Ryan shook his head. “No, Harper, I mean... this is not just run-of-the-mill bad. I can feel something. There is major magic happening out here. Scary magic. It’s like...” Trailing off, he shook his head and looked at me. “We shouldn’t have done this,” he said, and it wasn’t the cool spring air raising goose bumps on my arms.

“We have to find David.”

Chapter 34

Chapter 34

MY PARENTS had driven me, so I turned to Ryan and said, “Car!”

He was still standing there in his white button-down and khakis, looking around with a pained expression. “It wasn’t supposed to go like this,” he muttered, and I grabbed his shirtfront, forcing him to look in my eyes.

“It is going like this, though,” I said, “And we need to find David now. Before it gets worse.”

I remembered the wards Alexander had had Ryan put up, wards that were meant to keep David in town. We’d never tried to break a ward before; I didn’t even think that was possible, but if that was what David was doing now...

From somewhere in the distance, there was a loud boom, and both Ryan and I flinched.

“He can’t leave town,” I said to Ryan. “It’s not that simple. Did he not bother to explain that to y’all?”

Dazed, Ryan shook his head. “He said he had to leave, that it would be better for everyone if he did.”

Looking down at me, Ryan’s eyes seemed to focus. “Harper, I think whatever he saw that night at the golf course scared the hell out of him.”

I remembered what I’d seen in the Fun House. If David had seen that, if Alexander was wrong about the Fun House only showing me my worst fears...

“We have to get to him,” I told Ryan, dropping my hands from his shirt. “And...”

My words trailed off. Why did we have to get him? If the wards were going off, he was already gone, and this was pointless. But I could still feel that ache in my chest, telling me that he was in danger, that we at least had to try.

“We’re wasting time,” I told Ryan, scanning the parking lot. I could still hear people leaving the rec center, and I sent up a quick prayer that my parents wouldn’t worry too much about me.

Ryan took my elbow, pulling me in the direction of his car. As I hopped into the passenger seat, he glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “Bee,” he said, and I held up a hand.

“We can talk about her later, but for now—”

“No, I mean Bee is heading this way,” Ryan said, nodding out my window.

I turned and sure enough, there she was, a knot on one side of her forehead, but other than that, totally fine.