“Why are you out here with a gun?” she asked, easing the smoke out. “Isn’t that against some law?”
He looked vaguely affronted. “I have a permit, and I’m protecting my property. No, it’s not against some law.”
“This strip mall is yours. Seriously. And you have all this money and nothing better to do than wander around dark parking lots pointing guns at petty thieves? Yeah, okay.”
“This strip mall belongs to my parents,” he said, taking another long inhale on his cigarette. Smoke curled away from him into the night sky. “And we’ve been having a problem with vandals, so I’ve been hanging out the last few nights.”
“Gee, I’m so sorry for you.”
“You’ve kinda got a chip on your shoulder, huh?”
Yeah, the size of Rhode Island. Quinn flicked ash from the end of her cigarette and didn’t respond. She hadn’t inhaled again, and it was just burning away between her fingers.
“What were you dancing to?” he asked.
The question took her by surprise, but his voice was challenging again, so she fired up the song on her iPod and held out an earbud.
He listened for a long moment, then nodded and handed the cord back. “Nice.”
This was so bizarre. “Glad it meets with your approval.” “Why were you dancing in the woods?”
“I’m helping a friend get a scholarship.”
“Oh, yeah? Why aren’t you getting a scholarship?”
“I don’t think that’s really any of your business.”
He shrugged and backed up to lean against the steel beam supporting a roof over the walkway. He took another drag and blew out smoke rings. “My sister was a dancer.”
His sister. Nick had told her Tyler’s sister had died in the rock quarry years ago.
“A singer, too,” said Tyler. “She was always on my parents to let her move to New York after graduation.”
Quinn wanted to snap at him, something like, So she couldn’t wait to get away from you, either? But his voice held this odd note that she couldn’t identify. Not quite sadness, but something close. Resignation, maybe. She didn’t want to mock it.
“Full of piss and vinegar,” Tyler said. “She’d probably laugh her ass off to hear you talk to me now.”
“I’d probably like her.”
“Maybe.” He crushed out the end of his cigarette and glanced down at hers, hanging abandoned in her hand. “You going to let that burn away to nothing?”
She quickly took another draw. Too fast. Smoke flooded her lungs and she choked hard, fighting for air.
“Sit,” said Tyler, plucking the cigarette from her fingers.
“Breathe.”
She sat and tried to inhale while tears streamed from her eyes. He dropped onto the curb beside her.
“All talk,” he said. “Should’ve guessed.” Then he took up her cigarette and smoked it himself.
Quinn stared at him, confused by this sudden intimacy.
“Seriously,” he said suddenly. “What’s with the lurking behind the 7-Eleven last night?”
She shrugged and looked out at the dark parking lot. “Homeless?” he asked, his voice matter-of-fact.
“No,” she snapped.
“Do those Merrick morons know you’re out here?”
Those “Merrick morons” probably thought she was out with Nick. “What do you care?”
“So that’s a no.” He snorted, blowing smoke. “Not surprised that one of those idiots can’t take care of a girlfriend.”
Like Tyler could? “I bet they’ll be disappointed they don’t live up to your standards.”
His voice turned dark. “They know what I think of them.”
“No kidding.” She held up her arm. “I got a firsthand demonstration, you asshole.”
He rounded on her so fast that Quinn almost fell back on the step. He was right in her space. “You think you know what you’re talking about? You don’t know shit. You have no idea what they’ve done to me.”
Quinn punched him in the chest, giving him a solid shove. “Maybe they did, but I never did anything to you. Back off.” When he didn’t move, she put her face almost against his and reinforced her voice with steel girders. “Back. Off.”
He held her there, probably trying to use his size or his attitude to intimidate her. Like he had anything on her home life. She stared back at him, waiting.
He finally shifted forward and put the cigarette to his lips again.
“They killed my sister,” he said quietly.
No way was he buying her pity from a sob story she’d already heard. “Nick told me you chased her and Michael into the quarry.”
“He’s a fucking Earth. How the hell do you think that rockslide started?”
She stared into the face of his obvious fury and gave him the only answer she had. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”
Tyler seemed to deflate. He crushed out the rest of his cigarette and looked out at the night, rubbing a hand across the back of his head.
Then he looked over. “You hungry?”
Yes. She was starving. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Why?”
“Because I think you’re a psychopath.”
He laughed softly. “I was going to get some taquitos from 7-Eleven. Want some?”
Quinn thought about it. If she said no, it might be hours before she’d get the chance to eat. And what was the difference between smoking with Tyler and eating with him? At least if she was with him, no one was trying to steal her stuff.
Sad that her life had devolved into choosing between lesser evils.
Her cell phone chimed again. Nick this time.
You ok?
She thought about it.
All OK. Have fun with your boyfriend. xoxo
“Taquitos sound great,” said Quinn. She climbed to her feet. “I like mine extra spicy.”
CHAPTER 9
Quinn had never sat on the roof of a strip mall before. She’d never really sat on the roof of any building before. But Tyler obviously had: a few nylon folding chairs sat by the edge of the roof, and there was even a little table between them.
