by Bree Despain
“She’s still alive!” he says, scooping her up. I almost protest his moving her, but it’s not like we can just leave her in the water. “It’s Pear,” he says. “Pear Perkins.”
I know that name. “The girl who missed the auditions?”
“I guess we know why,” Tobin says, grave notes marring his voice. “I think she’s been unconscious for a while.”
I climb down the hill and help him lay her down on the sandy bank away from the water. He pulls off his jacket and covers the girl’s upper body, but before he does, I see that she has four deep gashes in her arm, just above her elbow. The gashes make my stomach churn, but it’s her shoes that make me think I’m going to be sick. Pink and silver platform sandals. Just like the ones the girl I’d hit with my bike had been wearing. I hadn’t realized it when it happened, but as I replay the memory in my head, I see that the girl had jogged off in the direction of the grove. I place my hand on Tobin’s wet elbow. “I think I know who did this,” I say. “And I think it’s my fault that it happened.”
chapter seventeen
HADEN
“Touch those shears to my head one more time and I swear to Hades, I will blast your face off!”
Dax only laughs, and snips at my hair again. “Just a few more cuts,” he says. “I got pretty good at this when I was here before.”
Underlords, even Lessers, don’t cut their hair. When my father had cut my braid from my head, it was the first time a blade had touched my hair. Cutting a Champion’s braid is supposed to symbolize rebirth. The start of a new life. To me, it feels like an insult. With every snip Dax makes, I feel that what little is left of my honor is falling to the floor.
Garrick sulks in the corner. Someone had fetched him new clothes and he’s changed out of his grubby robes. His eyes are pink and watery, still irritated from the harsh light of the sun. His hair is shorn almost to the scalp.
“You cut my hair as short as the Lesser’s, and I will kill you.”
“Promises, promises.” Dax chuckles again. For a former Underlord, he laughs far too often. Then again, former is the word that needs to be emphasized with Dax. “I had to shave Garrick’s hair. It was filthy and matted, so I had no other choice. Yours, on the other hand”—he makes one last snip—“is done.”
I jump out of the chair I’ve been forced to sit in through this ordeal and quickly bring my hands to my head. I brush my fingers through what hair remains. It is longer than Garrick’s, but I can tell that a slight curl pulls at the edges of my shaggy locks over my ears. “What have you done?” I demand. “You have made my hair curl like a Boon’s, or a nursling’s!”
Dax shrugs. “Sometimes you don’t know you have curls until you cut your hair. Besides, it’s not all that bad. The girls will love it.” He puts the shears down on the kitchen table and I am sorely tempted to stab him with them. “Now, as promised, you will get your reward. Follow me outside.”
Dax is looking giddy again. This concerns me greatly, but I follow him still. Garrick trails behind us out of the house. What I see in the driveway makes my mouth water with anticipation.
“Unbelievable,” Garrick whispers. It’s the first word I’ve heard him speak since we passed through the gate.
“Are those automobiles?” I ask.
“Cars,” Dax says. “Call them cars. Master Crue’s take on English vocabulary is a bit archaic. And these are more than cars. They’re Teslas. Very hard to get, but Simon procured them for us this afternoon. There’s a Model X and a Model S—but the Roadster is mine.” He points out each car respectively.
Garrick, having suddenly found new life, runs to the Roadster. His fingers caress the lines of the car. “Can I … Will you teach me to drive?” He looks at Dax with an eagerness in his eyes. He’s like a Lesser who’s been given an entire hydra leg for supper.
“Lord Haden first,” Dax says. “And we’ll take the Model S. Neither of you is touching my Roadster until you’ve mastered driving.”
Garrick’s shoulders drop and he skulks into the backseat of the car.
“Best thing about these cars,” Dax says, placing his hand on the hood of the Roadster. “They’re powered by electricity.” I see a soft blue pulse radiate out from under his hand into the hood of the car. It is quiet, but the Tesla comes to life under his touch—the headlights gleaming like beacons in the dusk of the evening. “You’ll never have to stop for fuel; just give it a zap every few hundred miles. You could drive from here until the ends of the earth and no one could catch you.” A wistful look lights in his eyes. I wonder if it’s the thought of driving from here until the ends of the earth that seems to enchant him, or the idea of never being caught.
Dax insists on being the one to drive the Model S first so I can watch and absorb how it’s done. He takes us up a few side streets until we reach a large, empty, paved area that surrounds a building with a tall spire. He drives us slowly around the lot for a few minutes, explaining the name and function of each part of the car.
“You think you’ve got it down?” he asks.
I nod, aching to get my hands on the steering wheel.
We trade places. I melt into the leather driver’s seat, and the moment my hands touch the steering wheel, I am sure that I know how to drive this thing. I can feel it in every muscle of my body. My foot makes contact with the accelerator. I press it down and it feels as though the car becomes an extension of myself. I press harder and the burst of acceleration sends us rocketing forward. I spin us around the lot several times but it isn’t enough. I want to be out on the open road. I want to actually go somewhere. The speed makes me feel as if I am one of the screech owls soaring from the roost.
