Nick snorted. “Yeah, in a way that made Quinn want to pull her hair out by the roots. I think she’s just friendly.” He paused. “You don’t have to worry about me being interested.”
Well, at least that was something. “You and Quinn getting serious?”
“Something like that.”
“I think Kate’s a player.”
“Yeah?”
Hunter pushed the hair back from his face and sighed. “She climbed in my car this morning, but then started texting some other guy.”
“Quinn saw her get into a truck with someone yesterday.”
Well, there went that. Hunter let go of his phone. It fell off the air mattress and onto the carpet.
Nick continued, “To hear Quinn tell it, he was—well, I’m not going to repeat her phrase, but let’s just say Kate seemed into him.”
Hunter didn’t say anything.
His subconscious was screaming at him. DUDE. You are an IDIOT.
She was probably laughing about him with this other guy.
The room was so silent that Hunter was sure Nick had fallen back to sleep. Tension still had him by the throat, but he started to doze himself.
Nick’s voice caught him. “Hey.” His voice was rough with almost sleep. “I didn’t mean to see the text about what happened with your grandfather. You didn’t say that earlier.”
Now Hunter was fully awake again. “It’s fine.”
“I won’t tell—”
“I said it’s fine,” he snapped. This whole situation was just one big reminder of all his failures. Besides, Hunter didn’t want to think about his home stuff, not now, in the dark, lying on the floor of someone else’s room.
Then he realized that he probably shouldn’t be a total shit in someone else’s room, either.
“Sorry,” he said. “Long day. I really . . . I just don’t want to talk about it.”
“I get it.” Another pause. “Gabriel can come on like a freight train, but he doesn’t hate you.”
Hunter wasn’t too sure about that.
“Chris, either.”
“Really? So Chris turning the water ice cold while I was in the shower was friendly?”
“Gabriel paid him twenty bucks to do that.”
Hunter smiled.
Nick added, “And then he felt like a moron when I told him he could have just turned off the hot water in the basement . . .”
Hunter laughed softly.
And all of a sudden it nailed home how lonely he’d been. The Merricks had each other. He had no one.
He lost the smile. The air in the room suddenly felt heavy. Hunter looked back at the ceiling.
Nick sighed, then rolled up on one arm. “Do you want some space? I can go crash with Gabriel.”
Hunter had no idea what the right answer to that was.
“Seriously, man,” said Nick. “I can feel your tension in the air.”
That made Hunter look over. “Really?”
“It woke me up.”
Hunter looked back at the ceiling. “Sorry.” He paused. “My dad always used to say that Air Elementals were the ones you really had to watch out for.”
Nothing but silence for a moment. Then, “I think it’s a breathing thing. People breathe differently when they’re stressed.” Another pause. “It’s new. I’ve only recently been able to sense emotion that way.”
Hunter remembered a day when Nick had gotten into a fight with Gabriel and made him stop breathing, and Hunter thought maybe his father had been right. “My dad told me about this one guy who always knew if someone was lying, using that same thing, I think. He said he was the strongest Air Elemental he’d ever seen. The guy could jump across buildings, like in Spider-Man, you know?”
“Now that would be useful.” Nick sounded intrigued, but then he hesitated. “What happened to him?”
His father had never said specifically—but if he had known the guy, he hadn’t known him long. Hunter looked away. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you do.”
Hunter gave him a sharp look. “Then so do you. You know what my father was.”
Nick didn’t back down, but he didn’t say anything, either. That weighted silence again.
Then he said, “Why aren’t you like that? Aren’t you supposed to be in some training program or something? Isn’t that what happens with you Fifths?”
Nick’s tone almost mirrored the way Hunter’s father used to talk about pure Elementals. “I would have. This fall. I wanted to go when I was younger—when I first knew, you know? But my dad wanted to wait, to make sure I was strong enough.”
And he hadn’t been strong enough. He’d thought he was: he’d begged his father and uncle to take him along on their last assignment. Uncle Jay had argued on his behalf, claiming it was just supposed to be surveillance—only his dad had put his foot down.
But his dad changed his mind. They came back for Hunter.
And then one of the numerous rock walls along the Pennsylvania Turnpike had come loose, and the car had been crushed.
Calla claimed responsibility. But Hunter knew it was his own fault.
He shouldn’t have been in the car with his dad and his uncle when it crashed. He shouldn’t have been along at all, because they shouldn’t have turned back for him.
If he hadn’t pitched such a fit, the car wouldn’t have gotten trapped in that rock slide. Calla and her friends would have been too late.
“Do you know other Guides?” said Nick.
Hunter shook his head. “Calla thinks I do, though.”
“Would you bring them if you could?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s going to kill people.”
Hunter looked over. “She’s going to kill people either way. If I convince a bunch of Guides to come here, is that better?”
“Michael says they’ll come anyway, if she keeps this up.”
