Rebel Belle (8 page)

I stood there, my hands clenched at my sides, sucking in deep breaths. I had felt this way before.
Right before Dr. DuPont burst through that bathroom door.
“Pres?”
The pain had crowded up so much of my mind that I hadn’t heard David’s Dodge pull up alongside me, which meant I had been
really
out of it, because that thing had to have a hole in the muffler or something.
“Oh, God,
seriously
?”
“Look, let me give you a ride home, okay? It isn’t safe for you to be walking here by yourself.”
The heavy feeling intensified. “Um, David, hate to break it to you,” I said, trying to sound normal even though my breathing was speeding up, “but this isn’t exactly a rough neighborhood. I think I can avoid getting raped and murdered on someone’s croquet lawn, okay?”
He leaned across the passenger seat and for the first time, I saw that he looked genuinely worried. Maybe even a little scared. “Harper—” he started to say.
I stepped down from the sidewalk, and leaned forward, my hands resting on the open passenger window. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s
that car
.” His eyes darted to his rearview mirror and I turned to look over my shoulder. About a hundred yards away, a black car with tinted windows idled at a stop sign. I figured the suffocating feeling in my chest had something to do with it, and
that
meant it was probably not filled with good guys.
“The car was outside the school when I left,” David said in a voice barely above a whisper, like the people in the car could hear us. “It’s been following you.”
Adrenaline started flooding through my system as I turned back to David and said, “Get out of here. Now. Drive—”
But before I could finish, the black car revved its engine with a roar that drowned out David’s crappy Dodge.
And then it was racing straight at us.

I dove through David’s open passenger window and scrambled onto his lap.
I know, I know. Between that and the head-butting, I was going to get my southern belle title revoked. But I knew what I needed to do, and it was faster to drive the damn car myself than try to explain it to David. And I knew he couldn’t move into the passenger seat in enough time. That black car would be on us in seconds.
David made a sound that was somewhere between shock and outrage as I grabbed the wheel and placed my foot on top of his on the accelerator.
The Dodge rattled, and squealed, and thunked, but, thank God, it lurched forward just as the black car’s front grille kissed our bumper. The shock was still enough to send me flying painfully into the steering wheel, and David into my back.
“What the hell?” David yelled in my ear.
My eyes still on the street, I reached down with one hand and unfastened David’s seatbelt. “Scoot!” I hollered over the clunking of the car and the rush of wind pouring through the open passenger window.
We were hurtling down the oak-lined avenue, branches forming a leafy arch overhead. My hands were slick with sweat as I clutched the steering wheel, and my calf muscle was already aching from how hard I was mashing David’s foot on the gas pedal. There was still a trace of that disconnected feeling I’d had when fighting Dr. DuPont and Ryan, like I wasn’t completely in control of my body, but this time, I was definitely feeling more there, if that makes any sense.
I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that the black car was only a few feet behind us. We’d gotten a head start, but they were driving a much better car. Already, the Dodge was shuddering like its frame was about to fly into pieces, and we were only going seventy miles an hour.
Then it occurred to me that we were going seventy miles an hour on a street where the speed limit was twenty-five. I sent up a quick prayer that there were no little kids riding bikes anywhere nearby, and pressed my foot down even harder.
David gave a grunt of pain as my heel dug into his foot. “Sorry!” I yelled. “But come on! Scoot!”
I could tell he was trying to get out from under me, but the only way to do it quickly (and so I could maintain our speed
and
my concentration) would be to actually put his hands under my butt, lift me off him, and slide. Instead, he was trying to slide out from under me without touching my butt, or hips, or really any area that could be considered inappropriate.
That wasn’t going so well. It’s not like I weigh very much— I’m maybe a buck ten—but David is a slight guy, and I was pretty firmly wedged onto his lap. While I appreciated this rare show of chivalrous behavior, now was not the time for David to worry about my delicate sensibilities.
Especially since I’d just realized this was a dead-end street.
“Scoot, scoot, SCOOT!” I yelled at David.
“I AM SCOOTING!” he shouted back.
Then he looked out the windshield and saw the same thing I had: the large grove of trees at the end of the street that we were headed straight for. At seventy-five miles an hour.
He used three different versions of the F-word, and before I  knew it, his hands were on my butt and he was sliding into the  passenger seat. I landed on the nubby seat with a grateful sigh. Now the steering wheel wasn’t pressed into my chest, and David’s bony knees weren’t cutting into the back of my thighs. Cheap upholstery had never felt so good.