I know exactly where I want to go. Dax would say I am being foolish. But he doesn’t have to be told where we are going or why. I just want to see where she lives. It’s recon, I tell myself, picturing the map of her address in my head.
I steer the car out of the empty lot and onto the road. Dax starts to protest that I’m not ready, but I don’t listen. I want to fly.
We tear down the street while he shouts commands at me. But he isn’t the Champion here. He’s the servant. I’m the one who should be in charge. I pick up the speed.
Garrick lets out a cheer from the backseat.
“Now, that was a stop sign!” Dax shouts. “Slow down! You don’t know the rules of the road yet.”
At the moment, I don’t give a harpy’s ass about rules. We are only one turn away from her house.
“Flashing lights!” Dax yells. “Flashing lights! Stop now!”
I don’t know what he means until I see lights flickering in the distance in front of us.
“Police,” he says. “Flashing lights means police!”
A thought surfaces from one of the recesses in my brain. Police are like the royal guard, enforcers of the law. I slam on the brakes. Dax grips the dash as we come to a halt. I hold my breath, waiting for the flashing lights to advance on us. Only after a few moments do I realize that they are stationary. The vehicles with flashing lights are parked along the street. Several people stand out on the lake trail that is adjacent to the street. I think I recognize the shape of one of them.
I lift my foot off the brake and nudge the accelerator. We roll forward slowly toward the flashing lights.
“What are you doing?” Garrick says nervously. I can tell he likes the idea of encountering human police as much as he likes encountering one of Ren’s guards. “Let’s turn around. Go back.”
“I want to see what’s going on. Don’t you, Dax?”
Dax can’t deny it. “Maybe that’s not the best idea,” he says instead.
I move forward and come to a stop by one of the vehicles with flashing lights. It isn’t an official police car, I realize as I read the seal on the driver’s side door. OLYMPUS HILLS SECURITY. A man in a blue uniform steps out of the car and I roll down the window. A terrible scent stings my nose, but there are so many new scents in this world that I can’t quite place it.
&nb
sp; “You’ll need to go around,” the security guard says. “No rubbernecking.”
I don’t know what that means, but I give the guard my most earnest look. “What’s going on? We live around here. Is there anything we should be worried about?”
“Couple of kids found a girl in the lake. Near the grove.” He sighs, realizing he probably shouldn’t have said so much. “Now move along.” He pats the roof of the Tesla.
As he moves away from the window, I finally get a view of what I came to see. I’d been right when I recognized the curve of her body, even from a distance. Daphne Raines is standing in front of another set of security guards. She’s talking with her hands, giving emphasis to her words. I can tell she’s upset. There’s a boy with her. He’s shorter than she is, but he has his arm stretched up around her shoulder. It’s a familiar gesture that makes my hands feel hot. A thin stream of blue electricity crackles around the steering wheel.
“Haden, are you all right?” Dax asks.
I’m not sure what causes her to do it, but Daphne looks over toward our car. I hit the accelerator and drive away before she has a chance to see me.
I take us back to the house and pull the Tesla into the garage. Dax waits until Garrick has gone inside the house before he grabs me by the arm at the doorway.
“Did anyone see you when you went to the grove? Can anyone put you near there?”
“No,” I lie. “I went there and came straight back,” I say as we enter the house.
“Tsk, tsk,” someone says from the living room, but it isn’t Garrick. “Didn’t your mother teach you that lying is bad manners?”
As we round the corner into the living room, Simon stands up from the armchair. He holds a short, fat glass filled with bright red liquid. His voice sounds as cheery as ever, but the look in his eyes says that he’s not the least bit happy.
“Simon?” Dax says. “What’re you doing here? I thought you were going out for the night.”
“So did I.” Simon takes a deep swig from his glass and sets it neatly on a coaster on the coffee table. He smiles at me, the red liquid staining his teeth. “I’m here because of what Haden did in the grove.”
chapter eighteen
DAPHNE
“So let me get this straight,” the man in the blue uniform says. “You think Miss Perkins was attacked by a pirate with heat radiating off his skin and green eyes with fire in them? Would you like me to add fangs and wings to that description also? Maybe throw in some sparkles for a little flare?”
The security guard laughs, and his partner pats him on the back like he’s oh so funny.
“No, because then you would have a vam-pirate angel and not the person I’d described.”
The two laugh harder, and I feel like I’m about to kick someone in the shins. “Vam-pirate angels! You kids read too much, you know that? Your imaginations get the better of you.”
“I’m not imagining things,” I say. “And I’m not sure why I’m even talking to you right now. Shouldn’t the real police be here?”
Luckily, Tobin had a cell phone, since mine had gone who knows where with my tote bag. I’d sat next to Pear while he climbed to higher ground to call for help. I’d assumed he’d called 911 until about ten minutes later, when four Olympus Hills security guards came down the island slope to meet us, flashlights in hand. The only ways off the island are the two footbridges that lead to the lake’s jogging trails, so the guards had to carry Pear out, rather than bring a car in. Tobin and I had followed with my bike and guitar in tow as one of the guards cradled her body in his arms. She seemed as limp and heavy as the giant bags of topsoil I always had to help my mom heft back to the greenhouse.
