Lady Renegades (Rebel Belle #3)(56)

Blythe took a step forward, and when I moved backward, she lifted her hands in entreaty. “I didn’t want it to come to this either, Harper. When I found that spell, I thought we had the answer. Killing him was always . . .” Trailing off, she looked up at the low clouds, tinted orange by the lights around the motel. “A last resort, I guess. It’s just that it’s too late now.”

“I don’t believe anything you say,” I muttered, and took another step back.

But Blythe kept coming, her dark eyes bright in the glow from the sodium lights above the pool. “I was looking for another way. But there isn’t one.”

“What about the other spell?” I asked, and she blinked. “The one that Dante mentioned,” I said. “Whatever it was that was darker and scarier than the power-wipe spell. What about that one?”

Blythe sniffed, shaking her head. “It won’t help,” she said, her voice tight.

“You’re always going on about what a badass Mage you are,” I said, shaking my head, “and now you’re telling me you can’t do one simple spell?”

“It’s not simple!” Blythe shouted, her hands clenched into fists, her voice tight. “Alexander managed it on Dante, but Dante had hardly any powers. Just some Mage skills he picked up from the internet. Trying to do this to a full-blown Oracle who’s gone rogue?”

This time when she looked at me, I could see tears in her eyes. “I. Can’t,” she said again. “It’s too dangerous. For you, for me, for Bee. What if it just amps him up more? I gave Dante powers he never even really had, and we saw how that went.”

“Ryan,” I said, grasping for anything. “If you can’t do it, we’ll let him try.” But Blythe just shook her head.

“We don’t have time. Now that your powers are gone, now that he’s in the cave, the only way is to kill him. Put this behind us once and for all.”

For the first time, something sparked in her eyes. In anyone else, I would have said it was anger, but in Blythe, it was that tiniest hint of crazy that I knew all too well could blossom into full-blown whackjobbery. “Your last duty as his Paladin is setting him free.”

And then she frowned a little. “Although, I guess . . . without powers, you’re not actually his Paladin anymore.”

The words stung.

But my voice was as steady as hers when I replied, “I don’t think it’s the powers that make the Paladin, to be honest. I think it’s the determination.”

Blythe smiled briefly at that, which just intensified the whole crazy-eyes thing she had going on. “And how determined are you, Harper Price?”

By now, she was very close to me, hands on her hips. Through the triangles made by her elbows, I could see the bright turquoise water of the pool behind her, and I didn’t let myself think. I might not have superstrength or superspeed anymore, but I still knew how to Mean Girl when the situation called for it.

“Hella,” I answered, and with that, I charged forward, shoving with all my might.

I’m not a big girl, but Blythe was even smaller and more delicate, plus, as she’d said herself, her school didn’t have cheerleading. Plus I’d caught her by surprise.

She shrieked as she fell backward into the water, her hands grabbing at me, but I was too quick, moving out of her embrace before she could tug me in, too. She was light enough (and I’d pushed hard enough) that she went out near the middle of the pool.

I didn’t see her hit the water, only heard the splash as I bolted from the pool, running down the cement sidewalk in my bare feet, sandals abandoned on the pool deck. Luckily I still had tennis shoes in the room.

Even more luckily, I had barely unpacked today, so when Bee let me in after I pounded on the door, it was an easy thing to just grab my bag.

Bee, unfortunately, was not as organized.

“Um, what are we doing?” she asked, her phone still held near her jaw as I started throwing her things in her Vera Bradley tote. “Where’s Blythe?”

I shook my head. “We have to go,” I said. “Now.”

Look, Bee is not a perfect best friend. She once dated a guy I could barely stand, she listened to truly obnoxious music, and I had caught her making out with my ex in a supply closet. Plus she’d lied to me and helped David escape town, which had led to this whole mess.

But when it counted, Bee always came through.

“Call you back,” she said to who I assumed was Ryan, and then gathered up the rest of her things, moving as fast as I was without asking a single question. It took her about thirty seconds to throw all she’d gotten out into her tote, but that was about ten seconds too long. We’d just slung our bags over our shoulders when Blythe appeared in the doorway, soaking wet and, surprisingly, nowhere near as angry as I thought she would be.

“Harper,” she started, but I could see her fingers flexing at her side, and while there was no anger pouring off her, there was something else, something a lot scarier than anger.

Magic.





Chapter 30


WE WERE all frozen there, me and Bee in the room, our bags still on our shoulders, Blythe standing in the doorway, her fingers still flexing, water dripping from her hair. We’d spent enough time together over the past few days that she’d started to feel like my friend, and only now did I realize how stupid that had been. Blythe wasn’t Ryan. She sure as heck wasn’t Bee. She was a girl who did things for her own reasons, reasons I couldn’t possibly understand, and for all that she might say we were alike, I knew now that we couldn’t be. I could never be this ruthless, this . . . what had she said?