I walked across the room and covered his hands with mine, gently pulling his loose from the top of his head. As I did, he watched me very carefully, and I felt that same fire, the one from the Cotillion, curl in my belly. We held each other’s gaze, our hands still tangled up as I stood in front of him.
“You know what’s awkward?” David asked, the corner of his mouth lifting.
“Our entire existences?”
Now the grin was real. “That,” he acknowledged. “And when you make a big, dramatic gesture because you think you’re going to die, and then you—”
“Don’t die,” I finished for him, and he nodded.
“Exactly. Not that I’m not one hundred percent psyched that we didn’t die, but . . .”
“I get it,” I told him. “So . . . that’s why you kissed me, then? Because you thought we might die?”
“More or less,” he said, dropping my hands and turning back to the computer. “It was a heat of the moment thing. I mean . . . you and me, as a couple? Could that even work?”
He typed for a few more seconds, and when I didn’t answer, he turned around. There was still the teeniest speck of gold in his eyes, but you had to look for it to know it was there. “Do you . . . Pres, do you want it to work?”
Saylor had said that Blythe’s spell could make David dangerous. It could mean I’d have to kill him for his own sake. But he’d controlled it the night of Cotillion. He’d used incredible amounts of power, and he was still here, still David.
The gold dot in his eye seemed to flame brighter for a second, and I felt a little shiver.
Still, I straightened my shoulders and looked into his eyes. “I’d like to try.”
David sat in his chair, staring at me for the space of two heartbeats. And then he was on his feet, and his mouth was on mine. It wasn’t as intense as the kiss at Cotillion, but it had the exact same effect on me. In fact, kissing David in the newspaper room at seven thirty in the morning, I could almost forget I hated PDA.
He pulled back, giving a breathless laugh. “We’re so stupid for doing this.”
“It will probably end in murder,” I agreed, but we were both grinning. Then David’s smile faded. “Have you talked to Ryan?”
I sighed, moving back against a desk. Brushing a few wadded-up pieces of paper off its surface, I perched on top. “No. He’s not returning my texts or calls.”
“It’s a lot to deal with, Pres. Suddenly having superpowers forced on you is rough.”
“Is it?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “I had no idea. Please tell me more, and let me subscribe to your newsletter.”
At that, David gave a real laugh, sinking back into his chair. “Okay, now this is the Harper Price I’m more familiar with.”
I smiled back at him before looking around the classroom. “So . . . what now?”
David turned around again, propping his head on the back of his chair. “Are you asking me what I’ve seen?”
“I was actually wondering if you’d had any ideas,” I said, shaking my head. “I know this sounds totally stupid, but . . . it’s like I keep forgetting you can fully see the future now. That is totally stupid, isn’t it?”
Still studying the ceiling, David said, “No. Because I keep forgetting, too. I’ll have a dream, and wake up thinking, ‘Huh, weird dream.’ You know, like I have every day of my life. And then suddenly I have to remember that, no, it might not have been a weird dream. It might have been a-a vision.”
“But not everything you see will come true,” I said. We were fighting, but we weren’t angry. We were sad. You killed me. The words spun in my mind.
“That’s the whole thing.” David dropped his head, looking at me. “The worst part. If not everything you see will come true, how do you know what to do? What’s the point of even having your head full of all this . . . this stuff?” He ran a hand over his eyes, and I saw that it was shaking.
Now it was Saylor’s words looping through my mind. That much power, it will burn him up and eat him alive until he’s not David anymore.
I’d spent the past seventeen years thinking David was annoying and mean, but he wasn’t. He was smart, and dedicated, and loyal, and completely him. The thought of his powers turning him into someone else, of killing him, hurt too much to even think about.
But I wouldn’t let that happen. I knew what Saylor had said, but, hey, I was a Paladin. My job was to protect the Oracle and I’d do that, even if it meant protecting him from himself.
“Anyway,” David said, closing the laptop and wheeling his chair over to me, “as for what comes next, Saylor had some kind of in case of emergency spell set up. As far as I can tell, everyone in town thinks she’s gone on some kind of extended vacation, and I’m totally fine here by myself.”
He didn’t sound totally fine, and I took his hand again. “I miss her, too.”
David just nodded, pressing his lips together, and I squeezed his fingers. “I don’t like the idea of you in that house by yourself.”
“It’ll be okay,” he said. He was wearing a ketchup-red sweater and houndstooth pants. When I glanced down, I saw that, sure enough, he had on one brown sock and one black. He could not have looked any less like someone who would be okay on his own.
I stepped closer, our joined hands between us. “Are you saying that in your usual patronizing sense, or in the ‘I can see the future and know how this all turns out’ way?”
He grinned at me. “It was definitely more the former than the latter. The whole vision thing . . .” The grin faded. “It’s like Saylor said. It needs three of us for me to see clearly. And without Ryan, we’re kinda screwed.”
“Funny, because Ryan himself is feeling kind of screwed by all of this.”
David and I both turned. Ryan stood there in the doorway, chin lifted. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and I think his hair may actually have been worse than David’s, but he still could have been posing for a cologne ad.
“You’re here,” I said, wondering if the relief I felt was because we had our third part, or just because it was Ryan. Ryan, who may not have been the guy I got all fluttery for, but who had been a rock for me for such a long time.
He gave an easy shrug. “I’m here.” Stepping into the classroom, he gave us both a wary glance before closing the door.
“So.”
“So,” David and I echoed in unison.
“The three of us, working together to save the world. Me, my ex-girlfriend, and the guy she dumped me for.” His mouth twisted into a half smile. “This has to be the most screwed-up situation three teenagers have ever found themselves in.”
“I think I saw an episode of Gossip Girl like that once,” I offered, and while both boys chuckled, their hearts clearly weren’t in it.
“We can do this,” I told them, using my SGA president voice. “Is it awkward? Sure. Will it require sacrifice and hard work and probably get even more awkward?”
“No doubt,” David said, just as Ryan muttered, “Yup.”
“But . . . I believe in you guys. And I hope you believe in me. So.” I took a deep breath and held out my hands. “Why don’t we see what’s coming for us next?”
The school was still quiet. Teachers wouldn’t start arriving for another half hour, and the janitor who had replaced Mr. Hall was on the other side of the building.
Ryan took my hand and then, with a little more hesitation, took David’s. “What’s going to happen?” he asked. “Are we all going to stand in a circle and sing ‘Kumbaya’?”
David held my eyes for a long moment before rising to his feet. “Not quite,” he replied.