We were met out on the road by the flashing lights of the security guards’ cars and an Olympus Hills Medical Response vehicle. A small group of bystanders had gathered on the side of the road.
Two of the guards loaded Pear into the medical van, while the other two pulled Tobin and me aside to get our statements about what happened. Tobin told them how we’d found Pear, but when the guards asked why we’d been in the grove in the first place, I confessed what happened in my encounter with the weird boy in the woods earlier today. They’d been following my story until I got to the guy’s description. Now they are acting like I am making it all up.
“Listen, miss,” the guard says, dropping the jovial tone. “You must be new around here, or otherwise you’d know that the county sheriff’s department contracts out our security firm for anything that happens within the gates of Olympus Hills. Which means we are far too busy for stupid teenagers looking for some extra attention …”
Tobin had put his arm around me as I told my story, his tone growing darker and stormier as he listened. He drops his arm from my shoulder now. He raises his finger at the guard, along with his voice. “Listen, ya rent-a-cop, my mother is Mayor Winters, which means she signs your paychecks. So how about you finish listening to my friend’s statement and take your job seriously, before I call her up and give a report on your performance? One of our classmates was just hurt, badly. Show a little respect.”
The two security guards exchange a look. The one taking my statement tells me to go on with my description of what happened. I catch a note coming off him that is pretty much the auditory equivalent of an eye roll when I tell him about how the guy’s slight touch had left marks on my arm—marks that are inconveniently gone now—but he doesn’t laugh again. When he finishes taking my statement and tells us we are free to go, I get the distinct feeling that everything he’s written down is going to end up in the trash.
“I’m not making it up,” I tell Tobin when the guards leave us standing by the trail with my bike.
“I believe you,” he says. I can tell by the stormy notes coming off him that he isn’t just being polite. “I told you, things aren’t as perfect as they seem around here.…”
I’m just about to ask him what exactly he means when I hear someone shout my name.
I look up and see a man, dressed in nothing but skinny jeans and a canary yellow bathrobe, wandering up the lake path. He’s barefoot. And carrying a golf club. He cups his hands to his mouth and shouts, “Daphne? Where are you?”
“Is that … Joe Vince?” Tobin asks.
“The one and only.” I sigh as I watch Joe poke at a row of bushes with his golf club as if he thought I was hiding in the branches. It’s a good thing paparazzi aren’t allowed past the security gates or I’m sure this little scene would be on the cover of next week’s OK! magazine.
“Why would he be looking for you?”
I bite the bullet. “Because he’s my father.”
Tobin makes a small popping noise with his lips. “You’re not a schollie, are you?”
“Goes to show you should never judge a girl by her clothes.”
“Daphne?” Joe calls again.
I decide I should probably respond before he brings out half the neighborhood. “Over here, Joe.” I wave at him.
Joe drops his golf club and comes jogging toward me. “Oh, Daphne, thank the bloody stars in heaven. You’re all right.”
“You were worried?”
“I heard there was a girl found unconscious in that grove you were talking about this morning. I tried calling you a dozen times and you didn’t answer. Those bloody security guards wouldn’t tell me anything. They only gave me a description of the girl they took to the hospital. And I thought … I thought … I didn’t know if …”
I realize then that Pear’s description would kind of match mine. Tall, tan, and blond. Though she is of the bleached variety and her tan probably comes from an airbrush—while mine is from living in the desert. Really, tall is the only thing we have in common, and I probably still have three inches on her.
“They said she was wearing pink and silver sandals, and I …” Joe gives me a stricken look. “And I had no idea what any of your shoes look like.” He covers his face with his ring-clad fingers. “I should know that, shouldn’t I? Why don’t I know that?”<
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Because you’ve ignored me most of my life is what I want to say, but when Joe drops his hands from his face, it seems as though he’s wiping away tears. Long, low, drawn-out notes come off him, and I realize that he really was worried.
“It’s okay,” I say to him. “I’m fine. I forgot my phone, that’s all.” I turn to Tobin. “I should get him home.”
“Need help?”
I shake my head. He doesn’t need to see any more of Joe in his grief-stricken state—which was probably spurred on by his vodka-stricken state.
I sling Gibby over my shoulder in her case and take my bike from Tobin. It’s a juggling act, but I lead Joe back to the house. I’m hoping I won’t have to search for his house keys in the pockets of his robe when Marta meets us at the door. She looks like she arrived a few seconds before us.
“There you are!” she says to Joe. “You let him go out like this?” she says to me with a stern look.
“Let had nothing to do with it.” I pass Joe off to Marta. “He’s your job, not mine.”
“Why don’t I know what any of Daphne’s shoes look like?” Joe asks her.
“Let’s get you to bed,” she says, ignoring his question as if this sort of thing is an everyday occurrence for her.
“Daphne,” he calls down the stairs as Marta leads him up to his bedroom. “I’m glad you’re still here. I’m glad you didn’t go away.”
“Come on, Joe, bed,” Marta says, like she’s coaxing a dog.