Michael had talked about leaving town—in a
week
. Leaving Hunter here with nothing but a
mess
they’d all been part of.
“There are still more Elementals in town, aren’t there?” said Kate.
“Yeah.”
“You’re in a good position to help us find them.”
“Sure.” Hunter made no attempt to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “I’d love to help the guy who
shot
me.”
“He thought you were working with the girl who started the fires.”
“Why the hell would he think that?”
“Because you were negotiating with her.”
Hunter glared at her. “I wasn’t
negotiating
. I was trying to get her to stop—”
“I know. I know.” She paused. “And he knows. Now.”
Hunter sighed and glanced away. That familiar guilt was trapping him. Did he owe the Merricks anything? Was he betraying them by even being here? All this indecision was almost painful.
Then he realized: did it matter? They’d be gone in a week.
He stared back at Kate, at the crystal blue of her eyes, which were just now beseeching him.
“How am I supposed to keep you a secret?” he asked, his voice rough.
Then, just like last night, she was in his lap before he was ready, her fingers in his hair, her lips warm against his. It was like she had power in
this
, like the feel of her lips and her skin and her breath could control him. His hands grabbed her hips, finding an inch of skin between her jeans and the tank top.
Every Elemental in town could attack him right this instant and he wouldn’t care.
Everything about her kiss was so
Kate
, aggressive and gentle at the same time, like an attack you didn’t know to defend yourself from until it was too late.
Power surged in the air around them, and now, alone, no secrets between them, he did nothing to hold it back. His hand slid up her side, and she didn’t protest. He kissed his way down her jaw, along her neck, aware that the temperature in the woods had turned downright tropical. She smelled like something tropical, too, mangoes or papayas or something sweet and edible.
Suddenly, she was pulling at his T-shirt, and he drew back to help her.
But then her cell phone chimed.
Twice.
It hit him like a bucket of cold water.
He was already trying to disentangle himself from her—but now she grabbed his shoulders. “Stop,” she whispered. “Stop. I told you—he’s not my boyfriend.”
Yeah, maybe not. But that didn’t mean this was . . . real.
Idiot
, his subconscious was yelling.
You’re an idiot.
Kate leaned in again, touching her forehead to his. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first morning I saw you.”
“All part of the plan, right?”
She flung herself off him. “You think all my text messages were part of some
plan
?” She kicked him in the leg. “You
asshole
. You think I can’t separate what I’m doing here from what I think about you?”
He glared up at her. “I don’t know, Kate. Maybe I can’t keep up.”
“Jesus, don’t you trust
anybody
?”
“No, and I’m pretty sure you don’t, either.”
She stared back at him, her chest rising and falling as rapidly as his. She didn’t say anything, and that said it all right there.
“What do your text messages say?” Hunter demanded. “Is he checking up on how things are coming along with me?”
“He doesn’t even know I’m here.”
“Sure.”
Her breathing was fast and rapid, her cheeks flushed.
Then she reached into her pocket, jerked out her phone, and tossed it at him. “Go ahead, see for yourself.”
He slid his finger across the screen, then glanced up. “Code?”
“Nine-six-seven-four.”
He hit the keys and her phone opened. He pushed the icon for text messages.
Silver
was in bold letters at the top.
When you say you’re going for a walk, I don’t expect you to disappear for two hours.
Do not make me come looking for you, Kathryn.
“Wow,” Hunter said. “He sounds charming.”
Kate grabbed the phone out of his hands. “He’s doing his
job
.” Then she slid her fingers along the screen, texting back.
After a moment, his own phone chimed, and Hunter grabbed it from his pocket.
She’d sent him a message.
I don’t want to be your enemy, Hunter.
While he was looking, another message appeared.
Silver was going to kill you last night. I stopped him.
He didn’t look at her, just texted back.
Why?
Because I understand you. And I think you understand me.
He sighed. Another message appeared.
I don’t want anyone to get hurt, either.
Before he could text back, she caught his hands between hers, cradling the phone. She looked up at him. “We can stop them, Hunter. We can. We can stop all of this from happening again.”
