The little boy hadn’t moved, but at least he didn’t look like he was going to cry anymore. He’d leaned forward. “Why do you have earrings in your face?”
What the hell? Hunter rubbed his eyes. He was sitting on a couch, a comforter thrown over him. The room was dim, pale light breaking through the rain, meaning either early morning or early evening. His shirt was gone, but he still had on his jeans. His shoulder hurt like hell. One of his hands was bandaged across the palm.
Hunter’s brain couldn’t piece it all together.
Wait. He knew this room.
The Merrick house.
But then who was this kid, peering at him curiously, reaching out a hand to touch the piercings in his eyebrow?
Hunter caught his wrist again, but more gently. “Where is everyone?”
“Mommy is working.” His voice dropped to a hushed whisper. “I’m supposed to be sleeping, but I wasn’t tired anymore.”
The house was a well of quiet, insulated by the rain smacking the glass outside. At least that meant it was probably morning.
The boy stretched for a remote control on the coffee table, ignoring Hunter’s hold on his wrist. “Can I turn on cartoons?”
This was . . . surreal. Hunter let him go again. “Sure.” He paused. “Do you know where everyone else is?”
“They’re sleeping.” The boy climbed up on the couch next to him as if he’d known Hunter all his life. Then he clicked on the television.
Hunter sat there for a full minute and wondered what to do.
Unfortunately his brain kept replaying the previous night.
Fire.
Gunshot.
Calla.
The music from the cartoons was like water torture. Hunter rubbed at his eyes again, suddenly worried he was going to be sick.
He needed to find out what had happened, whether they were still in danger.
He stumbled off the couch, leaving the boy there. The front door was locked, but he threw the bolt and stepped onto the porch.
Rain coursed down from the dark gray sky, slapping against the siding and running in rivers down the driveway. It had to be very early, because he didn’t sense motion from any of the houses on the street.
Wait—maybe he still had his phone.
No, his pockets were empty. But blood stained the waistband of his jeans and streaked down one leg.
Hunter stepped onto the front walk, letting the rain hit him. He put a hand out. No power in the drops; just a normal storm.
“I thought the only person crazy enough to stand out in the rain was Chris.”
Hunter turned. Gabriel stood in the doorway, wearing sweatpants and an old T-shirt. His hair was rumpled from sleep. He didn’t look panicked, but he looked tired.
About thirty questions came to mind, but Hunter said, “Who’s the little kid?”
“James. Hannah’s son.”
That meant nothing to Hunter. “Who’s Hannah?”
“Mike’s girlfriend. You’ve seen her; she was one of the firefighters at the police station last week. She stayed at the carnival to help, so Mike brought him here.” Gabriel paused. “You want to come in out of the rain or what?”
Hunter realized he’d just been standing there, feeling rain trail through his hair and run in rivulets down his chest.
But the rain felt good on his shoulder, so he didn’t move. “What happened? How did I get here?”
“Do you remember the carnival?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember the fires?”
Was Gabriel kidding? They were permanently etched on the insides of Hunter’s eyelids. “I remember the generators. I had to climb down from the Ferris wheel.”
Gabriel glanced back in the house, then pulled the door shut. “That kid hears everything.” He leaned back against the doorjamb. “Do you remember getting shot?”
Hunter froze. “I got shot?”
“Yeah. In the shoulder.” Gabriel looked out at the gray sky. “And no offense, dude, but you weigh a fucking ton.”
That left Hunter with more questions than answers. His shoulder hurt, but he sure hadn’t missed a bullet hole.
That meant one of them had used power to heal him.
“Go clean up,” said Gabriel. “I’ll make coffee. School’s closed for the day, so . . .”
“Are we in danger?”
Gabriel snorted. “When are we not in danger?” He paused. “I have no idea. Nothing has happened since the fires.”
Hunter snuck into Nick’s room to find clean jeans from his bag, trying to be as silent as possible. He probably didn’t need to bother. Nick was practically unconscious, an arm hanging down over the side of the bed. The entire second floor felt thick with sleep. A quick glance at the clock revealed it wasn’t even six in the morning.
The shower felt even better than the rain had, but questions were burning the inside of his brain, so he rushed.
James was eating Cookie Crisp straight from the box when Hunter walked past the family room. He’d wrapped himself in the comforter.
Hunter wondered what it would be like to feel so comfortable in his surroundings. He couldn’t remember ever feeling that way, even around his own family.
He heard hushed voices from the kitchen, and that didn’t mean anything until Michael’s words registered.
“This is the first time I’ve considered leaving town.”
Leaving town. Hunter hesitated in the hallway.
Gabriel said something in response, but Hunter couldn’t catch the words.
Then Michael said, “I don’t know. What do you think?”
Hunter could feel Gabriel’s surprise from here. Hunter strained to hear him. “I think this is the first time we all have a reason to stay.” He paused. “You’re dating a girl who left her kid with you, Michael.”
“Exactly. I’m putting them at risk.”
“There’s no pentagram on the door.”
