Miss Mayhem (Rebel Belle #2)(49)

Looking in my eyes, he smiled, the first genuine smile I think I’d ever seen from him. But it was sad, and his voice was low when he said, “Miss Price, they are one and the same.”





Chapter 24


“HARPER!”

Sara’s sharp tone snapped me out of my thoughts, and when I blinked at her, she made a sweeping gesture with one hand.

“It’s your turn to walk.” Clipboard propped on her hip, bright fuchsia lips clenched, Sara did not seem like my biggest fan at the moment, and I shook myself slightly, stepping forward and completing the circuit around the stage as quickly as I could.

Which was apparently not what Sara wanted, since her lips somehow got even thinner. She twirled her glossy dark hair and said, “It’s not a race, Harper. And this is Miss Pine Grove, not Cotillion. You can remove the broom handle from your backside. Walk lightly. Float.” She demonstrated, but whatever she was doing looked a lot more like prancing than walking. Still, I nodded and murmured something about doing better next time.

But that only made Sara glare and announce that the pageant was practically here. “There are hardly any next times left, Harper!” she all but shrieked, and I had a sudden, satisfying vision of using my Paladin powers to boot her perky little butt all the way to the back of the auditorium.

Taking a deep breath? I closed my eyes and tried to stop the orgy of violence currently unfolding in my mind. It wasn’t Sara’s fault that I currently hated everything. The night at the fair was a week ago, but the vision of slitting David’s throat still had me rattled. Alexander had said that the second trial was about facing my worst fears, that what I saw there wouldn’t necessarily come true, but that didn’t make me feel any better. Especially when I thought of what David had once told me—that he’d had a dream of the two of us fighting. That we weren’t angry but sad. And on top of that, I could still see Saylor’s worried expression when she’d told me that David could one day become a danger to himself as well as to everyone else.

So, yeah, I had a lot on my mind, and almost none of it revolved around making Sara Plumley happy with my walk. Plus, I still had one more trial left to go, and with the way the previous two had gone, I was pretty much expecting this last one to make my house blow up or something. It seemed like with every trial, I was losing a little bit more and, if I were honest, I wasn’t even sure what I was doing this for. Being David’s Paladin didn’t seem so great when he wasn’t even David anymore.

“Are you listening to me, Harper?” Sara asked, and this time, I thought of clobbering her with my baton.

“Yes, ma’am!” I called as brightly as I could, taking immense satisfaction from the way her brows drew close together. The “ma’am” implied “old,” which was clearly not okay with Sara, but it was also polite, which meant there was nothing she could do about it.

Honestly, not enough people know how to use good manners as a weapon.

But that thought wiped the smile from my face. If only good manners would be an effective weapon in whatever it was Alexander had coming next. After the fire, I’d been prepared for all the trials to be like that, dangerous and destructive. But then the Fun House had been a psychological thing, and, for my money, that had almost been worse. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get over not only the vision of David, but also seeing my mom screaming.

Seeing Bee with a sword thrust through her stomach.

That’s what would happen to her, I reminded myself, if I didn’t get through whatever this last trial was. Maybe not any time in the near future, but as I’d learned, being a Paladin was a dangerous business. I had to pass the Peirasmos, not just for me, but for Bee.

But thinking of Bee reminded me that I hadn’t seen her in a while. I’d driven her to pageant rehearsal, but I hadn’t seen her in at least fifteen minutes. That was weird. Like me, she’d decided to stick with the baton twirling, and Sara always made us go last. She had a pretty rigorous schedule for talent practice: singers first, then musicians, then the “athletic talents,” like dance or, yes, baton twirling. Jill Wyatt was playing the accordion right now, and she was the last of the musicians to go (although calling what Jill did “music” was charitable). We’d be up soon, but Bee was nowhere in sight.

I made my way off the stage, nearly bumping into Amanda as I did. “Sorry,” I said, and she shrugged it off.

“Someone needs to sneak something into her Slim-Fast before the pageant,” Amanda muttered, nodding toward Sara, and I snorted.

“Agreed.”

Like me, Amanda was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, but tottering around on the heels she’d wear on the night of the pageant, and she nearly stumbled now as she went to cross one foot over the other.

I caught her elbow, steadying her, and she flashed me a quick grin. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Amanda and I were pretty much the same height in our heels, so she looked me in the eyes as she said, “It’s intensely weird that you’re doing this thing, you know. Me and Abi can’t figure it out.”

“Bee wanted to,” I told her as one of the girls from Lee High hustled past us to practice her walk onstage. “And as Bee go, so goeth my nation.”

That made Amanda smile, and she jerked her head toward the wings. “I hear you. I’m only here because Abi insisted.”