I thought of Mom’s tired smile, of her sad eyes, and the big hole that Leigh-Anne had left in our house. If something happened to me . . . Blinking against the stinging in my eyes, I picked up the pen and started to write again. I would have to make sure nothing did happen to me.

“You’re right,” I said, and David didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then, finally, “It hurt you to say that, didn’t it?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him lean back in his seat.

“The words nearly choked me, yeah.”

He snorted, and I went back to writing. “So, yes, people want me dead. They might do a spell that makes you dead. Happy now?”

David reached around the headrest to stretch his arms. “Will you start saying the real F-word with more regularity, too?”

“Don’t push it,” I replied, as outside, a gust of wind sent dead leaves rattling against the car. Cotillion was only three weeks away. Three weeks didn’t seem like nearly enough time to plan for something this big. Heck, last year’s Spring Fling had taken me over two months to prepare.

Glancing up from my notebook, I took in David as he slouched in his seat. Once again his hair was all mussed and his glasses were slightly crooked, and he was obviously thinking over something pretty hard. His brow was furrowed and his fingers drummed against the steering wheel.

“What are you fretting about so hard over there?” I asked him.

He worried at his lower lip for a moment before answering. “Remember when I told you about those crazy dreams I always had?”

“Yeah.”

“Well . . . one of them was about you.”

My heart thudded heavily in my chest, but I made my voice as light as I could. “Ew. So don’t want to hear about that.”

Now he did smile, but only a little. “No, not like that. You asked me the other day why it was that you and I could never seem to get along. And, I mean, yes, part of it was competition.”

“Egregious,” I muttered, and now his smile was a little wider.

“Felicitations,” he replied, and some of the tightness in my chest eased. “But part of it—” He broke off and thumped his head back against the steering wheel.

“God, this is so dumb.” He sat up again, his eyes on the ceiling. “When I was like five or six, I dreamed that you killed me.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, and he swiveled his head to look at me.

“I always knew a dream was a stupid reason not to like you. But now . . . Pres, apparently I can see the future. What if—”

I cut him off with a wave of my hand. “No. Saylor said you were only now starting to come into your powers. You probably didn’t even have them when you were five.”