David was several inches taller than me, so I had to slide down a little to maintain my pressure on the accelerator, but we never swerved or dropped our speed.
“Thank you!” I said, but David didn’t seem to hear me. He was running a shaking hand over his paper-white face and mumbling to himself.
“Buckle up!” I shouted.
That he heard. I buckled my seatbelt, too, and then looked over at him as the trees got closer and closer.
“Why are you smiling?” he shouted, terror all over his face.
I was smiling? I could see my reflection in his glasses, and he was right. I was smiling kind of big, actually. And then I realized why. Because even though this was scary and dangerous and so, so illegal . . .
It was fun. I felt in my element and in charge. I’m always happiest when I’m excelling at something, and, to quote one of those World of Warcraft websites I’d stumbled onto, these bad guys were about to get
pwned
.
The smile turned into a laugh as I gripped the steering wheel tight in my left hand and reached down with my right.
“I’ve always wanted to do this!” I shouted.
The end of the street was only a few dozen yards away. The black car was right behind us.
I pushed down as hard as I could with both feet on the brake pedal, and at the same time, I jerked the emergency brake up and spun the car hard to the left.
And it worked! Okay, so it wasn’t a total success. The black car was so close to us that it hit us as we spun, crunching in the back door on my side. David gave a low groan, but whether that was for his car or the fact that we had been literally seconds from death, I wasn’t sure.
The rear of the car fishtailed, taking out at least three mailboxes as I righted the Dodge and sped off in the opposite direction, back toward the Grove. I had an idea.
I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the black car had done a similar spin and was now following us again, although we had a much bigger lead this time.
It wasn’t going to last long, though. I could see sparks shooting up from the rear tire. It had probably gotten crunched along with the back door. The Dodge also seemed to have trouble shifting into fifth gear, and I heard a grinding sound that couldn’t be good. I only hoped I had enough time . . .
We shot down the street, the car wobbling now and much harder to control. We passed one house where a woman in a flowery shirt and hot pink capri pants dropped her garden hose and stared at us in openmouthed shock. I cringed. Mrs. Harris, who was in the Junior League with my mom. I really hoped she hadn’t recognized me.
We passed the Grove, and I was super thankful there was no one loitering outside the gates.
“Two more miles, two more miles,” I muttered to myself. The Dodge was only going around fifty miles an hour now, and the black car was gaining on us.
Another sound caught my attention over the rushing wind and dying car. “Sexy Back” was playing somewhere. Somewhere nearby.
I looked around until I spotted my book bag at David’s feet. “You got my bag?”
By this point, David was huddled against the passenger door, staring at me with naked horror. He shook his head, like he hadn’t understood the question before blinking a few times and saying, “Oh . . . um, yeah. I thought you might need it.”
“Why did you follow me?”
David looked over his shoulder at the black car. “Huh? Oh, well  .  .  . I wanted to, uh, ask you some more questions about what the hell is going on with you.” He turned back around and wiped his glasses on the bottom of his T-shirt. “Of course,
I
thought you were on drugs. I didn’t realize you were actually an assassin or something.”
He was lying, I could tell. Maybe it was a Paladin thing, or maybe I was finally seeing through him the way he always seemed to see through me.
“Bull,” I said.
“What?” He looked at me with wide eyes.
“Bull,” I repeated. “You didn’t want to ask me more questions about the paper. Why did you follow me?”
“I’m not lying!” he insisted, glancing behind him again.
“Yes,” I said calmly, even as the black car got closer, “you are. Why did you follow me?”
The black car thumped our bumper, but I wasn’t worried anymore. We were only a few houses away now.
“Because you were crying!” David shouted, his voice cracking with fear, and, I thought, anger. “You were upset and I felt bad about the stupid article, and then that weird shit happened with Ryan, and even if I don’t always agree with the things you do at school, you do try and you didn’t—”
He broke off and sagged against the seat, closing his eyes. “I just . . . I don’t like crying girls, okay?”
We were quiet for a second while I took that in.
“That was very nice of you, David,” I finally said. “Now hold on because I’m about to drive into a fence.”
“Yeah, okay,” he muttered, his eyes still closed. “You do that.”
Then his eyes shot open. “Wait, what?”
My house was there on the right, and I swung the Dodge straight through our fence.
We crashed through with enough force to rattle my bones and shatter the windshield into roughly a million spiderweb cracks. But that was okay. I didn’t need to see now.
I kept pulling the wheel to the right, which meant that I missed our pool, driving David’s car straight to the back corner of our yard.