He blew out a breath. “How?”
“Find out who was working with her. We’ll take care of it and leave you alone.”
She was using him. It was obvious. He knew it, and she knew it.
But what would his father have wanted? For Hunter to hide with the Merricks?
“I don’t know who was working with her,” he said.
“Can you find out?”
He kept thinking about that kid who’d been with Calla in his house. Who
was
he?
They’d probably have pictures of the missing kids on the news. He could start there. Maybe it would lead to nothing—but maybe it would lead to a whole lot of
something
.
“I only have one lead,” he said. “It might not go anywhere.”
“But you’ll help?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s enough for now.” She kissed him on the cheek and then was gone.
Hunter didn’t check his other messages until he was in the jeep. He had a text from Gabriel.
All OK?
Hunter sat there and stared at the screen for the longest time. He thought of the gunshot, of Gabriel saving his life, of the arguments in the Merrick house, of the whispers about leaving, the quick action to shut up when they heard Hunter in the hallway. He thought of Calla. He thought of Kate, of Silver.
He thought of his father.
Then he typed back quickly.
Yep. Be back soon.
Then he clicked off the phone and started the engine.
Silver was waiting for her, sitting at the table, checking his weapons.
Kate deliberately took her time getting through the door, putting her sunglasses away, running lip gloss over her lips in front of the mirror in the front hall.
She gasped when Silver grabbed her arm and spun her around.
“Did he agree?” he said evenly.
“Let me go.”
“Answer me.”
“Yeah, he agreed. Now let me go, before I make you.”
Silver half smiled. “Now I’m curious. Make me.”
She didn’t hesitate—just swung a fist into his midsection.
He blocked, of course. She was ready for it, using his momentum to throw an elbow into his groin.
She wasn’t ready for his fist to smack into the side of her face. She wasn’t ready for the room to go sideways.
Thank god the front hallway was carpeted.
Silver left her there. “The problem, Kathryn, is that you assume people won’t want to hit that pretty face.”
No, the problem was that she’d assumed Silver wouldn’t hurt
her
. That he’d play, the way Hunter had at the carnival.
Stupid
.
She tried to convince her joints to work. Her head was still spinning, and for an instant, she couldn’t figure out which stretch of drywall was supposed to be the ceiling.
Her cheek ached. “I could stab you in your sleep,” she said.
“You could try. I feel rather certain that you’d find a similar result.”
Tears were burning at her eyes, and she told them to go away. Silver could probably sense the water threatening to spill over her cheeks anyway.
Hunter was supposed to be her enemy, but she couldn’t ever imagine him doing
that.
She thought of the way he’d warned his friend about those bullies at the carnival last night, the way Gabriel Merrick had gone storming across the fairgrounds to confront them.
Or how Nick Merrick had invited her to sit with him at lunch.
Silver had chastised her for letting those people off the Ferris wheel.
The ends justify the means
.
She needed to get off the floor. She fought for balance and remembered the confrontation with the Water Elemental that had led to her mother’s death.
Keep that memory fresh
.
But there were other memories, later ones, that threatened to cloud her judgment.
She needed to remember the moment her mother had died, everything that had gone wrong that night.
The Merricks might not have been evil, but they weren’t all good, either. They couldn’t be. She’d spent her life hearing about the dangers of full Elementals.
She dropped into the chair at the table, where Silver had gone back to checking his weapons. She didn’t really want to be sitting here with him, but she wasn’t entirely sure she could manage the walk to her bedroom.
She gingerly moved her jaw and didn’t think it was broken.
Even if it were, she’d never in a million years ask Silver to use power to heal it for her.
“I’m going to see him at school tomorrow,” she said. Her voice sounded strange, and every hard consonant hurt, but she ignored it. “I told him we need his help to discover the other Elementals in town. He agreed.”
Silver’s eyebrows went up. “Well done.”
The praise took some of the sting out of the way he’d hit her in the hallway. She repeated everything Hunter had said about his father, and Calla, and the Merricks.
