Rebel Belle (9 page)

I gave a shuddery sigh as I slid into the passenger seat of Bee’s car the next morning. Thank God, she’d made a Starbucks run before coming to pick me up. I took a scalding sip of my latte, then nearly choked on it.

Bee always got me a skinny vanilla latte. This was a triple espresso that was so strong, I was surprised my teeth hadn’t melted. Then I noticed how rigidly she was sitting in her seat, and that the rap music she liked was especially aggressive today.

For a second, I sat there, trying to figure out why I
would
be mad at Bee. I’d spent the night tossing and turning, worrying about why Ryan wasn’t answering my calls. I must have called him at least ten times, but he’d never picked up. And when I hadn’t been worrying over that, I was thinking of Saylor Stark, the look on her face when she’d seen me grabbing her nephew. God, what if she’d heard me use the F-word?

Then I remembered. Bee had done the Cotillion prayer for me yesterday, and she’d sent like three texts last night that I hadn’t responded to.

“Of course I’m not mad at you,” I said, but I must not have sounded very convincing.
“You seem like you are. Harper, you always answer my texts. And a couple of people said you had a big fight with Ryan yesterday and ditched school.”
My heart stuttered in my chest at that. Oh, God, had Ryan
told
someone what happened? Did the entire school know I’d flipped him like a freaking omelet?
But no. No, if Ryan had told anyone, it would have been Brandon, and Brandon would’ve told Bee, and Bee definitely would’ve mentioned that first. I tried to keep my sigh of relief quiet before replying, “I told you, I was sick.”
I reached out to turn the radio down, but Bee slapped my hand. “No touching my tunes until you ’fess up. Were you really sick, or did you have a fight with Ryan?”
“I was sick,” I insisted again. “Remember the night of the Homecoming Dance? I . . . I must have some kind of bug.”
Bee frowned. “Something was definitely up that night,” she murmured, and for the first time, I noticed that while she might have been asking if I was mad, she was the one who seemed pissed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” My brain was racing. Oh my God, had Bee put Mr. Hall and Dr. DuPont’s disappearance together with my pukeage?
A muscle worked in Bee’s jaw, and finally she spit out, “Mary Beth was going home for her free period yesterday, and she said she saw David Stark coming out of your backyard. She said he looked really weird, and then later, she saw Ryan leaving school, and he was super upset, and . . .”
She trailed off and my fingers tightened around my coffee cup. “Go ahead.”
“Mary Beth said that you and David have always been kind of . . . sparky. So she thinks there’s something going on with the two of you.”
I frowned at the “sparky” bit. David and I did not have . . . sparks. What we had was a feud that had been running since we were both in diapers. Something Bee of all people should have understood.
“Is that what you think, Bee?” I asked.
She shrugged. Today, Bee was wearing a huge pair of sunglasses that seemed to hide half her face. Her hair was done up in a high ponytail, and I could see a muscle twitch in her cheek, like she was grinding her teeth. “Explains a lot. Like why you’ve been so freaking weird lately.”
Then she glanced at me. “Explains what was going on in the bathroom the night of Homecoming.”
It was way too early in the morning for this conversation, I decided, drinking a little more espresso. It still tasted like battery acid, but I needed the caffeine. I already had a slight headache.
“I’m not going to pretend to understand why you suddenly have a thing for David when you have
Ryan Bradshaw
as a boyfriend,” Bee continued, yelling over the music. I went to turn it down, but she pushed my hand out of the way. “What pisses me off is that you didn’t tell me about it.”
“There’s nothing to tell!” I shouted. “I’m not cheating on Ryan, I don’t have a thing for David, and I was
sick
yesterday. That’s it! Not fighting with my boyfriend, not pregnant, and not any of the other hundreds of things you and Mary Beth probably guessed while y’all were talking behind my back. Oh, and by the way, David was at my house with his aunt. I’m guessing Mary Beth left out that little tidbit.”
Guilt, or maybe hurt, flickered over Bee’s face. “Do you think I’m a total dumbass?”
My head was pounding, and my face felt hot. “Right now, yeah, I do!”
Bee whipped into a parking place and braked so hard that I jerked forward in the seat.
She pushed her sunglasses up to glare at me. “I caught the two of you in the bathroom and you burst into tears.”