The black car wasn’t so lucky. Not only did it hit the water, it had been going so fast that it hit it with all the force of driving into a brick wall. I could hear the splash, and as I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw the huge wave that came out of the pool.
The Dodge came to a shuddering halt, bumping against something solid that I thought might be my mom’s new birdbath.
Whoops.
I put the car in park and turned it off, plunging us into silence. Well, not total silence, since I was breathing pretty hard and David kept mumbling, “Please don’t let us be dead, please don’t let us be dead.”
“David,” I said, reaching over to grab his arm. He reached over with his other arm and covered my hand with his.
“Pres?” he said, opening his eyes, which still looked very wide and very blue in his pale face. “We’re not dead,” he said, almost like he was talking to himself. “How did we not get dead?”
I smiled at him and squeezed his arm. “Because I’m awesome.”
He stared at me and his smile got bigger and brighter as the fear drained out of his face. “We’re not dead!” he said, like he just now got that we were still sitting in his gross—and now completely busted—car instead of playing harps in the sky or whatever.
I was smiling back, my grin probably exactly as crazy as his. “We’re
so
not dead!”
He laughed and the sound was so full of relief that I found myself laughing, too.
He turned to me, still grinning. I was grinning back when he reached out, grabbed the back of my neck, and pulled me to him.

For one horrifying second, I thought he was going to kiss me. I wasn’t really sure how I’d react if he did. I mean, I knew that if he kissed me, it would be a kiss of the “I am so glad I am not dead that I would kiss a flesh-eating zombie were it sitting in this car beside me” variety more than the sexy, “I only write mean articles about you because I am secretly in love with you” type.

But it was only a hug. And if I maybe spent a second or two thinking that he actually smelled really nice, or that he was much more solid than he appeared, so what? I was traumatized by all the car chasing/nearly dying.

Luckily, it didn’t last long, but when I pulled back, I noticed that my heart was pounding and there was this weird fluttering sensation.

That’s all.
Then I noticed that David was staring out the shattered wind shield, looking as weirded out as I felt.
Oh my God, what was wrong with me? I could barely muster up the enthusiasm to make out with my own super hot boy friend, and I was . . . oh dear God, was I blushing? Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.
Yup, the car chase had clearly addled my brain.
I was about to say something mean to David, you know, to restore equilibrium, when his eyes got big and he blurted out,
“Bad guys in the pool!”
Huh? Was that like thinking of baseball when—OH! Right! I pushed open my door and leapt out into my yard, taking deep breaths, hoping the cool air and sight of people drowning in my pool might get my hormones or whatever back under control.
I had knocked over Mom’s birdbath. It lay in three big pieces right under David’s bumper. And then, of course, there was the giant hole in our fence. But those were really the least of my problems. This biggest issue was the black Cadillac currently sinking into my pool.
No sound came from the car, and there didn’t appear to be any activity inside, so I guessed the impact had knocked out the driver and any passengers he or she might have had. David was standing next to me, watching the car as the aqua water bubbled and churned around it. “So are we, um, are we gonna let them drown?”
I was glad he said that. We.
I had killed Dr. DuPont, and I didn’t feel bad about that. I couldn’t. He had been seconds from killing me when I jammed that shoe into his neck. But whoever was in that black car . . . well, I didn’t know what they’d wanted. My gut told me they had been bad guys, but that still didn’t make me feel great about letting them drown in my pool.
I was also more than a little worried about explaining this whole thing. All evidence of my fight with Dr. DuPont had mysteriously vanished, but I wasn’t sure how whoever had worked that particular mojo could cover
this
up. I expected our neighbors to start congregating in the street any minute now, like they did when the power went out.
David gave a huge sigh and ran his hands over his hair. “Well, this is weird. And awful.”
“Yup.” My skirt had gotten twisted around my hips somewhere in all of this, and I started straightening it. Anything to avoid looking at the pool.
“Who are you?” David asked me for the second time that day.
“International assassin? Ninja? Vampire slayer, maybe?” I lifted my head. “No, I’m a—”
There was a slight popping sound from the pool, and David and I both turned our attention back to the water.
Which was now empty.
And with one loud crack, the hole in my fence was suddenly gone. I didn’t even have to look behind me to know that the screech of metal was David’s car repairing itself. In just a few seconds, all evidence of the insane car chase, the crash, all of it, was gone. Then the only sound in my backyard was the singing of birds and the rustling of the leaves.