“And what do you think?” said Silver. “Is he working with them? Is he a threat to us?”
“I think he’s confused,” she said honestly. She remembered the lost look in his eyes, the true emotion when he’d talked about his father. “He doesn’t know where he belongs.”
“I don’t like that,” said Silver. “His presence in that house makes them a perfect circle. One for each element, including the Fifth? They could be unstoppable.”
“He swears they’re not behind the fires.”
“They could be behind a lot more.” Silver’s eyes flicked up. “You sound as though you have feelings for this boy.”
“That’s insane. I resent him. He’s working for the enemy.”
Silver kept studying her, and she held his eyes. He finally looked away.
She could breathe again.
While she did resent Hunter for living with the Merricks, there was a tiny part of her that was intrigued, too.
And maybe a little bit jealous. Gabriel Merrick had risked his life to drag Hunter to safety.
Would Silver do the same for her?
She didn’t even entertain the thought for a moment. Of course he wouldn’t. If she’d been there, wounded, Silver would have pulled out his gun and finished her off.
Kate shook herself. She needed to keep her mind on the task at hand. Hunter Garrity was just an assignment.
And she knew just how to handle an assignment.
C
HAPTER
18
H
unter pulled his jeep into the Merricks’ driveway and almost threw his vehicle into reverse.
His mom’s car was sitting in front of the house.
It was like life kept pelting him with curveballs and he couldn’t swing his bat fast enough.
Well, he sure couldn’t leave her sitting in there. God only knew what the Merricks might be telling her.
He took his time getting through the front door. He didn’t have a key, and part of him hoped the door would be locked just so it would take an extra couple minutes before he’d have to face her. But the door was unlocked, so he eased inside, closing the door gently behind him.
He recognized her voice immediately. She was in the kitchen, talking to Michael, it sounded like. Then another woman was speaking. He was too far away to make out the words.
He fidgeted with his keys for a second before telling himself to stop being such an idiot.
Why was she here? What if she demanded that he come home? What would he do—throw a fit and demand to stay at the Merricks’? Like that would work.
He slid down the hallway silently, but Michael was by the counter, pouring a cup of coffee.
“Hi,” Michael said. “You have a visitor.”
Hunter took another step, feeling his shoulders hunch. He found himself wishing for a weapon.
And what would you do with one?
Nothing, really. But he’d felt half-naked since his grandfather had confiscated them.
Half-naked ÅÇ confident.
His mother was there, at the table, next to a blond woman he vaguely recognized. Hunter couldn’t look at them. He already felt like he was going to pieces; eye contact would clinch the deal.
Instead, he leaned against the door molding and jingled his keys in his pocket. “What are you doing here?”
“The fire at the school carnival was on the noon news, and after last week—I thought—I didn’t know—”
Now fury poured across his shoulders, hardening them in place. She’d
just
heard about the fires? He’d been shot last night, and she hadn’t known anything about the carnival until like an
hour
ago?
Even though it was something completely out of her control, he couldn’t help but blame her for it.
“I’m fine,” he said evenly. “You can go back home. You should have just called.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d answer.”
Well, that was honest. He wasn’t sure he would have answered, either.
A chair scraped against the floor, and he glanced up, wondering if she really
was
leaving. But it was the blond woman, young and slight and wearing the local fire station’s T-shirt.
This had to be Hannah.
“We’ll just give you some privacy,” she said quietly. Then she moved toward Michael, took his arm, and practically dragged him out of the kitchen.
Hunter moved out of the doorway so they could pass, but he still didn’t look at his mother.
“Did you go through the boxes I left you?” she asked quietly.
He shrugged. “I haven’t had time.”
That, at least, was the truth. He hadn’t bothered to go through them before the carnival, and the last thing he’d cared about today was a box full of old pictures and his gaming system.
She was silent for a while. Then she said, “Well, go through them soon, so you can make sure you have everything you need.”
He was clutching his keys so tightly, they felt like they might bend between his fingers. He wanted to snap at her to demand things like
How could you do this?!