“That was actually a little
after
you found us,” I muttered, but she was on a roll.
“I know you want everyone to think you’re perfect, but you don’t have to pretend with me.” She thunked her head back against the gray leather, and a few girls walking by shot curious glances at the car. “Or at least I thought you didn’t.”
She slumped back into her seat, shaking her head. “I tell you everything,” she said softly. “
Everything
.”
I put my drink back in the holder and took her hand. “Hey,” I said softly. “I tell you everything, too. I promise.” Guilt tasted more bitter than the espresso, but I told myself that it wasn’t technically a lie. After all, I wasn’t lying to her about Ryan and David. Not really. Still, for just a second, I thought about how nice it would feel to tell someone—someone who loved me, someone who wasn’t David Stark—about what was going on.
But it was too bizarre, and for all I knew, it might also be dangerous. Until I had a better idea of who was after David and why, the best thing I could do was keep things as normal as possible.
So I leaned forward and said, “Ryan and I did have a little argument yesterday, but it was nothing. We’ll be fine. I plan on making up with him as soon as I see him today. And there is nothing going on with me and David Stark.”
She swiveled her head to face me. Bee’s eyes had always been both spooky and beautiful, almost startlingly dark against the peachiness of her skin and the wheat blond of her hair. Now, they were narrowed and wary. “Promise?”
I held up my hand. “Pinky swear.”
After a pause, she giggled and hooked my finger with hers. The little silver ring Brandon had gotten for her—complete with a pink cubic zirconia that we will not talk about—dug into my skin. “Pinky swears are sacred, you know.”
“I do,” I said, sitting up primly. “So I don’t use it lightly.”
Her grin turned into something like a leer. “So when you and Ryan make up, is it gonna be hot?”
Rolling my eyes, I disentangled our pinkies. “Perv.”
That sorted, we got out of the car. Then, out of the corner of  my eye, I caught sight of David standing outside Wallace Hall,  waving at me. He was wearing a bright purple argyle sweater over a white button-down and jeans, so he wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.
As subtly as I could, I flicked my hand at David behind my back. I knew we needed to talk, but with Bee on high alert where he was concerned, now was not the time.
“I can’t believe we still have a sub in history,” Bee said, snapping my attention back to her.
“Oh, is, uh, Dr. DuPont out?” I asked, trying not to imagine him standing in front of me, my shoe sticking out of his neck.
“Apparently,” Bee said, nodding across the courtyard. Mrs. Hillyard, the substitute teacher from yesterday, was hurrying up the steps into Wallace.
“But Dr. DuPont was a jackass anyway,” she added. “Didn’t he give you a hard time?”
You could say that. “Oh, not really,” I replied, just in case there were undercover police officers hiding in the bushes or something. “I actually kind of liked him.”
“Liked who?” Brandon asked, coming up to join us. “Me? Because I can tell you one thing, Miss Harper here is not a fan of the Bran Man.”
“And I’m not a fan of you calling yourself that,” Bee muttered, even as she let him take her hand and swing it.
“No, I’m serious!” Brandon insisted, flicking his blond hair out of his eyes. “Yesterday, she full-on smacked me in the middle of the hall. For no reason!”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Bee said sarcastically.
“It’s true,” Brandon insisted before shooting me a sideways look. “Is that why Ryan’s out today? Did you smack him around, too?”
That was way too close to the truth for comfort. Frowning, I asked, “He isn’t here today?”
“Not yet,” Brandon said, nodding toward the parking lot. Sure enough, Ryan’s car wasn’t in its usual spot. Heart sinking, I did my best to look concerned, but not panicked.
“Maybe he’s running late,” I offered.
David chose that moment to walk over to us, and next to me, I felt Bee stiffen a little.
“Harper, can I talk to you for a sec?”
“The bell’s about to ring,” I said to David, hoping he heard that as
Friend Time, not right now.
He frowned. “We really need to talk about yesterday.” He had gotten my message, and now he was sending one of his own:
I don’t care.
“What happened—” Bee asked, but I was already tugging her away.
“Your apology was more than sufficient,” I called breezily over my shoulder. “We’re fine.”
I could feel David glaring at my back, but I kept pulling Bee toward the school. Yes, yes, David might be my noble cause, but Bee was my best friend. There was a chance I’d already screwed up the boyfriend thing. I didn’t want to screw up what I had with Bee, too.
