“I know that,” David said. “But is there any way she could maybe, I don’t know, opt out? Let you take over?” He lifted his hands. “Not that I want you to die, obviously.”

The words hit me square in the chest. “You don’t want me to be your Paladin?” I asked, and David’s gaze swung to me.

“Don’t you get it?” he asked. “It’s perfect.” David was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, his blue eyes bright when they looked over at me. “This is the solution to everything, Pres. Bee can be my Paladin, she can do this”—he waved one hand in the air—“Peirasmos thing, and we can just be us.”

He was smiling so big, looking happier than I’d seen him look in a long time, and all I could do was stare at him, suddenly cold despite the warm afternoon.

“But... Bee doesn’t want to do those things.” I turned to her, pushing a stray strand of hair off my forehead. “You have powers, and that’s awesome, but this is my problem. I’m not going to foist it off on you to make my life easier.”

David blinked rapidly, like I’d smacked him in the face. “Pres,” he said, shaking his head again, “we’re not talking about making Bee do anything she can’t do.”

Now the cold was fading, and I felt something hot and angry rise up inside of me. “She was kidnapped,” I said, gesturing toward Bee with my baton, “and she just got back, and you want her to go through something that might kill her?”

He frowned, eyes darting to Bee. She was still standing there, arms folded over her chest, watching the two of us. Even though we were talking about her, I had the sense that she wanted to stay out of this.

“Of course I don’t, but I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn about this. If Bee can be my Paladin, that makes things less complicated for us.”

“And totally screws up her life,” I argued. “My life is already screwed up, so we might as well leave things the way they are.”

Tugging at his hair, David tipped his head back to look at the sky. “Or maybe you like doing everything in the whole freaking world.”

“Like?” My voice got louder. I wasn’t shouting, not yet, but we were getting close. “No, I don’t like having to do all of this, but that’s the way it goes. Sorry that I won’t throw my best friend away so you can have a regular girlfriend. Not that you could ever be a regular boyfriend, so what does it even matter?”

“Everything okay out here?”

I turned to see my dad sticking his head out the back door. His expression was fairly mild, but I saw the grip he had on the doorknob.