I stared up at him. “Did you know this would happen?”
He shrugged. “You changed the course of events, effectively changing your own history. There’s no way to predict what will happen from here.”
“So this is my fault?” I asked. Oh god, it was. I’d had the car towed and then Bill had changed his plans for me.
He didn’t have a car, but there was more than one way a teenage athlete could have her dreams derailed by the wrong boy. In trying to fix the past I’d gone and made it worse.
I started back up the street at a power walking pace, the windbreaker Robin had purchased flapping in the breeze.
Robin jogged after me. “Where are you going?”
“To find me. To stop me from doing…whatever that jackass Bill Tucker is trying to get me to do.”
“But you don’t even know it’s true,” Robin said. “It could be another girl.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s me. Elouise wouldn’t have approached Grammy if she wasn’t sure. Besides, I heard Bill say I was next on his little list. I thought he’d have the decency to wait until after school though. And what the hell am I even thinking?”
But I knew. My echo self was accustomed to winning. To beating the odds. Being stronger, faster, and utterly focused on her goal.
And this morning her goal had been Bill.
“We need to find her,” I told Robin. “She’s completely naive when it comes to boys like Bill. Any boys really. Forty hours a week of gymnastics does not make for savvy social skills.”
“So where would he go?” Robin asked. “If you tell me a location I can transport us there.”
“I don’t know.” The school was out, so was anywhere in town. “His house maybe? No, wait, his mom owned a catering business. She works from home. I doubt he’d take me there.”
I stopped again and this time Robin did slam into my back.
“Ursula,” I breathed.
“What?”
“Ursula would know where he takes girls to seduce them because he’s already taken her there. We need to get back to school. To the baseball field behind it. Darcy has a class there. She can help us find Ursula.”
“Hold on to me.” Robin gripped my arm and then came that bizarre sensation of the world bending around us.
I staggered and this time Robin held a tight grip on me, pulling me into his chest. We had appeared behind the baseball field, just within a grove of trees.
“You all right?” Robin tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
Though my knees felt weak, it had more to do with his proximity than the transition via faery prince. “You didn’t tell me what that will cost.”
His eyes glittered. “That one’s a freebie. Is that her?”
I turned in the direction he was pointing and saw a petite blonde wielding a field hockey stick like a club. “Yup. Stay here.”
Coach Calhoun, the old letch, was on the far end of the baseball diamond with his back turned on the bench-warming section. As was standard in his classes, the sports enthusiasts were playing while the slackers warmed the bench.
Darcy, while not athletically gifted, was a dirty player so she was sidelined more often than not. I saw a couple of the benchwarmers whispering and staring in her direction.
“What are you looking at?” she snarled.
The girls rolled their eyes. She gave them the finger as she waited for her chance to go out on the field.
“Darcy,” I approached cautiously, careful to stay out of the reach of her hockey stick.
“Yeah?” She looked over at me and it took me a moment to recognize her. Not that she physically appeared much different. More that motherhood and life experience had mellowed the fire that burned so intensely in her. It was hard to reconcile this spitfire making doggy costumes and wrangling five children.
“Do you have any idea where Ursula Green is?”
“If she were up your butt you’d know it.” Darcy’s focus returned to the game. “Come on, Michelle. That was the shittiest pass since the coach tried to pick up my mom!”
Coach Calhoun turned beet red and then pointed down the hill back to the office. “Mercer, office. Now. And can I help you?”
It had been so long since I’d heard Darcy’s maiden name that it took me a minute to realize he was talking to her. “Office is that way?” I chucked a thumb in the direction of the building and then raced after Darcy, whose temper helped her cover more ground than