She sprawled in one of the chairs and stretched her legs out in front of her. “So is this where the magic usually happens?”
Tyler cracked open a bottle of Mountain Dew and sprawled in the chair beside her. “The magic?”
“Is this where you bring girls? Promise to show them the world?”
He waved a hand at the trees, the suburban sprawl. “Oh, yeah. Check out the world of Arnold, Maryland.” He let out a low whistle. “You can almost see the waste disposal plant from here. Want to take your pants off yet?”
“It’s hard not to.”
“I don’t usually bring girls up here. I have an apartment for that.”
An apartment. For about two seconds, Quinn wondered how old he was, then decided she didn’t care. Nick had said he was younger than Michael, so he couldn’t be older than twenty-two. He definitely wasn’t in high school. “I feel so special.”
He stood and walked to the edge. The lights from below caught his features and made them glow. “It’s easier to keep an eye on things from up here.”
“What kind of vandals are you looking for?”
He came back to the chair. “Bored teenagers, mostly. It’s quiet up here, too. I can get a lot of studying done.”
Studying. College. Check.
“Two chairs,” she said.
“I’ve got a friend who works at the Sunglass place. Sometimes he brings a six-pack and we shoot the shit.” He paused. “You have a lot of questions about my rooftop habits.”
Quinn shrugged. “Just trying to figure out how to avoid you.”
He looked at her. “Yeah, you look like you’re trying really hard. Let’s cut the crap. What’s really up with you and Merrick?”
“He’s busy, that’s all. What do you care?”
“Maybe I don’t want to babysit his girlfriend.”
“Fu
ck you.” Quinn stood with enough force to make the chair scrape back a few inches.
Tyler caught her arm. “Stop. I’m messing with you.”
She turned fierce eyes his way. “No one needs to babysit me.”
“No kidding.” His voice softened, just a little, just enough. “Sit down. Eat your taquito. I don’t like them extra spicy.”
She sat in the chair and unwrapped the paper, taking a small bite from the end. It was like a heart attack rolled up in a tortilla and fried, but she was starving. “What’s really up with you and Merrick?”
His voice was bitter. “You already know.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think I do.”
“I don’t want to talk about them.”
“Do you really want to kill them?”
“I don’t need to kill them. That’s what the Guides are for.”
“Would you do it, if you could?”
“I don’t really want to go to prison for doing someone else’s job.”
“Aren’t you a big bad Fire Elemental? Couldn’t you burn down their house or something?”
“No!” he snapped with sudden fury. “That wouldn’t make me any better than them. That’s the whole reason they’re supposed to be put to death. They are a danger. Don’t you get that?”
She ignored his sudden vehemence, keeping her voice level. “Do you really think they deserve to die, for what they are?”
He didn’t say anything for a long while, twisting the bottle of Mountain Dew in his hands, making the plastic crackle. He sat that way for so long that she didn’t think he was going to say anything.
Finally, he said, “You were right. When my sister died, she was with that douche bag. My friends and I were going after them. But I didn’t start that fucking rockslide. And even if Mike Merrick didn’t start it, he sure as hell didn’t stop it.” His voice tightened. “That rock hit her, and he didn’t even get her out of the water in time. He let her die, okay? So if someone wants to come to town and kill them, I’m sure as hell not going to get in their way. If that makes me a psychopath, fine. There’s no secret about how I feel.”
“No secret,” she replied. “I like that.”
He turned and looked at her, eyebrows raised.
Quinn shrugged. “My life is full of secrets. Sometimes I’m sick of keeping them.” She paused, wondering if she was stupid to be here with Tyler. He hated the Merricks, that much was obvious. It was probably a violation of her friendship with Nick that she was even sitting here.
But she could hear every ounce of pain in Tyler’s voice when he spoke about what had happened to his sister. Could she blame him for that? If someone contributed to the death of someone in her family, then wandered around town like they hadn’t done anything wrong, how would she have dealt with it?
Well, if someone did something to her older brother, she’d probably send them a thank-you note.
She thought of Tyler’s anger in the driveway, when he’d confronted Nick. Was some of that pain? Resentment? Tyler had been a dick, for sure. But then again, Nick had threatened to kill him.
Who was right? It didn’t feel like either of them was.
“I’m really sorry about your sister,” she said quietly.
Tyler looked up at the sky. “Me, too. I was a crap brother. I wish I could go back and fix it.”
“Do you—”
“Hey.” He looked over, and she could see emotion in his eyes. “Would it be okay if we talked about something else?”
“Yeah.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “Stop. Something else. Anything. Talk about dance. I was serious, earlier. Why aren’t you trying for a scholarship?”
“You don’t really care.”
“I do, actually. When I was watching you, I was thinking—” He broke off.
Quinn straightened. “What were you thinking?”
His voice turned sheepish. “Nothing. Forget it.”
She could only imagine what he’d been thinking. “Now you definitely need to tell me. Was it that you didn’t realize a full grown hippo could do spins like that?”
