Hunter should have grabbed a bulletproof vest out of the locker.
He fished his phone out of his pocket. He started to dial, but the screaming upstairs cut off abruptly.
Casper growled softly.
Hunter held his breath again. If he made a call, they might hear him.
He didn’t exactly want to be noticed by someone shooting wildly.
He switched to text message and found Uncle Jay’s number—his dad’s texting was sporadic at best.
Shots fired at house on opp side dairy farm. Send help.
A text came back almost immediately.
U OK?
Hunter moved to text back, but another gunshot exploded somewhere above him. He shoved the phone back into his pocket and slid toward the front of the house.
The front door was half open, the lower level a well of darkness. Was this a robbery in progress? He might have believed that—if Clare hadn’t already stolen his gun. Hunter ducked inside. He waited for his eyes to acclimate, then eased around furniture toward the staircase.
Someone was crying upstairs.
Clare?
But then he heard Clare’s voice, cold and hard and definitely not full of tears.
“You leave her alone. I swear to god I will shoot you.”
Then a man’s voice. “Shoot me. They’ll lock you up, and then what’ll you do?”
“I’ll shoot. I will.” Clare’s voice sounded strong, but Hunter heard the slightest waver beneath the words. He kept the .45 in his hands and eased up the steps.
And then he turned the corner and they were right there, in the hallway. Clare had the gun in her hands, held at chest level in both hands, just like he’d shown her.
The gun was pointed at a man in his forties wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. Hunter could smell alcohol from here.
And on the floor behind Clare lay a crumpled woman, crying, her hands over her face. Hunter could see blood between her fingers.
Hunter trained the gun on the man. “Clare,” he breathed carefully, not wanting to spook her with the gun in her hands. “It’s okay. I called the cops.”
Almost on cue, he could hear the thready sounds of a siren.
“Hunter,” she said. Her voice broke. “Hunter, you have to go.”
“It’s okay,” he said again. “I’ll hold him. Just . . . just put the gun down. Slide the safety, remember?”
The man sneered at him. “You won’t hold shit, kid.”
Hunter snorted. His own gun didn’t waver. “Some pacifist.”
“I just said . . . I just said that because—” Clare’s voice broke again. She still had the gun pointed at the man, but her grip was wavering badly. “My brother used to stop . . . used to stop him—”
“It’s okay,” said Hunter carefully. “It’s okay. Just put the gun down. The cops are coming. You don’t need to shoot him.”
The sirens were very close now. Tires crunched on the driveway, and a car door slammed.
“See?” said Hunter. “They’re here. You need to put the gun down so they don’t shoot you.”
“They’re here?” said Clare.
“They’re here. They won’t let him hurt you. Or your mother.”
“Okay.” Clare turned toward him with the gun in her hands.
“No!” Hunter dodged to get out of her line of fire—especially since her father had lunged forward to grab for the weapon.
The gun went off. Clare cried out. She fell to the ground, just as her father raised his arm, pointing the gun at Hunter.
Hunter didn’t think.
He pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER 5
“So what did you learn?”
Hunter slumped in the free chair in his dad’s office. He’d been up all night—and his dad had already made it clear that he expected Hunter to go to school.
Clare and her mother were in the hospital.
So was her father, under police guard. He had a bullet hole through his left shoulder.
“A lot of things¸” said Hunter.
“Specifically?”
“I should have told you she took the gun.”
His father smiled, but there was an edge to it. “No, that one I understand. What did you learn about her?”
Hunter set his jaw and looked out the window, where sunlight was just beginning to crawl into the sky. “She was using me.”
“And what did Jay tell you about girls?”
Hunter rolled his eyes. “To use them first. That doesn’t even make sense. You want me to go through life using everyone I meet?”
“If it will keep you safe, yes, I do.”
Hunter didn’t say anything.
“Even last night,” said his father. “Even knowing she’d stolen from you. You wanted to help her. Didn’t you?”
“Who wouldn’t want to help her? Can’t you imagine what she must have been going through? Do you blame her?”
“She could have told you, Hunter. If she cared about you, if she trusted you, she would have. Jay was here in uniform last night. She could have told him.”
Hunter scowled.
“If nothing else,” said his father, “say you used her for the lesson.”
“What about you?” Hunter snapped.
“Me?”
“Do you use Mom?”
“You keep saying the word use like it’s a bad thing. As if there’s nothing given in return. Your mother wanted security. A family. A husband who would take care of her. She got those things.”
Hunter snorted. “You make my whole existence sound like a barter transaction.”
“Good. Start thinking of every relationship in your life that way.”
“What fun.”
“You can think about it while we’re gone. I think you’ll figure it out.”
“Gone?” Hunter straightened in the chair. “You’re leaving?”
“We got another message about this family in Annapolis. It sounds suspicious. We’ve decided to go a few days early, get the lay of the land before they know we’re there. Jay’s packing the car now so we can beat traffic.”
