“Harper!” I heard someone cry. I thought it was Bee.

And then I didn’t hear anything else as the world shattered apart around me.

Chapter 29

Chapter 29

THERE WAS a sound like something tearing, and I felt David’s hand fall from mine, but I couldn’t see anything. Nothing except this bright golden light, so bright that I had to turn my face away, covering my eyes and crying out. Underneath me, the ground rumbled, and I felt like my whole body was about to shake itself apart.

It was still so bright that I could barely see, but I held my hand over my eyes and I could make out David on his feet off to one side.

There was a sound like wind or the ocean roaring in my ears, and I gritted my teeth against the hammering in my head. I’d seen David have visions lots of times now, had seen Blythe’s ritual take him over the night of Cotillion, but this was something totally new. Something terrifying.

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and saw that the little pond next to the fairway was roiling, waves splashing onto the reeds by the shore, its entire surface practically bubbling. Bee followed my gaze, her eyes huge. “Harper!” she called out, but I only shook my head, my attention focused on David.

He was standing up straight, his arms rigid at his sides. At some point, his glasses had fallen off, but that didn’t matter since his eyes were just glowing orbs now.

David stared at me, and I waited for him to do his normal thing, spouting out a direction or a specific event we needed to beware of.

But he didn’t say anything at all. He kept looking at me, and I felt everything inside me go very cold. It was like what I’d seen in the Fun House, that same amount of power and that... I don’t know, lack of David. He wasn’t a person; he was a thing, just like I’d always feared.

The longer he stood there, saying nothing, but with power rolling off him in waves, the colder I felt. He’d broken through whatever it was Alexander had done to him. What did that mean? And what the hell was he seeing?

But David just watched me, the light burning and hurting. Still, I wouldn’t look away. I couldn’t.

“What exactly do you see?” another voice shouted. Ryan.

He moved closer to me, the wind or whatever the heck it was blowing his shirt away from his body as he looked at David, one hand lifted against the light. “Give us something here, man.”

David’s bright gaze swung to Ryan, and I saw Ryan flinch against it, but he still stood there, his shoulders back, his eyes trying to stay locked on David’s face.