But he was scared of the answers. As much as he didn’t want her here, he didn’t want her to leave, either.
He cleared his throat and stopped clutching his keys. But then his hands wanted something to do. He settled for folding his arms across his chest. “Fine.”
She didn’t move. He didn’t, either.
He wished he knew how to fix this.
He wanted to tell her the truth about Calla. He wanted to demand to know how she could have thought he’d
ever
do something like that.
He wanted to talk to her, to tell her everything his father had said before he died. To tell her that he felt lost, directionless, trying to figure out just who he was supposed to be now that everything he knew had been crushed under that rock slide.
He wanted to ask why she was only looking at him
now
, when he would have given anything for one minute of her attention since the day his father died. He wanted to ask how she could sit there and watch him walk out the door, how she could sit here now, motionless, and not say
anything
to him.
The longer she sat there, the more she seemed to prove his father’s words, on the day before he died.
She was weak. She was ignorant. She was easily manipulated.
It made him want to rip the stupid stones off his wrist and fling them at her.
She’d been the one to give them to him, after all.
When her chair scraped the floor, he flinched but then stopped his body from making any further movement. His fingers were digging into his biceps now.
When she stopped in front of him, he didn’t look.
She put her hands on his arms and looked up at him. He wanted to shove her hands off.
No, he didn’t.
He finally looked at her and sandbagged all that emotion. “I’m fine.”
“I don’t think you are.” Her eyes were heavy with feeling. “I wish you would talk to me.”
How could he talk to her when she didn’t understand him, not even a little bit?
“I miss him, too, Hunter,” she said softly, so quietly that he almost couldn’t hear her.
It was the wrong thing to say—or the last thing he wanted to hear. He slid out of her hands and turned away. “That’s your problem, isn’t it?”
God, he sounded like such an
asshole
. But the alternative was breaking down right here in the Merrick kitchen—and he’d had enough of that.
She let him go, and he almost called her back and apologized. He felt like he was keeping his father’s dirty little secret, and it was clawing at him from the inside out. He wanted to tell her, but that would cause her more pain than anything he was doing right now.
Dad never told you the truth. About anything.
He was only using you
.
She stepped past him softly, just resting a hand on his arm as she moved past. Her fingers were warm, gentle, the same hands that had tended his scrapes when he was little.
He almost put his hand over hers, not wanting her to leave.
But then she let go. “Call me if you need something. I can bring over anything else you want.”
“Fine.”
And just like that, she walked out of the house.
He had to stop himself from going after her. It didn’t help that he knew the Merricks were in the house, had heard every word, and were probably waiting for him to come out of the kitchen.
He went out the back door and dropped into one of the porch chairs.
The air still held a chill, and the clouds overhead suited his mood. He closed his eyes and tried to let the tension drain out of his shoulders.
The solitude left him with too much room for thinking, however, and he felt worse out here. Again, he found himself wishing for a pair of wraps and a heavy bag—or an opponent and a set of mats.
When the sliding door opened, he braced himself for another lecture from Michael.
So he was surprised when a woman’s voice said, “Can I join you?”
His eyes snapped open. Hannah, the girl from the kitchen. The firefighter. Michael’s new girlfriend.
She was pretty, slender and casual without looking delicate. Hunter could see solid muscle in her arms, and he knew from his escapades with Gabriel that using firefighting equipment was no joke. She wasn’t old, but there was nothing young about the weight in her eyes.
She’d seen a lot. He could tell.
She’d been at the carnival last night. Gabriel had said something about her wanting to put him on a helicopter to shock trauma. Had she seen Calla? Would any of the bodies be identifiable after the fire?
He didn’t want to ask.
She was still looking at him, a hand on the back of the adjacent Adirondack chair.
“Sure,” he said.
She dropped into the chair beside him and stared up at the same sky. Her breathing was calm and even. He had no idea what she was doing out here.
“You know,” she said without looking at him, “we once got this call for a guy whose girlfriend ripped all the piercings right out of his eyebrow.”
“Sick.” He paused. “What did it look like?”