Hunter looked out the window. “This is bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
Hunter flew out of his chair. “I said this is bullshit. I can do this. You know I can do this. I should get to go. You even said yourself—I could be a decoy. I could help. I could—”
“You’re not ready.”
“I am ready! Look at last night! Look at—”
His dad raised an eyebrow. “I am looking at last night, Hunter.”
Hunter flushed. “I don’t mean the . . . the using. I mean—”
“I know exactly what you mean. I also know that man had every thought to kill you, and you shot him in the shoulder.” His father paused and put his hands on Hunter’s shoulders. “You’re not ready. And that’s fine.”
Hunter shoved his hands off and moved to brush past his father. “Fuck you.”
Hunter didn’t realize his dad had grabbed him until he’d been spun around and pinned to the doorjamb.
His father didn’t even raise his voice. “Want to try that again?”
The door frame was pressing into his cheek exactly where he’d gotten the bruise yesterday—and Hunter could swear his dad knew that. “Let me go.”
“Acting like a cocky teenager isn’t the way to convince me you’re ready.” But his dad let him go.
Hunter shoved him, hard.
And then his dad came after him.
“Hey. Hey.” Uncle Jay was there, dragging them apart. “Leave him be, John. The kid’s had a long night.”
“Forget it,” said Hunter. “I’ve got to get ready for school.” He didn’t look at his dad, just turned for the steps. “Have a great time on your trip.”
When Hunter came out of the shower, his father and uncle were gone.
It figured.
Hunter slammed through the underbrush surrounding the property. He was exhausted, but fury rode him hard. He kept replaying those las
t minutes with his dad.
And a small nagging voice at the back of his head kept insisting that his dad had left for a potentially dangerous assignment, and for the first time, he hadn’t said good-bye.
Hunter hesitated and pulled the phone out of his pocket. He tapped out a text to Uncle Jay.
Tell Dad I’m sorry.
Before he could press SEND, someone tackled him from behind. The phone went flying, disappearing beneath the leaves.
“Payback’s a bitch, huh?”
Jeremy Rasmussen.
A foot kicked Hunter in the side. “Someone’s a bitch.”
Garrett Watts.
Normally Hunter would fight them enough to stay alive, to keep his dignity. Anything more always seemed to up the ante.
Today wasn’t the day for that.
It took him less than three minutes to have them both on the ground. Jeremy’s head had collided with a tree trunk, and he lay unconscious in the leaves. Garrett’s arm was pinned behind his back, and he was whimpering. Hunter was all but kneeling on his throat.
And for the first time, Hunter considered driving his knee down, crushing Garrett’s windpipe.
He thought of his father’s question, of whether he could do it.
Thinking and doing were two very different things.
The world would be a better place without a jerk like Garrett Watts.
Just like the world probably would have been a better place without a man like Clare’s father. Hunter’s dad was right—he should have shot to kill.
But Garrett was a kid. He still had time to figure out what kind of man he was going to be.
So did Hunter.
He stood. “Get your friend out of here,” he said. “If you guys ambush me again, I won’t stop there.”
Then Hunter picked up his backpack and started walking. But he headed for home, instead of school. If his dad was gone, there was no one to crack the whip. He had a lot more use for a day spent sleeping.
When he got there, the car was back in the driveway.
His dad and Uncle Jay were in the kitchen.
They didn’t say anything when Hunter walked in, and he wondered if he could feed them a line about forgetting a textbook.
Then his dad said, “I changed my mind.”
Changed his mind? After everything? Hunter could count on one hand the number of times his father had changed his mind. Now it made Hunter wonder whether he’d made the wrong decision in the woods just now—or the right one.
He dropped his backpack. “You . . . what?”
His dad glanced at Jay. “Your uncle convinced me. Go pack a bag. You can come with us.”
BREATHLESS
CHAPTER 1
Nick Merrick sat on his bed and ran his thumb along the edge of the sealed envelope.
He didn’t want to open it.
He probably didn’t need to. It was thin, and thin letters from universities typically meant one thing: rejection.
It wasn’t his first-choice school anyway. He’d applied at University of Maryland because they had a solid physics program and it was an in-state school. If they rejected him, he didn’t really care.
Much.
He’d thought applying early at a few local schools would be a safe bet, just to get himself into the rhythm of it, seeing what kind of feedback he’d get.
Apparently it meant he’d get used to rejection right off the bat.
The worst part was the twinge of guilt in his stomach.
Not because he might have to go out of state.
The guilt was because he wanted to. Sort of.
A new town would mean anonymity. No one would know about his powers.
No one would know him as Gabriel Merrick’s twin brother, half of a unit.
A new town meant he could just be Nick.
Whatever that meant. Sometimes he worried that he’d get his wish, that he’d end up in some strange town, surrounded by new people, and he’d realize that there was nothing there, that his entire being was based on his brothers’ expectations of him.