“You sure you don’t want to talk to him?” she asked once we’d walked through the front doors.
“Positive,” I replied. “I told you, it’s nothing more than the usual me and David Stark Mutual Disdain Society thing acting up again.”
Bee pulled her lower lip between her teeth, stopping just in front of the main office. I thought she glanced back outside toward the parking lot and Ryan’s empty spot. But all she said was, “See you at lunch?”
“Absolutely!” I chirped, doing my best to ignore David as he stormed past us.
Nothing happened the rest of the morning, but that didn’t stop me from jumping every time the bell rang. I also went out of my way to avoid the English hall, wondering if I’d ever feel safe at school again. There were no Pop Rocks in my blood, and there was no summons to the headmaster’s office to talk about Dr. DuPont, but I stayed on edge. Ryan’s absence didn’t help. Was he hurt, or too freaked out to even look at me?
By the end of first period, I’d made up my mind to call him, one more time. Cell phones were a major no-no during school hours, but I decided to risk it in the bathroom.
I’d just turned down the corridor when a hand shot out of the nearby janitor’s closet and hauled me into the dark.

Without making a sound, I went to slug my attacker, only to have my hand freeze in midair.
Of course.
“Are you insane?” I hissed, batting David’s hand away. It didn’t touch him, obviously, but it still made me feel better.
“I told you we’d talk today,” he whispered.
“Right. Talk. Like normal people, not . . . skulking around in broom closets.”
“Skulking? Really?” David raised his eyebrows, and even in the dim light, I could see the smirk forming.
“First of all, I’m not taking crap about word choice from the guy who uses ‘egregious’ in every article he writes. And secondly, this—” I gestured to the cluttered shelves, the cleaning products, the damp mops—“definitely warrants the use of skulking.”
Rubbing his hand over his eyes, David heaved a sigh. “Fine. We’re skulking. And since the bell rings in five minutes, we need to skulk fast. Tell me everything.”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “It’s . . . kind of long. And intense. And not something that can be spilled between classes in the janitor’s closet.”
“Try,” David said, his teeth clenched.
Frowning, I put my hands on my hips. “Fine. On the night of the Homecoming Dance, a janitor passed some kind of superpower on to me before he died. Then I killed Dr. DuPont with my shoe, but when I came back to the bathroom, everything had disappeared and I thought I was going crazy, but then those bad guys chased us yesterday, and they also disappeared, so I’m not crazy, but there’s something
super
crazy going on, and I think it’s connected to you since I’m totally incapable of hurting you. That’s why I couldn’t slap you the other day even though, trust me, I really, really wanted to.”
I took a deep breath. “So there. That’s the fast version. Any questions?”
David stumbled backward, sitting down hard on an upside down bucket, then shook his head. “I . . . I think my brain actually shut down,” he said. He braced his elbows on his knees, leaning forward with his steepled fingers covering his mouth.
“After yesterday, I thought whatever you said, I’d be good. I mean, dude disappeared. And my car magically repaired itself. I should be unshockable, you know?”
David still wasn’t looking at me, so knelt down in front of him as gingerly as I could, trying not to touch the ground or accidentally flash him. “I know,” I told him. “It sounds insane. It
is
insane.”
His eyes fixed on mine. “You killed someone,” he said, his voice barely audible. “With a shoe.”
“He had a sword,” I fired back and then, to my shock, David burst out laughing.
“A sword. Our history teacher attacked you with a sword in the bathroom and you killed him.” He dropped his head into his hands, only to raise it a second later. “Wait. You said a janitor passed these powers on to you. A janitor who died. Mr. Hall?”
Surprised, I nodded. “Yeah. Had you noticed that he was missing?”
But David was pressing his face into his hands again, moaning. “Oh my God, oh my God.”
“What?” When he didn’t answer, I tugged on his sleeve. Apparently that much I could do. “What do you know about Mr. Hall?”
When David lifted his face, he was pale. “He rented the little house at the back of our property.”
I rocked back on my heels. “Mr. Hall
lived
with you?”
“Not with me, but more or less in my backyard, yeah. He . . . he took off a few days ago. Or at least that’s what my aunt thought. I even asked her if we should, like, report it or something, but she said he was a grown man, he could come and go as he pleased.”