His head snapped around. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I know I’m not built like a typical dancer.”
“What does that even mean? Are you another one of these girls who tries to live on carrots and hot water?”
She waved the taquito in his face. “No, but I probably should be.”
“You’re insane, baby girl.” He paused and rubbed at his jaw. “I was thinking that Nick Merrick is one lucky bastard.”
Quinn flushed, pleased.
At the same time, she felt a curl of anger. Sometimes she hated being Nick’s pretend girlfriend.
“Yeah,” Tyler continued, “I don’t know a whole lot about dance—just what I remember from Emily—but if anyone is going for a scholarship, you should be.”
Quinn swallowed. “There’s an application fee, and it’s extremely competitive, and I don’t—it’s just—”
“Afraid of competition?” His eyes were dark and shadowed, his voice rough. “You don’t strike me as the type.”
He did not sound sexy. He did not.
Yeah, she wasn’t convincing herself. “I’m not the type to have a spare hundred bucks lying around, either.”
Tyler winced. “Sorry.”
She shrugged and scowled out at the night. “My whole life is full of almosts. I almost made it on the dance team, until the bitch teacher wanted to get rid of me because of my attitude and my body type. I almost made it as a cheerleader, but they all called me Crisco and acted like I was white trash. I almost had a great—”
She cut herself off. She’d almost said, I almost had a great boyfriend, but then I caught Nick kissing another guy.
“Almost what?” said Tyler.
Quinn shook her head, surprised to feel tears hiding somewhere behind her eyes. “Nothing. What I want always seems just out of reach, you know?”
Tyler sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes I know exactly what you mean.”
CHAPTER 10
Nick’s morning classes crawled by. He could barely stay awake for Dr. Cutter’s physics lecture. He’d come home late again, dragged himself into bed, and replayed his evening with Adam. Their walk. Their studying.
Adam’s secrets.
After learning about that, everything had felt somewhat raw, as if a scab had been scraped off too early. He’d felt the need to proceed slowly, to let trust grow in the space between them. So he’d come in when Adam invited him, but he’d sat on the couch and sipped coffee and talked, keeping his hands to himself.
Nick had been worried that some of his infatuation was because Adam was the first boy he had kissed, the first outlet for years of repressed attraction.
But Adam was smart. He read everything, from genre fiction to biographies to The Economist to a weekly sex advice column. He could talk about all of it. Nick might have had him beat in chemistry, but Adam had him by a mile in subjective analysis. He’d never met someone who would genuinely care about his opinion—but then expect him to defend it.
Nick loved it. He loved it so much it’d been hard to leave.
But then he’d leaned in to kiss Adam good night, and he’d seen the flash of vulnerability, reminding him to tread carefully.
That first night, his time with Adam had been like riding a runaway train, having no idea of the destination, just hurtling into the darkness while clinging for dear life. Exciting and terrifying.
Now it felt like someone had pressed a map into his hands and explained how to ease off the throttle.
“Earth to Nicholas. Come in, Mr. Merrick.”
Crap. Dr. Cutter was glaring at him. What were they talking about? Diagrams covered every inch of whiteboard, but Nick hadn’t even cracked his textbook. His notebook was open, but he hadn’t written anything down.
Nick cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. What?”
“I asked if you’d come up with an a
nswer for the third question.”
Nick took another desperate glance at his notebook, as if the answers would have magically appeared. He couldn’t afford to piss off Dr. Cutter, who was already giving him a free pass by letting him retake the unit test he’d bombed yesterday.
Nick looked back at the board, at the third diagram, hoping it would be something he could work out in his head.
Yeah, right. This was AP Physics. He knew it had something to do with velocity and mass, maybe—
“Perhaps I can explain what you’ve missed when you stay after class.”
Half the class sucked in a breath and looked at him.
Gabriel would fling his pencil down and level the teacher with some snarky comment. He’d probably get himself thrown out of class.
Nick could never do that. Shame was curling his stomach into knots. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
After class, Dr. Cutter was a lot less accommodating than he’d been the previous day.
“This is an advanced placement class,” he said, a slight edge to his voice. “We move through the material quickly. Are you having difficulty keeping up?”
“No,” said Nick. “I’m sorry. Really, it won’t happen again.”
The teacher’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t really have Gabriel Merrick sitting in front of me, do I?”
Nick flinched. It shouldn’t have been an insult, but it felt like one. “No. I swear.”
“I had to call your name three times.”
Nick didn’t know how many times he could apologize for the same thing. He rubbed at his eyes. “I’m having a rough week.”
Dr. Cutter studied him. “Are you aware you’re the student with the highest average in this class?” He frowned. “Or you were before yesterday’s test.”
Nick pulled his hands down. He’d thought he was better than average, but the highest? “No, I didn’t know.”
“And you’re second in your class in AP Calc. I spoke with Mrs. Rafferty. In fact . . .” He reached behind him for a folder on his desk. He flipped the cover open. “Out of the entire senior class, based on a weighted GPA, you’re ranked fourth overall.”
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