen. “You know the drill. Orderly line, out the main doors and into the courtyard.”

It was a drill we ran at least twice a semester, and Headmaster Dunn’s calm baritone voice kept everyone from panicking as they began to file out of the bleachers.

Everyone but me.

I stood there, waiting until the last person disappeared through the big double doors, and then I turned, heading for the back doors of the gym. Those were the ones that led to the main school buildings, and that, I knew as surely as I knew anything, was where David was.

Headmaster Dunn’s hand on my arm stopped me.

“Whoa there, Miss Price,” he said with a friendly smile. “Wrong way, sweetheart.”

“I need to get my bag,” I said lamely, and he shook his head.

“You know the rules,” he said, his thick eyebrows drawing together. Under the gym lights, his bald head gleamed. “Way more important that you get out okay than that your stuff makes it. Come on.”

There was no thinking. I drew back the arm he was holding, fast enough that it surprised him, throwing him slightly off balance. I saw his eyes go wide for a second, and his mouth made an almost perfect O shape as he stumbled.

A knee to his outer thigh had him dropping lower, and then, with his hand still clutching me, I drew back my free arm and elbowed him in the temple, hard.

He dropped like a sack of rocks, eyes rolling back in his head, and trust me, I felt super bad about it.

But David came first, and every cell in my body was urging me to get to him, get to him now.

Alarms were still going off, and as I entered the main building, I could smell smoke, acrid and bitter.

Heart racing, I made my way to the English hall, where the journalism lab was. He was there, I could feel it, and underneath all my worry, all my Paladin senses going crazy, there was this little flicker of irritation.

I’d told him I was speaking this morning, told him I’d wanted to see him, and instead, he’d skipped the assembly to do stuff for the paper. It shouldn’t have been as annoying as it was, but for whatever reason, it seriously bugged me. I did stuff that was important for him, right? I’d joined the stupid paper, and—

I rounded the corner, and all of my anger vanished. One entire end of the English hall was in flames. I don’t know what I’d expected, but that was definitely not it. It seemed to be pouring out of the janitor’s closet at the end of the hall, and for a second I froze, watching flames lick up against the walls, consuming the banners SGA had hung for the Spring Fling, racing along posters, flickering in a huge pool underneath the closet door.

My heart hammered against my ribs, my stomach twisting, and I felt legitimate panic surge through me, even underneath all my “David’s in danger” feelings. The classrooms—

Were empty, I remembered with a wave of relief. The assembly had seen to that. But as I made my way farther down the hall, I couldn’t help but think that if they hadn’t been, if there had been students trapped in there, I wouldn’t have been able to save them. Not until I knew David was safe.

It was a disturbing thought, and I made myself shove it away, trying to focus on what was happening.

There was another smell mixed in with the smoke, a heavy, chemical odor, and I wondered if some of the cleaning products had exploded or something. And then I looked again at that spreading pool of flame, and with a sudden jolt, I realized that it wasn’t spilled bleach or ammonia. It was gasoline.

Someone had set that fire on purpose, and I thought I had a pretty good idea of who.

Of course, none of that mattered right now. Right now, the main thing was getting to David. Throwing an arm over my face, I ran to the journalism lab. The fire was only a few yards or so away, and the doorknob was already warm to the touch as I twisted it.