“Wait at the bar!” Blythe shouted over the music (some ungodly bro-country song about trucks and rivers and girls in short shorts), and I caught her arm before she could disappear.

“Don’t you need us?” I asked, and she shook me off with an irritated look.

“Let me find him first,” she called out. “Better if I do that part on my own.”

With that, she turned away and was promptly swallowed up by a wave of plaid and denim.

Sighing, I wove my way through the crowd, making my way to the bar. Not that I wanted a beer—ew—but I did want somewhere to sit and a bottle of water. This place was packed, and also hot as Satan’s armpit.

There were two empty stools, and I propped my hip on one, leaning in to shout at the bartender. I’d just asked for the water when I sensed someone sliding onto the stool beside me, and without even bothering to look over, I held up one hand. “No. No to whatever you’re about to say; go away, please.”

A hand curled around mine, and I jerked my head around, prepared to send some redneck crashing through the opposite wall if I needed to, but it was just Bee, shaking her head and laughing at me.

“Easy there,” she said. “I was coming to be your wingwoman.”

Snorting, I took my bottle of water from the bartender, handing him a few crumpled dollars from my pocket. “Yeah, because picking up dudes is what I’m here for in this dump.”

Bee nodded and glanced around. “You think this guy is actually here?”

Shrugging, I unscrewed the lid on my bottle. “Let’s freaking hope so.”

Bee had her hair in both hands, twisting it over her shoulder, and at that, she lifted her eyebrows. “I can’t imagine she’d want to come here for fun, Harper.”

I couldn’t see Blythe in the press of bodies on the dance floor, so I had no idea where she was. Scowling slightly, I looked back to Bee. “No telling with her.”

“That’s the truth,” Bee replied, before looking back at me with a slight lift of her eyebrows.

“Not used to taking the backseat, huh?”

The words were light and teasing, and they shouldn’t have bugged me, but I found myself frowning and turning on my stool to face her better. “What?”

Clearly picking up on my tone, Bee gave an uneasy shrug. It was hot in the bar, and her hair was already curling in the humidity. “You’re just used to being in charge is all. And now, because Blythe has the magic we need, we have to trail after her.” Another lift of her shoulders. “It has to feel weird, is all.”

It did, but I didn’t really want to talk about that, not even with Bee. Especially since it made me wonder if this was what she had felt earlier in the year, me always trying to decide what was best, plowing on without actually asking anyone else how they felt about it.

I’d made her and Ryan ride shotgun—sometimes literally, but mostly metaphorically—a lot. Riding shotgun wasn’t a great feeling.

I smiled at Bee and tried to keep my tone light. “Not so weird. I’m just annoyed that we’re spending time in a dump like this.”

Leaning back on her stool, Bee fished in her pocket for her phone, pulling it out to take a picture of the stuffed dance floor. “For Ryan,” she told me, and I nodded and smiled and missed David.

I fumbled for my own phone, pulling it out of my pocket and scrolling through the picture gallery. There were lots of pictures of David. Him on the computer in the newspaper lab. Him grimacing as he held up one of the huge construction-paper daisies I’d made for the Spring Fling dance.

One of him sitting underneath a tree in the courtyard at the Grove, smiling at me. His hair was a wreck because of course it was, but the pale green shirt he was wearing made his eyes look especially blue, and the sunlight lined him in gold. Not from any magic, no crazy Oracle powers spilling out of him. Just a cute boy, smiling at me because he liked me.

My throat felt tight, and even though I knew it was stupid and pointless, I took a quick snap of the scene around me. The dudes in trucker hats, the girls in really short shorts, the general “this is where you come not only to drown your sorrows, but also to obliterate your brain” vibe.

The flash made the whole thing look even more depressing, but it made me smile a little anyway as I texted it to David’s number, a number I knew wasn’t working anymore.

Wish you were here, I typed, and then, before I could let myself think, I hit send.

There wasn’t any reply; I hadn’t expected there to be. But I still watched my phone for a long time.

“Hey, pretty lady,” a voice slurred, and the stool on the opposite side of me jostled slightly.

I didn’t bother looking up. “No,” I said, raising one hand, eyes still trained on my phone.

A gust of boozy breath, and then a slurred “I ain’t even asked you a question yet!”

“No,” I repeated, keeping my hand up, and after a moment, there was another huff of breath, and then he was gone, lumbering off to find some other girl.

I looked up at Bee, then, but she was still grinning down at her phone, clearly texting with Ryan.

Sighing and feeling way more sorry for myself than was attractive, I stood up, determined to find Blythe. If she hadn’t already found Dante, I was willing to give her about ten more minutes in this place.

I gingerly made my way around the dance floor, trying to keep my toes un-stomped while scanning for Blythe. This was where being short was a real pain in the butt, because I could barely see anything, and I was searching for someone even littler than I was.

I completed a full circuit of the floor and didn’t see Blythe.

This was not only a giant waste of time, but also completely gross, and if there are any two things I hate in this world, it’s wheel-spinning and nasty bars.

My hands felt gritty from just touching the chairs in this place, so I made my way to the ladies’ room—sorry, the “Cowgirls’ Room” according to the sign—determined to wash up before enlisting Bee in my search for Blythe.

But when I opened the door to the bathroom, Blythe was already in there, standing by the sinks, fists clenched at her sides.

And at her feet was a guy, blood slowly trickling from his temple.

Chapter 22

“OH MY GOD, are you okay?” I asked, stepping over the guy’s prostrate form to go to Blythe. She was breathing heavy and some of the hair had come out of her ponytail, but other than that, she seemed all right.

“Good!” she said, almost chipper, and held up a can of hair spray. “Stole this out of your bag and put it in my purse, hope you don’t mind.”

I looked at the bit of blood clinging to the bottom of the can and swallowed hard. I couldn’t fault a girl for improvising a weapon, but now that can of Big Sexy Hair was headed for the nearest garbage can.

“If he touched you, I hope you at least gave him a concussion,” I said, kicking at the bottom of the guy’s shoe with my toes. “Now can we please—”

And then I looked closer at the guy on the floor.

Tall, Asian, definitely handsome despite the blood dripping from his temple . . .

“Dante?” I asked, and Blythe nodded, tossing the hair spray can in the trash.

“Yup. So no worries about me being okay. I knocked him out in the hall and dragged him in here.”