“He’s right.”
“So I’ve got a question.”
“Yeah?”
“When they do, whose side are you on?”
Hunter didn’t move. He couldn’t. He’d never nailed it down to such a fine point.
But Nick was right. If the Guides came, they wouldn’t stop with Calla and her crew. They’d take out the Merricks, too.
Hunter had no idea where that left him.
Nick rolled out of bed, dragging his pillow and his comforter with him.
Hunter sat up. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to crash on the floor in Gabriel’s room.”
Hunter didn’t know whether to apologize—and before he could figure it out, Nick was through the door.
He probably should have offered to go downstairs himself.
Nick stuck his head back in the door. “We’re not trying to screw with you, man. None of us are. We’re trying to help you.”
Hunter didn’t look at him.
Nick snorted before pulling the door closed. “Maybe doing the same for us wouldn’t be out of line.”
CHAPTER 12
Living in the Merrick house was both complicated—and not. Hunter hadn’t thought it would be possible to feel so isolated in the middle of so much . . . energy. Gabriel woke him up at the crack of dawn with a cup of water to the face and a kick in the ribs.
“Get up, slacker. Don’t you have a marathon to run at the end of the month?”
Hunter tried to jerk free of the sleeping bag. It wasn’t even four thirty in the morning—and he hadn’t drifted off until after two. “God, are you insane?”
Gabriel was already heading out the door. “Be grateful I didn’t light you on fire.”
“I’m going to break your ankles.”
“Have to catch me first, jackass.”
But the run felt good, getting out of the house and feeling the fresh air on his face.
Even if Gabriel didn’t talk much.
It made Hunter wonder how much of his conversation with Nick had been repeated.
Probably all of it.
/> There’d been breakfast, a selection of cereals like Lucky Charms and Cookie Crisp. When he’d asked for fruit or eggs, they all looked at him like he’d grown a second head.
They weren’t mean. They weren’t indifferent.
They were just guarded.
It was exhausting.
By the time school started, he was ready to focus his attention on something else, no matter how mundane the subject.
But then he found Calla Dean by her locker—looking innocent as ever, applying lip gloss. As usual, she looked like a punk sex goddess, tight jeans, an almost see-through shirt, and black rubber bracelets lining her arms, crisscrossing over the flame tattoos. Feather earrings, a bright yellow streak in her hair.
His fists were tight at his sides, but he couldn’t approach her.
He’d gotten a lecture from Michael this morning. If you’re staying here, you go to school, and you stay out of trouble. We don’t need attention right now. Understand?
“Hunter.”
He turned at the soft voice and found Becca standing there, a spill of dark hair hanging over one shoulder. For the first time in a long while, her voice was gentle, and her eyes were intent on his.
She’d been the first girl he noticed in this school, the first one who didn’t look at him like something to eat—or something to despise. He hadn’t been able to parcel out the Merrick brothers’ powers at first, but hers—hers, he’d sensed from the beginning.
“Hey,” he said.
“Are you okay?”
He glanced past her. “I’ve been better.”
“Chris told me about your grandfather.”
Hunter gritted his teeth. “Yeah, well. I’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
Calla had put her lip gloss away and was staring at them now. She tapped her wrist and mouthed, “Tick tock.”
Hunter sighed. “Come on. Before Calla causes a scene.”
Becca followed him, and her voice was low. “Chris said she’s threatening to start more fires?”
“Yeah.”
Becca’s eyes hardened. “And we can’t just take her out ourselves?”
Of course Becca would immediately want to challenge her. “We need to find out who she’s working with. She had someone with her when she trashed my house. I’ve never seen him before.”
“Another teenager?”
“I think so, but I’ve been watching for him around school and I haven’t seen him.” He couldn’t figure that out, either. Calla’s friends looked at him like they genuinely believed he was roughing her up. They weren’t like Calla, calculating and manipulative, whispering taunts at every turn.
Who was the missing kid? And who else was she working with?
Becca was staring back at Calla now. “Can’t we just ask her?”
“She’s told half the school that I smack her around. I can’t even get close to her.”
“Can I ask her?”
Hunter shook his head. “Your dad would lose it if I dragged you into this.”
“All the more reason to help.” She turned on her heel as if ready to confront Calla right there in the hallway.
Hunter grabbed her backpack and hauled her back around. He smiled in spite of himself. “Easy, tiger. Let’s not get crazy.”
“Fine. Give me your gun. Let’s just shoot her.”
He didn’t bother getting shocked over her reaction—he thought about the same thing at least once a day. “My grandfather confiscated it. And you can’t just shoot someone.”
“People died in those fires,” Becca whispered fiercely. “Fires that she started. Ryan Stacey might have been involved, but she—”
“Yeah, I know.” Hunter held her eyes for a minute, then let go of her backpack. It was only eight a.m., but he was already exhausted. “I don’t want her to start any more fires, either. I’m just trying to figure out how to stop her.”
