Sacrifice

by Brigid Kemmerer

  She moved closer and put her head on his shoulder. “But now I understand why.”

  Nick sighed, but he didn’t say anything.

  “I should have known you were too good to be true,” she said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means my luck sucks,” she said. “It was nice dating a guy who treated me like a friend instead of a blow-up doll.”

  “You were the one trying to unzip my pants in the truck!”

  “Yeah, well, I thought you weren’t interested. I didn’t realize that your divining rod just pointed in a different direction.”

  “You’re killing me,” he said. But it sounded like he was smiling.

  Quinn sighed. “So I’m back on the market. You should have left me on the beach with those guys.”

  His voice sharpened right up. “Quinn, that was insane. You know that, right? After what happened with Becca—you can’t—you just—”

  “I had nowhere to go!” she cried. “My mother threw me out again—”

  “Next time, call me. Or Becca. This was crazy. Anything could have happened.”

  “Becca was with Chris. And you—you weren’t—”

  “I wasn’t what?” He pushed her off him so he could look down at her. His voice was fierce. “I wasn’t your friend? I wasn’t concerned? Jesus, Quinn, just because I don’t want to sleep with you doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”

  She stared at him. No one had ever lectured her like that.

  She kind of liked it.

  Nick ran a hand through his hair. “God, you’re crazy. Do you think people will only like you because you put out?”

  “I don’t just think that,” she snapped. “It’s true.”

  “It’s not,” he said softly. “I promise you. It’s not.” He paused. “You said it was nice dating a guy who was a friend. Why don’t you slow down a bit and take a break from all the . . . ah, extracurriculars ?”

  Quinn smiled. “You and your vocabulary.”

  “I’m serious,” he said. “Why don’t you put all that passion into your dancing?”

  “So you want me to hump Adam on stage? I’m not sure that’s the kind of audition he’s looking for.”

  “Quinn.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. She was losing Becca to Chris. It was okay, and she got it, but now she was going to lose Nick, too. It was almost enough to force tears between her lashes again.

  She opened her eyes and looked down at him. Her voice was choked. “Could we keep dating?” When Nick frowned, she rushed on. “Not like for reals. Just—just for a little while?”

  “Why?”

  Because she didn’t trust herself not to jump on another motorcycle the next time her mom was a raging bitch or a cheerleader called her fat or there wasn’t any chocolate in the house. Because Nick was still someone steady to lean on, someone who wouldn’t use her. Somehow this revelation made him safer, and for the first time, she wanted to cling to a boy especially because he didn’t want to put his Tab A into her Slot B.

  Not like she could say that. “It would help you, right? Keep a secret?” When he didn’t say anything, she studied his eyes. “Or . . . are you going to come out . . . ?”

  He sat up quickly and rubbed at his face. “No. No. I don’t know.”

  She spoke carefully. “It would buy us both some time.”

  His hands dropped. “So . . . a secret. Why would you do that for me?”

  Quinn hugged him and spoke into his shoulder. “Because you’re my friend, too.” She paused, and a smile found its way into her voice. “You know, if I’m dancing with Adam, my boyfriend would have to come along to a lot of my rehearsals.”

  He laughed again, more softly this time. But then he hesitated. “Do you really think I could?”

  Nick finally climbed into bed at five in the morning. He was going to be a zombie on those landscaping jobs today.

  Quinn was safely asleep at Becca’s, with a stern warning to call him if she felt any need to go anywhere else.

  And Adam . . .

  “Hey. You’re up. Everything okay with Quinn?”

  Nick jumped a mile. He was lucky he didn’t pee his pants. Gabriel was there in the doorway, wearing running shoes and a hoody.

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “Long night.”

  “Anything interesting happen?”

  Ha.

  For a heartbeat of time, Nick considered telling him everything. Then he shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “I’m going back to sleep for a few hours.”

  “Sure you don’t want to go for a run?”

  Maybe Gabriel sensed the energy in the room, because Nick was actually considering it. Being out in the crisp air, letting oxygen fill his lungs and charge him with power.

  But then he thought of those jobs later this morning.

  He thought of the secrets he was keeping from his twin.

  He thought of that envelope on his desk, with the letter he didn’t want to open. Or that kiss, when he’d been swept into the maelstrom of emotion and touch and tongues and—

  His phone buzzed on the nightstand, and Nick glanced at the lit-up display. His heart skipped a beat when he recognized Adam’s number.

  Then he realized Gabriel was still waiting.

  “Not today,” Nick said. “You go on without me.”

  When his brother was gone, Nick unlocked the screen to read Adam’s message.

  When you’re sure of what you want, I’ll be right here.

  Find out where it all started! Read on for a sample of Storm, the first in The Elemental Series by Brigid Kemmerer.

  CHAPTER 1

  The self-defense class had been a waste of sixty bucks.

