Lady Renegades (Rebel Belle #3)(51)

Speak of the devil, Blythe suddenly broke through the crowd, walking toward us, a little orange plastic bag dangling from one wrist.

As she approached, I could see that she was sweaty, too, her dark hair damp at her temples, her forehead glistening. “Okay,” she said brightly, waggling an orange plastic bag at us.

“You found it?” I asked.

Eyebrows lifting over her sunglasses, Blythe stared at me. “No, I grabbed a cheap charm bracelet.”

“Okay, okay, sarcasm earned on that one,” I said. “So can we get out of here?”

And then she focused her gaze on me again.

“What about you?” she asked me. “Did you feel anything?”

Turning, I ran my hands over a box of rocks, but there was nothing, and I shook my head. “Nope.”

Blythe frowned. “Nothing? No . . . pull to anything?”

I glanced back at her, and she was watching me in a way that made faint alarm bells go off in my head. “No,” I repeated. “Which clearly we wouldn’t have since you found whatever magic rock we need to do this thing.”

“Did you try the table closest to the weapons display?” Blythe pressed, and confused, I started to shake my head.

And then my head was splitting open.

Or at least that’s what it felt like.

But the agony was over quickly, and suddenly I was in a cave again, the damp, cool, earthy smell of underground surrounding me. This time, though, there was no hint of the sulfuric tang I’d picked up in the vision of Alaric.

And when I lifted my head, it wasn’t him standing in front of me.

It was David, and he wasn’t standing, but floating, the tips of his sneakers barely dragging against the rock. His chest was moving slowly, deep breaths that seemed to saw in my ears, breaths that I could feel in my own chest. The glow pouring from his eyes lit up his whole face.

In those moments, I felt like his breaths were mine, that our hearts were beating at the same time, and I could feel . . . anger. Hatred. Fear. His head was full of images: wards scratched into stone suddenly wavering into wards scratched into soft brick; people in robes milling around a dusty street suddenly becoming kids from Grove Academy. I recognized Ryan and Bee, saw the twins and Lucy McCarroll.

A beginning must end for a new beginning to start.

The words slid through my mind like smoke, and I could feel power in my—no, in David’s hands as he clenched them into fists.

I came back to myself all at once, shaking and sick.

“Harper!” Bee cried, and I raised my head to look at her. She seemed worried, her mouth turned down at the corners, her gaze intent, but not freaked out. Not like me.

“What was it?” Blythe asked immediately, and I shook my head, unable to talk right away.

The sun suddenly seemed to be too hot, too bright, and I stumbled away from them, moving toward one of the big white tents set up along the flea’s main thoroughfare. I pushed a flap away and moved inside, taking deep breaths, hoping I wasn’t going to throw up all over someone’s table of collectible shells.

But the tent was empty.

I stood there in the center of the tent, my breath rasping hard in my ears, trying to get my bearings and make sense of what had just happened.

“Harper,” Bee said, coming in just behind me, “are you all right?”

It was obvious that I wasn’t, but before I could say anything, the tent flap moved again. I was expecting Blythe, but instead, it was a taller girl with lighter hair, moving fast. She pushed Bee hard as she came in, and Bee immediately stumbled, falling to her knees with a soft cry.

And then the girl was on me.





Chapter 27


I FELL BACK, more from the surprise than anything else, but was able to recover fast enough, shooting to my feet and whirling around, not surprised at all to be confronted by another teenage girl.

Behind the girl, Bee was rising to her feet again, and I saw her hands flex at her sides, but she wasn’t making any move to jump in. That told me all I needed to know about just how great Bee’s powers were doing right now.

Sighing, I crouched a little, holding out my hands in front of me. This was the third girl I’d had to take on in a few days; while I’d managed okay with the other two, I wondered if there might be a better tack to try with this one. “What’s your name?” I asked as we circled each other on the stamped-down grass underneath the tent. “I’m Harper Price.”

“I know that,” the girl all but snarled. Her hair was the kind of blond sometimes called—not very nicely in my opinion—“dishwater,” and she was wearing a T-shirt with some boy band on it. I looked at all their disturbingly smooth-skinned faces, and really hoped I won this fight.

Getting my butt handed to me by a girl wearing that shirt was too humiliating to contemplate.

“We don’t have to do this,” I said. It seemed pretty clear that we were totally gonna do this, whether we needed to or not. Still, I’d hoped to get more of a chance to chat before she sprang at me.

But, nope, I’d barely drawn a breath to talk to her again before she was already flying through the air, knocking me to the dry grass with a surprising amount of force for someone so slight.

I landed funny, my elbow whacking the ground hard and a very unladylike sound exploding from my lips. Irritation flared through me. I’d told myself I’d just neutralize her as fast as I could before questioning her about David, but now I was frustrated and in pain, so I punched out as hard as I could.