Becca stared up at him.
And then, to his surprise, she threw her arms around his neck.
Hunter caught her automatically. Her body was warm, and her closeness reminded him of the night she’d slept pressed against him. He’d never had a girl want to be so close to him, and for her to trust him enough to fall asleep in his arms that night—well, he hadn’t wanted to fall asleep himself, just so he wouldn’t miss a minute of it.
He’d wanted to tell her, then. About himself, about who his father was, about his reasons for being in town. He’d told her half-truths, about the accident and about his mom.
He would have told her the rest.
But then Chris Merrick had shown up to drive her to school.
Hunter’s cell phone chimed, snapping him back to the present. He ignored it. Being held felt so good that he didn’t want to let go for anything.
But she pulled back, and he had to release her. “What was that for?” he asked.
“You looked like no one had given you one for a while.”
Hunter stared at her, unsure of what to say. It reminded him of Nick’s comments last night, just in an entirely different way.
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m around if you need to talk.”
“Oh, yeah? Is Chris okay with that?”
“This isn’t about Chris.”
Hunter snorted. His brain felt like it was misfiring about everything.
Becca looked at him sternly. “Don’t. Whatever you’re about to say, don’t. You build everyone up to be your enemy, and they’re not. Chris and his brothers are trying to help you.”
He took a breath and stared across the hallway at the lockers there. “I know.”
“So am I.” The bell rang and she turned away. “Remember that.”
He watched her walk down the hall, wondering, not for the first time, what would have happened if he’d been honest with her from the start.
Before that thought could go too far, his phone chimed again.
Two texts. Both from Kate.
The first was the one he’d missed while he was hugging Becca.
So are you the pot and I’m the kettle?
Hunter looked up, scanning the hallway, which was quickly emptying of students. If Kate had been watching them, she wasn’t around now.
He looked back at his phone and scrolled to the next message.
Who’s the brunette?
Wow. His fingers flew across the screen.
She’s just a friend.
Her reply popped up in a heartbeat.
She looked very friendly.
He frowned at the phone and typed furiously.
I heard you were pretty friendly with some guy with a pickup truck.
A long pause. Hunter felt his heartbeat slamming against his rib cage.
It felt fantastic to push against someone, to have the upper hand about something.
But it also felt like crap.
You build everyone up to be your enemy.
Did he really do that?
The phone chimed.
I don’t understand what happened.
He frowned at the phone. Then typed.
Me, either.
And he waited, but she didn’t write back.
All day.
At the end of the day, Hunter drove to the Merrick house, but he sat in the jeep with the engine running.
It felt ridiculous, but he wasn’t entirely sure if he was welcome for another night. He hadn’t gone to the cafeteria at lunch, because he’d been making up a quiz he’d missed while job hunting, and it wasn’t like he and Chris ever said a word to each other in World History.
Really, if Casper weren’t locked in the house, he might have gone back to the Target parking lot again.
His breath was fogging in the confines of the car, and he swore. He wasn’t used to being so off balance.
Finally, he threw himself out of the car, setting his shoulders and shoving his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. If they didn’t want him here, he’d just grab his dog and leave.
The front door was unlocked, but Casper wasn?
??t inside the house. No one was.
For an instant, Hunter wondered if this was some big trick, if they were all screwing with him.
Then he heard a dog bark from the backyard.
He strode through the kitchen and slid the glass door open. The sky was a gradually darkening gray, and the chill in the air had been biting through his clothes all afternoon. Michael was out in the grass, throwing a tennis ball while Casper went tearing after it.
Michael noticed him and looked up. “Hey. How was school?”
“I didn’t get hassled by Vickers or Calla.” He paused. His dog was trotting back to Michael with the ball half hanging out of his mouth. The only acknowledgment he gave Hunter was a quick woof muffled by the ball. Hunter smiled. “Thanks for letting Casper out.”
“He’s been out all day.”
“He has?”
“Yeah. When I walked out the door this morning, he bolted past me and jumped in the bed of the truck. I tried to get him back in the house, but he wouldn’t go. So I just took him with me.”
Casper dropped the ball at Michael’s feet and barked.
“Traitor,” Hunter called.
Michael picked up the ball and beaned it into the woods. He had one hell of an arm—the ball was gone. Casper took off like a shot.
“Where’s everyone else?” Hunter said.
“I didn’t have an evening job, so they all made plans. I think they’re hitting the school carnival later. Aren’t you?”
A carnival. Like he could possibly go to something like that while Calla was probably sitting at home figuring out which house she was going to torch first.
“Nah,” he said.
“So I called your mom today,” said Michael.
Hunter snapped his head up. Michael had asked for his mom’s phone number last night—under the pretense of needing it in case of an emergency. “You what?”
“She needed to know where you were.”