Well, it wasn’t like he didn’t have options. A local school would have meant he could still stay home and help Michael with the business. If he couldn’t go to Maryland, he could go to the community college down the road. Nothing wrong with that.
Except . . . he didn’t want to go to the community college.
The colored balls in the Galileo thermometer on his desk started to shift, and Nick glanced up. He was changing the temperature. His blinds rattled against the window frame, too, as a gusty breeze tore through his room.
This was stupid. He should just open the envelope.
If only his powers gave him X-ray vision.
Not like he really needed it. He could imagine how the letter would begin.
Dear Nicholas, We regret to inform you that you’re a selfish bastard—
Yeah, right. Nick swore and shoved the letter between two textbooks on the desk. He could read it later.
Michael had asked him to reconcile a stack of invoices anyway. Better to let numbers steal his attention, especially since his oldest brother would be pissed if he got home and found a stack of paperwork still waiting for him.
The kitchen was empty, but he’d passed his youngest brother in the living room, along with his girlfriend. Chris and Becca were watching a movie, but from the glimpse Nick had gotten, there wasn’t a whole lot of watching going on. Not like Nick needed a glimpse: the air was more than happy to whisper about their activities.
Gabriel was out, doing something with Layne, and Michael would be on a job for another hour, at least.
Quiet.
Nick tore into a foil package of Pop-Tarts and fired up the laptop. With a toaster pastry between his teeth, he began to sort through the pile of carbon credit card slips, invoices, and canceled checks.
Michael was great about documenting what he was doing and how much it cost.
He wasn’t so great about making sure he was actually paid for it.
Nick had been doing most of the bookkeeping since he was thirteen. Now he could do it in his sleep.
His brain kept drifting to that letter, sandwiched between those textbooks on his desk.
At least he’d been the one to get the mail today, so no one else knew. God, that would have been a disaster. Hell, Gabriel probably would have put him in a headlock until he tore the envelope open.
Aw. Poor Nicky. They don’t want you.
Gabriel wouldn’t be upset. He didn’t want his twin to go.
That was another big part of the guilt.
He caught himself entering line items twice, and he pulled his hands off the keys to rub at his eyes. School was closed this week, thanks to the recent fire in the library, but he should probably be using the extra time to study. There was no money for college, so grades were everything right now.
His cell phone buzzed against the table, making him jump. The air had turned sharp and cold while he’d been going through these invoices, and he tried to make himself relax, knowing the air would do the same if he could mentally get himself to a better place.
He ran a thumb along the screen to wake it. A text message.
Quinn. His girlfriend.
Sort of.
Really, his relationship with Quinn was just one more thing that belonged on a list of all that made him feel insecure, uncertain, and guilty.
Any way you can pick me up at the Y?
Nick glanced at the clock. Gabriel had the car and Michael had the truck. Michael would be home first, but not for another twenty minutes. He typed back quickly.
Not for a while. You OK?
Fought with Mom again.
Nick winced. He texted back.
I can get you. 30 mins OK?
Sure. I’ll be in studio.
The studio was really just a room at the back of the Y, with half a mirrored wall and a barre bolted awkwardly into the patches of drywall. But Quinn’s parents wouldn’t pay for dance lessons, and Quinn had been kicked off the s
chool dance team.
Unlike Nick, she knew exactly who, what, and where she wanted to be.
She just couldn’t get there.
He hadn’t met her parents yet, but apparently her mother had been put on this earth with the sole purpose of torturing Quinn, and her dad had nothing better to do than stare at the television—when he wasn’t running his mouth about how amazing Quinn’s older brother was. Quinn had a younger brother, too. He stayed out of the line of fire by hiding behind headphones and video game controllers.
Tensions had been running high in Quinn’s house before a fire had burned the place down—part of a string of arson attacks started by another Elemental in town. But now her family was living in temporary housing, a cramped three-bedroom condo closer to Annapolis.
And Nick thought he had problems.
He didn’t hear the front door open, but the air told him when Michael was home.
It also told him that Chris and Becca were struggling to right themselves in the living room.
Nick smiled and entered the last invoice into the computer, then set aside the three where payments were missing.
Michael looked beat when he walked into the kitchen, and Nick was glad he’d gotten the paperwork done.
His brother grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and dropped into a chair. “Thanks for taking care of that.”
Nick always did, but he shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
“You think you could help me with a job tomorrow, since school is out?”
Nick had been planning to spend the day doing more college applications, tweaking entrance essays, and taking a few more SAT practice tests.
But Michael looked exhausted, and Nick could put that stuff off for a few hours. “Sure,” he said. Then he paused, thinking of Quinn. “You think you could let me borrow the truck for an hour?”
Michael had to be tired, because he took another drink of water, then tossed the keys on the table.
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