“Yet.”
Gabriel paused. “You sound like you’ve been thinking about this for a while.”
“Only all night.” A tapping sound that Hunter couldn’t make sense of. Then a heavy sigh. “Money would be tight for a while, but we could make it work.”
“When?”
“A week if we had to.”
A week! Hunter held his breath.
“Do you know where we’d go?”
Michael’s voice was muffled, as if he was moving away. Hunter only picked out random phrases. “. . . go to the bank. We need . . . quiet so he doesn’t hear us.”
So he doesn’t hear us.
Exclamation points flared in Hunter’s head. He eased forward to hear the rest.
The floor creaked.
The conversation in the kitchen came to an abrupt stop.
But he wasn’t stupid. That vise grip had closed on his chest again. He’d never been welcome here, not really. Expecting anything else was downright lunacy.
Hunter walked into the kitchen easily, as if that creak in the floor was completely innocuous and he hadn’t heard a word. Gabriel and Michael were at the table, and he expected them to look guilty, but they just looked tired. Three mugs of coffee sat on the table. One was untouched, but a carton of half-and-half sat there, along with a bowl of sugar. And Hunter’s cell phone. The light was flashing.
At least it gave him an excuse not to look at them. He wasn’t sure he could keep the feeling of betrayal off his face. Hunter dropped into a chair and glanced at the screen.
Kate.
We need to talk about last night.
That kicked his heart into action. He hit the button to clear the screen and set the phone down in favor of the coffee.
Gabriel’s words on the porch were duking it out with the conversation he’d just overheard.
No offense dude, but you weigh a fucking ton.
“Hey.” He looked across the table at Gabriel. “Thanks.”
Gabriel half shrugged and spun his mug between his hands. “I didn’t know what you wanted i
n it.”
“No—I mean—”
Gabriel met his eyes. “I know what you meant.”
“Did you fix my shoulder, too?”
Another half shrug, like it was nothing. “There was a lot of power in the fire. You were bleeding. It was easy.” But then he looked away. “We had to run. I couldn’t do it all the way. Hannah saw all the blood and was ready to put you on a helicopter.”
Gabriel’s voice was casual, but Hunter could hear the undercurrent of tension. Shadows underscored his eyes, punctuating his worry.
“What happened to the Guide?”
“Don’t know. Chris and Nicky pulled the rain to stop the fires, and we thought for sure he’d find us, but . . . he didn’t.”
“Yet,” Michael said. “He didn’t find us yet.”
Gabriel took a sip of coffee but didn’t say anything.
Michael glanced over at Hunter. “You look a lot better than you did last night. You all right?”
No. He felt like his world was collapsing around him. His brain was having trouble reconciling the fact that they’d saved his life with their talk about secretly leaving town, abandoning him to this mess that they were a part of.
He looked into his coffee and nodded.
“I thought about calling your mom,” Michael said. “But I was worried she’d want to come over here, and I didn’t want to put her in the line of fire.”
“It’s fine,” he said. He didn’t want to see her—if she even cared to see him. His grandfather would probably call him names and demand that he pay for the damages to the carnival equipment.
But for a fraction of a second, he wished Gabriel hadn’t used power to heal him, that this Hannah woman had put him on a medevac helicopter to shock trauma or wherever. Just so his mom would have to look at him for an instant, instead of wallowing in her own mess.
Then again, she’d probably ignore even that. She hadn’t moved a muscle while her father was laying into him.
Michael pushed loose strands of hair back from his face. “I checked the news last night. Seven people are missing. Three are confirmed dead, but the bodies were too badly burned to identify which of the missing people are definitely dead. Seven. Most of those were kids. And that doesn’t even count the number of people in the hospital.”
The sudden guilt clogged Hunter’s throat. He remembered the feeling of panic and despair on those carnival grounds. He hadn’t been able to help any of them. He rubbed at his eyes.
Michael was still looking at him. “Calla is on the list of the missing.”
Hunter thought of the way her body had jerked, the way she’d dropped in the middle of the flames.
She’d fallen in the middle of an inferno. She had to be one of the dead.
“At least she can’t hurt anyone else,” said Hunter.
“Jesus,” said Gabriel. “Why do you sound upset about that?”
“I’m not upset.”
But he was. Because he’d wanted her to stop, but he hadn’t wanted her dead. Because he hadn’t been able to stop her himself, and now more people had lost their lives. Because once again, he wasn’t exactly sure where he fell on this continuum of good and evil, or even which end was which.
He wasn’t like Calla. He knew that much.
But if he wasn’t like the Guides, where did that leave his father? Where did it leave the man who’d shot Calla? The same man who’d pointed a gun at Hunter?
Hunter’s first instinct had been to run.
Not to put his hands up and say, “Don’t shoot. I’m one of you.”
And where did it leave Kate, a girl who seemed to have as many secrets as he did himself? She’d climbed down the Ferris wheel more efficiently than he had. She’d called his name when he’d been running from the Guide—causing a hesitation that had probably saved his life. His shoulder wasn’t any great distance from his heart.