“That really happened,” David said softly. “All that shit, it . . .
disappeared, right? I didn’t hallucinate that?”
My adrenaline seemed to vanish as completely as the Cadillac, and it was all I could do not to collapse in a heap on the grass. It was one thing to see the after-effects of stuff disappearing. It was another to see an entire car—with people inside—poof out of existence.
“Yeah,” I replied. “That happened.”
“Do you know why?”
When I turned to him, David was still staring at the pool, the fingers of his right hand pressed against his temple again. “No. But . . . David, something seriously weird is going on.” The hand at his temple moved up to tug on his hair as David made a sound that was part sob, part laugh. “You think? Jesus, Harper. You . . . you flipped Ryan Bradshaw like a pancake. You drove a car like Jason Bourne. And then this . . .” He waved his hand at the water. “I don’t . . . I mean . . .” His words trailed off and he sank down into a crouch, eyes still fixed on the pool. Walking over to him, I pulled at the shoulder of his jacket.
“Okay, I get that it’s weird, and while I totally respect the need for a PTSD moment, we really need to talk.”
He eyes moved up to my face, still kind of unfocused. “About what? Why bad guys are chasing you, and why freaking
magic
is apparently real?”
“I actually think the bad guys might be chasing
you
, but yeah.” David staggered backwards, and sat down heavily on the grass. As he did, he nearly overturned Mom’s statue of two little girls reading on a bench, but I was able to grab it before it fell. His sleeves, too short as usual, fell back from his thin wrists as he rested his elbows on his knees, hands tugging at his hair.
“Hold up, what? You think those guys were after
me
? Why?” “I don’t know. Do
you
know why?” I towered over David, my shadow falling on his body.
Dazed, David shook his head. “I can’t—”
And then I saw it. Something flickered across his face and he flinched.
“You do know,” I said, yanking him to his feet. “David, what is it?”
He swallowed heavily. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
At that moment, I really hated that my superpowers prevented me from shaking the crap out of him. I settled for balling my fist up in the front of his shirt and pulling him down to meet my eyes. “David, look around you. This?
This is crazy-sauce
. And if you know anything that could help me figure out why I’m suddenly Wonder Woman, I need to know it right. Effing. Now.” I actually said the word that time, and David’s eyes went so wide I wondered if that had shocked him more than the disappearing Cadillac.
But he never got a chance to answer me.
“Yoo hoo!” a voice called out from the other side of my fence, and David and I both went still.
“Is that?” I hissed.
“My Aunt Saylor,” he gulped.
The back gate swung open, and suddenly Saylor Stark was standing there, a pair of Chanel sunglasses pushed down her nose as she took in the sight of me, shaking and sweaty, clutching the front of her nephew’s T-shirt.
“Oh my,” she said, and two syllables had never contained so much dismay. “What exactly is going on here?”
David and I practically leapt apart as Saylor moved into the yard, her high heels sinking slightly. The late afternoon sunlight flashed on her silver hair as well as the silver and turquoise jewelry around her neck. Other than a slight grass stain on the hem of her beige trousers, she looked as immaculate as ever. “I was over at Anne Beckwith’s, and I
thought
I saw your car tearing down the street, David James Stark,” she said, pushing her sunglasses back into place with one finger. “But I told myself, ‘Of course not, Saylor. David would never drive so irresponsibly. Besides, he’s meant to be in school right now.’”
She turned her head to me. “As are you, correct, Miss Price?” “Yes ma’am,” I said feebly. “I . . . I felt sick, and David offered to drive me home.”
I couldn’t see her eyes behind her dark glasses, but I had a feeling they were very cold. “Really?” she said. “How odd. Because right after I had the thought that David would never, ever drive
his car in such a manner, I noticed that
he
was not the one behind the wheel.”
Oh, God. Of all the people to see me doing my Dale Earnhardt, Jr., impression, it had to be Saylor Stark.
“She asked to drive it,” David said, speaking up for the first time. He still seemed a little out of it, and his voice wasn’t as strong as normal, but he was still good at thinking on his feet.
“She’d never driven one like it before, so she, uh, wanted to.” As one, the three of us looked over at David’s pathetic Dodge.
Even without its fender and back door mangled, it didn’t exactly scream, “DRIVE ME.”
Maybe David wasn’t that great at thinking on his feet. And why did he even own a car like that, anyway? Saylor surely could’ve afforded something nicer. It was probably a point of pride with him, like his weird thrift shop wardrobe.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Saylor,” he continued. “I shouldn’t have ditched school, but Harper, uh, was sick. And you’re always
going on about good citizenship.”
