But there is one problem with gaining the higher ground, and that’s that you make a fairly easy target.
Shelley had barely landed when she lashed up and out with one leg, kicking me so hard in the thigh—the same spot Annie had hit that night in the locker room—that my leg threatened to buckle under me.
I gritted my teeth, falling back on my stronger leg, and . . .
Look, I’ve done a lot of things in my job as Paladin. I’ve head-butted dudes and fought while wearing formal gowns and nearly jujitsu-ed my then-boyfriend into an early grave. But kicking someone in the ribs while she was down?
Not one of my proudest moments.
Still, I was desperate and not because I was still shaken from the fight at the pool.
My powers weren’t as strong as they should have been. They weren’t as weak as they were that night, don’t get me wrong—I was still kicking with the best of them—but they weren’t anywhere near what they had been, and that rattled me. Besides, the sooner I got Shelley neutralized, the sooner I could interrogate her.
So I gritted my teeth, muttered, “Sorry,” and kicked.
But Shelley was a lot faster than I’d thought, and my foot barely connected with her ribs before she was rolling away, jackknifing her body, and leaping back to her feet.
Great.
In that case, we could fight and talk.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, dodging a punch and throwing one of my own.
Shelley grunted as I caught her under the chin, making her teeth clack together, and I thought she wasn’t going to answer. But then she shook her head, her lank hair half falling out of a ponytail. Her hair had been down earlier, so I guessed she’d put it up to fight. And when she reached out for my own hair—still loose around my shoulders—I wished I’d known I was going to get involved in a throw-down before I’d come out here.
“You have to be stopped,” she said to me, and I caught her outstretched arm, pulling her close and driving an elbow hard into her hip.
The impact vibrated all the way up my arm, but Shelley’s knees buckled, giving me the upper hand again. “Says who?”
Shelley shook her head, then lunged forward. I just barely kept her teeth from sinking into my forearm and I scowled, tightening my grip around her neck.
“Okay, look, I am all for doing what it takes to win a fight,” I gritted out, “but biting is gross. Do you have any idea how filthy the human mou—ow!”
She drove her head back, her skull connecting with my sternum, and my hands dropped from around her, instinctively coming up to rub against my aching chest.
Shelley just stood there, watching me, almost bobbing on her toes. I recognized that stance—I’d used it a lot of times before. Usually just before I handed someone their backside.
“Who did this to you?” I asked. “Because you know this is something that was done to you, right? It’s not like you just woke up like this.”
Shelley smiled at me then, her teeth even and straight. “Like you don’t know,” she said. “You know who did this.”
I did, but I needed to hear her say it.
“It was a boy, right? Blond hair, terrible fashion sense? Glowing eyes?”
“You want to hurt him,” she said now, and even though that confirmed what Annie had said, my stomach still dropped.
“I don’t,” I told her.
Still circling, Shelley kept her eyes on me, fingers opening and closing at her sides. “I can’t let you hurt him,” she said, and I shook my head, holding up both my hands.
“Didn’t you hear me? I don’t want to hurt David—uh, the guy who did this to you—I’m trying to find him and help him.”
But Shelley nearly snarled at that. “You want to kill him,” she said, and I was shocked enough that this time, I did drop my guard, stumbling back a step.
It was apparently all the opening Shelley needed because she surged forward, and I felt my limbs go weak.
But just before she was on me, she froze. And I don’t mean “went still,” I mean she literally seemed to freeze in midair, one foot lifted off the ground, arms wide.
Behind her stood Blythe, her hands out, her breath coming fast.
“Are you all right?” she asked, and even though I was technically uninjured, I shook my head. I was tired and shaken, and my thoughts were in a whirl, so much so that I barely registered Blythe walking up to Shelley and putting her hands on either side of her face.
“She said he’s sending Paladins after me because he thinks I want to hurt him. Like what Annie said.”
That memory came back to me, sitting in the car after we’d first met Blythe, David telling me about his dream, the one where I was crying and killing him. I saw the vision I’d had in the fun house again, my knife at his throat, my own voice telling me I’d have to “choose.”
But choose what? Hurting David could not be any further from my mind.
There was a thump, and I turned to see Shelley slumped on the pavement, Blythe’s hands still pressed to her face.
“What are you doing?” I asked, and she glanced up at me.