Now David’s skin had taken a bit of a greenish cast, and I grabbed one of the extra buckets, just in case. “I was at school Friday night, working on the paper,” he said, almost like he was talking to himself. “Dr. DuPont . . . do you think he was after me, and killed Mr. Hall when he got in the way?”
“I don’t know,” I told him. “But that makes sense. And you’re sure nothing like this had ever happened to you before?”
Briefly, he was the old David again. “Are you asking me if I’m sure no one has ever tried to kill me before, Pres? Trust me, nothing like this has ever happened.”
“That you know of.”
That wiped the smirk right off his face. “Oh, God. You’re right. If you hadn’t told me, I never would’ve known about Friday night. Mr. Hall and Dr. DuPont and you and swords . . .”
He trailed off, and for a long moment, he sat there, totally quiet, twisting his fingers and breathing. Then he glanced back up at me, he nodded. “Okay. Processed. Now what do we do?”
As bizarre as it sounds, I wanted to . . . I don’t know, hug him. He’d taken all this weirdness and done the same thing I’d managed to do with it: take it in, feel crazy for a little bit, and then deal.
Maybe David Stark wasn’t completely useless.
“When Dr. DuPont tried to kill me, he called me a ‘Paladin.’”
“Like Charlemagne,” David said, almost to himself.
“What?”
Shaking his head, David said, “Charlemagne. He was this French king—”
Irritated, I cut him off with a wave of my hand. “I know that. I was in AP European History, too. But what does he have to do with Paladins?”
“He had a group of knights called Paladins. I don’t remember anything about them having superpowers, though.”
Well, that was something, at least.
As briefly as I could, I filled David in on what I’d learned about Paladins so far. When I finished, he nodded. “So you think I’m your noble cause.”
“I really hope you’re not, but it’s looking like that’s it. Which is why, yet again, I’m going to ask you if there’s anything you can think of, any reason people would care about you enough to want to kill you. I know you write annoying articles, but if I haven’t wanted to murder you yet, I don’t know why anyone else would.”
He gave a little snort of laughter. “Fair enough. But I’m telling you, Harper, there’s nothing. I’m just . . . a guy.”
But he was flexing his fingers, and I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me.
“David,” I told him, reaching out to touch his knee before I thought better of it. “Seriously. Whatever it is, no matter how random you think it might be, you need to spill, and you need to do it
now
.”
His blue eyes blinked behind his glasses, and for a second, I thought he was going to give me the brush-off again. But then he sighed, tipping his head back to study the ceiling. “It’s so stupid I can’t believe I’m even going to tell you. But . . . the debate club thing. The article saying that Matt Hampton had stolen the other team’s questions . . .”
I nodded. That had been a pretty big deal a few months back. David had snuck the article into the paper after hours, which had seriously pissed off Mrs. Laurent. But not because it was underhanded. The match David was talking about? It hadn’t even
happened
yet. That debate had been scheduled for the Saturday after David wrote the article.
He didn’t have any excuse for why he’d made it up, and I honestly think he’d have gotten expelled if it hadn’t been for his aunt’s influence. I still couldn’t believe Mrs. Laurent let him stay on the paper, but I guessed that could be chalked up to Saylor, too.
“I know everyone thinks I wrote that article to be a dick or whatever. But the thing is, Pres, when I wrote it . . . it was like I was sure it had happened. I knew it. I couldn’t tell you how or who told it to me, but I was positive it had happened. I never would’ve written it if I hadn’t been.”
I took that in. “Okay. So maybe you . . . I don’t know, dreamed it. I’ve had dreams that seemed completely real, and—”
But David was already shaking his head. “No, I’ve always had weird dreams. Like, seriously intense, crazy dreams. I even talked to Aunt Saylor about taking me to the doctor for it, but she said vivid dreams ran in our family.”
“Huh,” I said, filing that away for later. David didn’t seem to notice.
“But this wasn’t like those. This was something I . . . I knew.”
“So you thought something was true, and it ended up not being true. That’s not exactly a superpower, David. And certainly not worth chasing you down over.”
David drew his legs up, pressing his heels against the edge of the bucket as he rested his elbows on his knees. “That’s what I thought. That maybe too many late nights had finally gotten to me.”
I found myself nodding in sympathy.
