Lady Renegades by Rachel Hawkins

month.”
    Reaching down, Aunt Jewel plucked at her lace collar. “And if you don’t find David?”
    â€œWe come back anyway,” I said, enjoying how resolutely I said that. I just wished I felt as resolute. If all of this ended up being for nothing, if I sent myself traveling all over who knew where just to come home empty-handed . . .
    No. Thinking like that had to stop. We had two weeks, and in that time, we were going to find David, find out what had happened to him, and stop it from happening anymore.
    Somehow.
    For now, I just gave Aunt Jewel another hug, and then, as Bee went to hug her, too, I turned to Ryan.
    He stood there in another T-shirt and his basketball shorts, familiar as always, his hands held out to his sides. “Do we, uh, do we hug?”
    I punched him lightly in the bicep and then wrapped my arms around his shoulders, giving him what was basically the most platonic hug known to man.
    When we pulled back, he met my eyes, hands braced on both my shoulders. “You remember?” he asked in a low voice, and I glanced over at Bee, trying to keep my hand from straying to the bandage still taped over the tattoo on my back. It was just a ward, for the most part, but Ryan had added something extra to mine, something that could only be activated with a certain collection of words he’d taught me.
    Something Bee didn’t know about.
    I turned back to Ryan and nodded. “I won’t have to use it.”
    â€œLet’s hope,” he answered, and then moved away from me.
    Our good-byes said (and Aunt May’s cooler packed in the trunk), Bee, Blythe, and I got in my car. I looked at my house in the morning sunlight and told myself that I should feel excited. Anticipatory. Other words that weren’t “scared out of my mind” and “freaked out.”
    Bee clearly felt the same because she reached over and gave my hand a quick squeeze. “We’ve totally got this,” she told me, and I made myself smile back.
    â€œOf course we do.”
    Starting the car, I glanced back at Blythe. “What about you, Blythe? You got this?”
    â€œI
told
you,” she said, tapping her chest. “I can feel the spell we’re going to need. You help me find him, I’ll help you fix him.”
    â€œAwesome,” I muttered, plugging the address she’d given me last night into my phone’s GPS. “So here we go.”
    And there we went.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    The motel attendant looked like Harper.
    But then it seemed like every girl looked like Harper lately, that he saw her heart-shaped face and green eyes on everyone who crossed his path.
    As the clerk turned away, tapping something into the computer, David closed his eyes, sucking in a deep breath.
    â€œIf we go to prom, do you promise not to wear pastel?”
    They’re in his bedroom, Harper sitting primly at his desk chair while he slouches against the bed, a book on his upraised knees. He looks at her and feels that giddy drop in his stomach he gets every timehe remembers she’s his girlfriend. That if he wants to, he can get up and walk over to her, drop a kiss on her lips, slide his fingers under the heavy, silky hair that falls against her neck.
    Harper Price. Pres.
    His girlfriend.
    It’s still such a weird thing to think that he almost misses her question, and when she just looks at him, eyebrows raised, he mimics her expression. “Pastel is off the menu, too?” he finally asks, then gives her the most serious frown he can muster. “First plaid, then stripes, now pastel?” Shaking his head, David closes the book with a thump. “You’re a fashion tyrant, you know that, Pres?”
    Harper smiles, making a dimple dent one cheek, and there’s that stomach swoop again. Reaching over to his desk, she picks up a pen, tossing it at him. “You love it,” she counters.
    I love you
, he thinks, but doesn’t say