She hadn’t been the one with a gun. But what would happen if he told the Merricks that he suspected . . . something about her? About this friend she was texting all the time? He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t even pin it down himself, so how was he going to explain it to them? He had no proof of anything, really. And they already didn’t trust him.
He wasn’t sure he trusted them, either, if they were going to leave him here.
His head hurt.
Seven people missing.
Seven people. All because he couldn’t make himself pull a stupid trigger in the library.
All because he’d made his dad come back for him.
This line of thinking wasn’t going to get him anywhere.
Hunter kept thinking of the kid who’d shown up in his kitchen that night, when Calla had come after him in his bedroom. Where had that guy gone? Why hadn’t Hunter seen him around school?
He needed answers.
We need to talk about last night.
That statement could be about so many things.
Some were pleasant.
Some were not.
And there was only one way to find out which ones she wanted to talk about.
CHAPTER 17
Kate was waiting for him.
Hunter didn’t spot her at first: she wore tight gray jeans and a slim-fitting olive-green tank that blended with the tree line at the edge of the carnival grounds. The sky still hung heavy with clouds, but the rain had stopped, leaving the field nothing but a soggy, charred mess. None of the carnival equipment had been removed. All the bodies sure had.
Almost everything was roped off with yellow crime scene tape.
Thank god his jeep had four-wheel drive—even so, he parked before it got too bad. He had to step through muddy tire ruts to get to her.
The place was deserted, but it felt haunted, as if the carnage from last night had left an impact in the very air.
Casper loped along beside him, happy for the adventure.
She wasn’t armed, unless she had something at the small of her back, but it took everything he had not to let his eyes linger on her form. Her eyes were fierce, her shoulders thrown back, her mouth sexy as hell.
He glanced around. “What’s with the cryptic meeting place?”
She ignored him. “What are you doing with the Merricks?”
Wow. As if that wasn’t a loaded question.
But he could play this game, too. “You know what happened with my grandfather. They’re letting me crash there for a while.” He paused. “Why?”
“Don’t play stupid.”
He gave her half a smile. “I’m playing cautious.”
“Why?”
“Probably the same reason you are.” More sure now, he took a step forward.
She didn’t move, but he sensed the sudden tension in her body, could feel the way her eyes tracked his movement.
He was out of practice. He should have noticed this when they’d played at fighting last night.
Only now he sensed she wasn’t playing at all.
“You look tense,” he said easily. “I thought you wanted to talk.”
“If you’re playing cautious, then you’ll want to stop walking.”
Well, that statement was full of threat, and definitely dictated how this conversation was going to go.
He hesitated for a second, weighing his options. The post-storm humidity spoke of danger, but he needed to take control of this interaction before she did. He kept moving, knowing that however she’d react, she was going to be fast. She wouldn’t waste energy on a strength move, not against him.
She moved half a second before he expected it—and not in the way he expected at all.
She didn’t fight, she ran.
He took off after her.
She was fast, launching herself through the underbrush in the woods, heading toward the creek, barely making a sound as her feet sprang through dead leaves. She ducked and bolted through narrow passages, until even Casper had a hard time staying on her trail.
And then she vanished.
Hunter drew up short, his lungs pullin
g for breath. His shoulder ached again, protesting all this motion.
About a hundred feet off, something skittered through a bush.
Casper took off after it. Hunter stared. How had she gotten so far away, so—
Wham. Kate landed on him from above. It was a lot of weight all at once, and he hit the ground. Kate was on his back.
With a knife at his throat.
She had a fistful of his hair, and the blade was tight under his chin, so sharp that he could swear he was bleeding already.
“Boys are such idiots,” she said.
But he wasn’t listening. His hand was already hooking her wrist from the inside, using his strength to jerk her forward.
And while she was off balance, he rolled her into the dirty leaves. He straddled her waist and pinned her arms—one with his knee, one with a hand—and put the knife against her throat.
“Now who’s the idiot?”
Her eyes lit with indignant fury.
“Don’t glare at me,” he said. “You’re the one who left my hands free.” He could still feel wetness at his neck. “That was a good trick, though. You have any more weapons hidden out here?”
Kate didn’t speak, and he eased the knife away from her neck, just an inch. “I didn’t come out here expecting a fight,” he said.
“What were you expecting? Another chance to feel me up?”
That hurt more than it should have, but she didn’t have to know that. “Why? Is that offer on the table?”
“Just kill me or let me go.”
“I don’t like either of those options. You’re another Fifth, aren’t you?”
“Oh, good. You’ve figured that out.”
“You’re working with the guy from last night?”
She kept glaring up at him, and that was answer enough. Hunter glanced around, but the trees were still. Casper was probably off chasing a rabbit or whatever. “Is he going to try to shoot me again?”
“Why did you flip sides?” she demanded.
He looked back down at her. “Who says I flipped sides?”
“You’re living with the Merricks.”
“Yeah, and they hate me.”
“You should hate them.”