“Blood everywhere. He had a safety pin or something run through four hoops, and she grabbed it and yanked it off. They all came out.”
He glanced over, intrigued that her voice held the same horror and fascination that he was feeling. “Were they fighting?”
“Ah . . . no. In the ‘moment,’ I guess you could say.” She was smiling.
He looked back at the sky. “That’s a hell of a moment.” “There was another guy who’d pierced his . . . ah . . .”
“I get it.”
“Yeah,
that
was ripped out during a fight. I think I learned a whole new vocabulary on that call. But that’s no comparison to the guy who took a Sawzall to his—”
“Not that I’m complaining or anything,” said Hunter, trying to stop
that
particular story. “But did you really come out here to tell me ambulance stories?”
“I’ve got some really good ones.” She paused. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
“Your mom was pretty upset when she got here.”
“Good for her.”
He was ready for a lecture, but Hannah shrugged. “I didn’t want to worry her more and tell her what you looked like last night.”
He wondered if that would have made a difference and decided he didn’t care one way or another.
Oh, who the hell was he kidding? He cared.
“Are you going to take the EMT course with Gabriel in the spring?”
He glanced over in surprise. He hadn’t even considered it.
She was looking back at him. “What’s with the look? I thought you guys were best friends.”
“Not really.”
“You braid his hair wrong or something?”
Hunter smiled. He liked this girl. “Something like that.”
“So what’s with your mom? Why are you so mad at her?”
He glared back at the sky and decided maybe he didn’t like this girl
that
much.
Hannah shrugged and he caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. “I mean, she was practically hysterical when she found out you weren’t here. They must have been talking about the unidentified kids on the news. Michael had to tell her about fifteen times that you
had
gotten home from the carnival, that you were fine.”
Hunter scowled. He wished that didn’t make him feel guilty.
They sat there in silence for a long moment.
Then Hannah said, “Look, either you’re going to talk or I’m going to have to finish the story about the guy who chopped off his penis. Your call.”
Hunter snorted with unexpected laughter.
Then he sobered, thinking of those
unidentified kids
. “I don’t know how you can joke after—after last night—”
“Because the alternative is going crazy? If you can’t fix what’s wrong, you focus on what you can make right.”
Hunter looked at her. “My dad used to say that.”
“My dad, too. It’s a good dad thing to say.”
The sudden emotion grabbed Hunter around the throat, and he almost couldn’t breathe through it. He hated this, how it never came on slowly but instead snuck up like a ninja to punch him right when it was least expected. He had to shift to the edge of the chair and press his fingertips into his eyes.
Hannah scooted to the edge of her chair, too, until she was close. She touched his shoulder, and there was something secure about it, something steadying. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m fine.”
“Michael said your dad and your uncle died in a car crash.”
Now Hunter knocked her hand away, and he straightened. “I don’t want to talk about it. What are you even doing out here? I don’t even
know
—”
“You can’t fix it,” she said, her voice strong and even, as if he hadn’t interrupted. “You can’t.”
“I know that! You don’t think I know that? I can’t fix
any
of it!”
“It wasn’t your fault. Has anyone ever told you that?
It wasn’t your fault.
”
“You don’t know anything.” God he was sick of the lectures. She and Michael were
perfect
for each other.
He flung himself out of the chair and stalked through the door.
Chris and Nick were in the living room with Becca. They all looked up when he passed. Becca called out to him, but he kept going—up the stairs instead of out the door.
Then he locked himself in the bathroom and tried to keep from punching the mirror.
He needed to calm down.
Breathe
.
What the hell did Hannah know? Had Michael sent her out there? He was ready for a knock at the door, for someone else to want to
talk
.
It made him think of Kate, how she’d been willing to do anything
but
talk. Only her methods of diversion weren’t this unpleasant.
He turned the faucet on cold and splashed water on his face, letting the water run off his chin. He looked up at the mirror to make sure it didn’t look like he’d been crying.
Then he kept on looking.
What had Michael said yesterday?
There is nothing about you that would make me say you look exactly like that guy. Take a look in a mirror sometime.