That’s part of why I was here, walking carefully among plastic cups and Ping-Pong balls, dodging puddles of beer. Before she’d died, Saylor had told me there was a possibility of David becoming a danger to himself, that the world-changing, super-intense visions would “burn him up.”
Ryan and I had only helped him have two of those big types of visions. The first one, in the newspaper room at our school, had started a fire in a trash can, and short-circuited every computer in there. The second had resulted in David staying home for nearly a week, his eyes glowing brightly, his head aching. After that, I decided we should start small. Besides, it’s like my mom always says: Charity begins at home.
What better way to use David’s powers than to check on the futures of friends and family, and see if there was anything I could do to help them should those futures turn out not so great?
So far, we’d kept my Aunt May from accidentally using salt instead of sugar in a batch of brownies for the Junior League bake sale (an act that would have gotten her kicked out of Junior League), and we’d saved David’s friend Chie from forgetting to save the final copy of The Grove News to her hard drive.
And now Abigail. Her future would take a hard left turn tonight when she met some douche-y frat brother named Spencer. They’d date for the rest of Abi’s high school career, then she’d marry him instead of going to college. From there, David hadn’t been able to see much more, only that Abi’s future with Spencer felt “sad,” and would lead to her and her twin, Amanda, becoming estranged.
Saving people from future earthquakes or volcanoes seemed daunting—not to mention almost impossible to get people to believe—but keeping a friend from falling for the wrong guy? Oh, that I could handle.
Provided I could find Abigail, of course. A set of French doors opened into a big backyard, and I headed in that direction, hoping to see the twins. As I kicked a crumpled Bud Light can out of my path, my phone vibrated. Pulling it out of my purse, I saw it was a text from David. “This is how I feel about fraternities right now.” Underneath was a picture of him pulling the worst face—nose wrinkled, mouth turned down in a huge frown, eyes narrowed. I smiled, unsure of what was funnier: the picture itself or the idea of David Stark taking a selfie.
“Goofball,” I texted back before sliding my phone into my purse and stepping outside.
A giant keg had become a sort of fountain in the middle of the yard. Two boys were holding another guy up by his legs so he could attempt the dreaded keg stand, and I sighed, wondering what the appeal of these dudes even was.
And then, thank God, I saw two identical blond heads close together by a cluster of coolers.
“Abigail! Amanda!” I called, making my way over to them. That involved stepping over more beer cans, and at least two unconscious dudes, and I frowned. Ew.
The twins both raised their eyebrows at me, surprised. “Harper? What are you doing here?” Abi asked. She wore her signature fishtail braid loose and over one shoulder, while Amanda’s hair was pulled back from her face with two little clips. They were both wearing red dresses, so I was glad the hair made it easy to tell them apart.
I gave them my sternest look, propping my hands on my hips. “I should ask the two of you that. Now come on. We’re leaving.”
This is a secret I learned from cheerleading and SGA. If you act like you’re in the right, people will fall in line without really questioning. I’d never bothered to come up with an excuse as to why I was looking for the two of them at Sigma Kappa Nu, and it wasn’t like I could say, “My boyfriend has psychic powers, so tonight I’m saving one of you from a terrible future.” Instead, I relied on two years of being their head cheerleader to make Abi and Amanda follow me.
And it worked.
They both studied me for a minute. Abi screwed up her mouth like she might argue, but Amanda shrugged and took her twin’s arm with a muttered “I’m over this place anyway.”
I made my way toward the French doors, pleased. That had gone so much easier than I’d—
A figure suddenly reared up in front of me. “Whoa, whoa, little lady, what’s the rush?”
The guy who blocked the doorway looked a lot like my ex-boyfriend, Ryan. Tall, nicely built, reddish hair that was just a little too long. But while Ryan’s smile was charming, this guy’s was smarmy, and I was not in the mood to deal with him right now.
“We’re leaving,” I said, smiling but saying the words firmly enough for him to know I meant business. “My friends are ready to go.”
“No, I’m not,” Abi said, one strap of her red dress sliding off her shoulder. Amanda kind of shook her head, too.
Man, what I wouldn’t have given for Ryan and his mind-control powers right about now. But all I had were my powers of persuasion, which I thought were still pretty great.
“This place is super gross, Abi,” I told her, gesturing around at the crushed cups on the lawn, the stained couches inside, the random depressions knocked into the walls by heads or fists, “and if your parents knew you were here, they’d die. Heck, you’re not even related to me, and I kind of want to die. Now let’s go.”
But Frat-enstein over here was still looming in the doorway, arms braced on either side of the frame, a red plastic cup in one hand. “‘Super gross’?” he repeated. He pressed a meaty paw over the Greek letters on his shirt, and his blurry eyes tried to focus on me. His cheeks were red, and his nose was kind of shiny. Honestly, what did Abi even see in a guy like this? “Sigma Kappa Nu is the best frat on campus.”
I snorted. “Please. Alpha Epsilon is the best frat on campus. You guys are the biggest frat on campus, and that’s because there’s so many of you without the grades to get into decent fraternities. Now get out of our way.”
He was blinking down at me, like my words were taking a while to penetrate the haze of beer and dumb that clearly clouded his mind. Then, finally, he slurred, “You’re super gross.”
“Zing,” I muttered, turning back to Abigail and Amanda with eyebrows raised. “Can we please go now?”
Amanda nodded this time, thank God, but Abi was still chewing her lower lip and looking at the guy. “It’s not even eleven,” she said, fiddling with the end of her braid. Now the guy was looking back at her, blinking, and, ugh, this was going to be harder than I thought. “I mean, we could stay for a little while.”