I tried not to let surprise show on my face. That was actually a pretty good save. Certainly better than “chicks really want to get behind the wheel of my Stratus.” And the fact that he’d been able to do it after nearly getting killed
and
dealing with what appeared to be magic was impressive.
“Good citizenship doesn’t have to come at the cost of your own morals, David,” Saylor snapped. “You know better than to skip class, and I am very disappointed in you. And of course, we haven’t even gotten into the completely reckless way you two were driving. I think you and I will be having a long talk when I get done with Cotillion practice this afternoon, young man.” Saylor’s gaze swung back to me. “Speaking of, Miss Price, if you’re feeling so ill, maybe you’d better sit today’s rehearsal out.” “But we’re supposed to practice the prayer today,” I said, blinking. “I’m leading the prayer.”
Her smile was brittle. “I’m sure Miss Franklin will do a fine job filling in. And maybe by Wednesday’s practice, you’ll be feeling more yourself.”
Sick for real now, I could only nod. Behind my parents, Saylor Stark was the last person in the world I wanted to disappoint.
And there was no mistaking that tone. Not only had she caught me skipping class, I was skipping class
with her nephew
, whom I had clearly sucked into my downward spiral. If she knew that I’d
also made him an accessory to what
might
have been murder . . . And that’s when it hit me. David was Saylor’s
nephew
. He had lived with her his whole life. If people wanted to kill him, surely
Saylor would know why. But how exactly did you go about asking something like that?
Hi, Miss Saylor, are y’all by any chance in the witness protection program? Or hiding from wizards?
She wouldn’t just take the prayer away from me after that. She’d kick me out of the entire Cotillion. Maybe even out of the entire
town.
As she dusted imaginary dirt from her slacks, I watched Saylor, trying to see if there was any sign that she knew why David and I had been speeding down the street. But between the huge sunglasses and Saylor’s Perfect Southern Lady ability to repress
any and all emotions, I couldn’t tell.
David, shaking off his daze, moved toward his aunt. “Let Harper do the stupid prayer,” he said, sounding a bit more like himself. “This isn’t her fault.” Saylor’s head shot up. “First of all, you will not call the Cotillion prayer ‘stupid.’ Secondly, you should be at school right now, not drag racing down Ivy Lane. Thirdly, I have told you that you need to be more careful. And going a hundred miles an hour in
a car that is on its last legs is hardly careful. What if you’d had another one of your headaches?” David scowled at her. “My headaches are no big deal,” he said, but Saylor held up her hand.
“We are not having this argument in Miss Price’s backyard.
You’re coming with me.”
He flung one long arm out toward his Stratus. “My car—” “You can pick it up in the morning. Harper, I’m sure your parents won’t mind if David leaves his vehicle here.” The way she said it left no doubt that refusing was not an option. “It’s fine,” I said. “And honestly, it’s still another few hours until practice, and I’m sure if I took a quick nap and had a sandwich, I’d be fine, too.” I ended with a little laugh, as if by sheer force of will, I could make her see the funny side to all of this. That smile again, the one that felt like a threat. “I’ll see you on Wednesday, Harper,” she said, and I could practically hear a gavel go down. I’d been found guilty of Unladylike Behavior, Nephew Endangerment, and, if the look she shot my boots was any indication, Improper Footwear.
And if she ever found out about Ryan . . . oh, God,
Ryan
. I had to call him. I had to explain. “Say good-bye to Harper, David,” Saylor trilled as she began making her way toward David’s car, moving on the balls of her feet to keep her heels from sinking again.
David’s eyes met mine, and I could tell the shock was definitely wearing off. He was getting that same predatory look he’d had at the Homecoming Dance. “Tomorrow. You and me.
We need to talk
,” he said in a low voice.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Duh. But . . . I need to smooth things over with Ryan before I’m seen having sneaky conversations with you. So let me find you tomorrow, okay?” “Pretty sure ninjas and magic and dead guys trump your boyfriend’s insecurity,” he hissed, leaning in closer.
“And pretty sure
you
now know I could kick your behind, so why don’t you let
me
handle this?” I whispered back. That wasn’t true, of course. If David hadn’t been rattled, he would’ve remembered this morning, when I hadn’t even been able to slap him.
But at least I got a little satisfaction out of seeing him go pale.
“Fine,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Thank you,” I huffed back.
“David!” Saylor called again, and this time, there was a definite edge to her trill.