“But then, the day after the academic hearing, Matt Hampton caught me in the bathroom. Tossed me against a wall and asked who had told me about the questions. He had stolen them, Pres,” David said, his expression grave. “He was going to use them. But . . . hadn’t yet.”
Okay, that was a little more interesting. “So you . . . you can see the future?”
David rolled his eyes. “Okay, it sounds really stupid when you say it like that.”
“David, we’re huddled in a supply closet talking about killer history teachers and superpowered knights. Telling the future honestly doesn’t make it any weirder. In fact, it makes somewhat clearer. At least now we know why someone might want to kill you.”
David snorted. “Yes, my ability to not predict debate club outcomes is incredibly impressive.”
The bell rang. It startled both of us, and we shot to our feet. Kneeling down, I’d been a few inches below David, but when we stood up, we were suddenly way too close, and I found myself stumbling backward away from him.
Once again, my chest tightened, and there was that weird fluttering sensation that was like butterflies. But it couldn’t be butterflies. I did
not
have butterflies over David Stark.
But he backed up too, a weird look on his face. Then he cleared his throat. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll check out Mr. Hall’s house today. See if there’s anything there. What are you planning on doing? Other than keeping people from killing me.” His eyes widened. “Oh man, how are you supposed to do that? Mr. Hall lived with us and worked at the school. We can’t be that . . . that . . .
close
all the time.”
I nodded in agreement. “And logistics are the least of it,” I  muttered, thinking about Ryan and Bee, both of whom had reasons to want me and David to spend less time together. Then something else occurred to me. Mr. Hall had died defending David. Bled out on the bathroom floor from a giant
scimitar
wound. Was I expected to defend David to the death?
My
death?
Something must have shown on my face because David squinted at me. “What?”
I shook my head. We could get into how far my protective services extended later. “Whenever you’re in danger, I can sense it. There’s this . . . jumpiness and pain and stuff. I can’t exactly miss it. Besides, this town’s not that big, and we only live a few blocks apart. And I am here at school every day. As for the rest of it, we’ll . . . I don’t know. Once we figure out what’s going on, maybe we can figure out some way to stop it.”
“Good plan,” he said, even as he gulped nervously. “Look, you said the internet didn’t yield much in terms of answers. But if this Paladin thing is ancient, maybe we should use . . . I don’t know, older sources.”
“By which you mean books?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow.
“Exactly.” Now that some of the color was returning to his face, he looked more like the David I was used to. “When the debate club thing happened, I checked out a book from the library about  .  .  .” He trailed off and cleared his throat a little. “Um, you know, people who see the future and stuff. Here.”
He reached into his backpack and pulled out a thin black book, handing it to me.
They Saw the Future!
was emblazoned on the cover in bright purple foil.
I studied it for a second, pressing my lips together. “It’s like you
want
me to make fun of you.”
Scowling, David went to take the book back, but I held it out of reach. “No, you’re right. There might be something in here. It’s better than nothing.”
David didn’t look much happier, but he nodded. “Right. I’ve marked some of the pages I thought were the most interesting. Plus we can go to the library this afternoon and—”
“No,” I said automatically. I’d already been caught spending one afternoon with David Stark. If we got caught two days in a row, even if it was in an unsexy place like the library . . .
David scowled, and I hurried on. “I only mean not
today
. I have . . . family stuff.”
I wasn’t sure David was going to accept that for an answer, but in the end, he gave a terse nod. “Okay. Maybe this weekend then.”
Today was Tuesday. Surely by Saturday, things with me and Ryan would be sorted out. “Saturday is fine,” I said, bending down to scoop up my backpack. “And that was a good idea. The book thing.”
“Maybe the next time you pay me a compliment, you can try not to sound like you’re about to hurl.” He smirked, a tiny dimple appearing in one cheek.
I rolled my eyes.
“Okay,” he said, going to open the door. “I’ll pick you up at around nine on Saturday.”
I shook my head. “I’ll pick you up. One ride in that death trap you call a car was plenty, thanks.”
“You know, it actually wasn’t a death trap until someone decided to drive it down a residential street at roughly a bazillion miles an hour.”
“To save your life,” I threw over my shoulder as I left the closet.
Luckily, David had enough sense to let me leave first. Also luckily, I only got one girl looking at me as I shut the door behind me. I gave her my brightest smile. “Wanted to make sure everything was spick-and-span in there!”