  Becca hadn’t felt like a victim going in, but she sure did now. When she’d seen the flyers around school advertising a three-hour session with a “women’s defense specialist,” she’d been eager to sign up. But the instructor—really just some college kid named Paul—had been texting half the time, happy enough to pocket their cash in exchange for halfhearted instructions about body blocks and eye gouges. She’d lose another Saturday scrubbing kennels to make this money back.

  She’d left her cell phone in her locker, so after class she went to get it. Her best friend had left fourteen texts about some drama with her mom, so Becca stood in the shadowed corridor to write back. Quinn wasn’t exactly patient.

  The night air bit at her flushed skin when she slid out the side door, making her wish she’d brought a heavier jacket—but at least the promised rain had held off. Darkness cloaked the now empty parking lot, and her car sat alone near the security lamp in the middle of the cracked concrete.

  This was exactly the kind of situation Paul had warned them about: secluded and solitary, offering little visibility. But Becca welcomed the darkness, the silence. She almost wished she smoked, so she could lie on the car’s hood, flick a lighter, and make up names for the constellations while nicotine burned her lungs.

  You should be so cool.

  Her key found the lock, but the door handle to her aged Honda refused to release. She muttered the obligatory prayer, but nothing happened. Sometimes it took a curse.

  Then she heard a muffled shout, a distant scuffle on pavement.

  She froze, more curious than afraid. A fight? Here? She saw the combatants, just at the edge of the security light over by the east wing. Three guys fighting, two on one, it looked like. One caught another in a headlock, and the third swung a fist at the captive’s midsection while he struggled.

  They weren’t saying anything, making the violence cartoonish and unreal, like watching an action movie on mute.

  The kid in the headlock twisted free, his liberty quickly rewarded with a fist to the head, sending him into a stagger. Another punch brought him to the ground.

  Then he didn’t move. One of the other guys kicked him in the stomach.

  She heard that. And the sound made her remember that she was just standing in the middle of a parking lot, watching.

&n
bsp; Becca dropped beside her car. Breath whistled into her lungs. She didn’t want to open the door and have the sound or the light draw their attention. She’d call the police. An ambulance. The whole frigging cavalry.

  She thrust her hand into her bag for her cell phone.

  Dead.

  Damn Quinn and her fifty bazillion texts. Becca swore and punched the phone against the pavement. The cover snapped off, skittering away under her car.

  Helpful, Bex.

  She peeked around the front bumper. The fallen boy lay in a crumpled pile.

  They kicked him again.

  “Get up,” she whispered.

  He didn’t.

  She tried to make out who the kids were. Some senior boys got off on violence. She knew a few of them firsthand—some only by reputation. The Merrick twins, maybe?

  They were circling now, like vultures. One nudged the fallen boy with his foot.

  Then he kicked him. “Get up.”

  “Yeah,” said the other one. “How’d you get rid of them?”

  The voices were sharp, cruel. She held her breath, wishing she could help somehow. But what could she do? Run at them with her water bottle and the splintered plastic of her cell phone? Maybe she could practice that “confident woman’s walk” Paul had demonstrated.

  If only she had a weapon, something to level the playing field.

  You idiot. You do have a weapon.

  Her car.

  Adrenaline made for a good ally. She’d barely thought it before she was crawling through the back door and climbing into the driver’s seat, driving straight at them.

  She had the satisfaction of watching her headlights illuminate their panic; then they were scrambling, diving to get out of the way. Not the Merrick twins, not anyone she could make out at all. Her foot punched the brakes at the last second, jerking the car to an abrupt stop.

  “I called the cops!” she shouted out the window, feeling her heart kick against her ribs. “They’re on their way!”

  But the boys were already bolting into the darkness.

  Her fingers refused to release the steering wheel for the longest moment. She finally pried them free, and, leaving the engine running, eased out of the car.

  She wished she’d turned the car differently, because the boy was mostly in shadow, away from the headlights. He lay face-down, the thick dark hair on his head matted with blood at one temple. They’d done a number on his face: More blood glistened on his swollen brow. Abrasions scored his cheek in various directions, as though he’d met the pavement intimately, and more than once. His black hoodie had taken a beating, and his jeans weren’t much better, sporting a tear down the side of one leg. He was breathing, a rattle of air pulling into his lungs, ending on a slight wheeze each time.

  She’d never seen someone beaten so badly.

  “Hey.” She gave his shoulder a little shake. He didn’t move.

  Those boys had run off on foot. She had no idea if they’d stay gone.

  Now what, genius?

  She left her car engine running, its headlights cutting a path in the darkness. She reached inside the door and pulled out her half-empty water bottle. She crouched beside him, feeling the cold grit of the pavement through her jeans. Then, using her hand to slow the flow, she trickled water down the side of his face.

  At first, nothing happened. She watched in macabre fascination as the water pulled blood across his jaw, trailing over his split lip.

  Then he came to with a vengeance.

  Becca wasn’t ready for that, for him to explode off the ground in a fury, his fists swinging before his eyes were open.

  She was lucky he was injured. She barely got out of his way.

  His momentum didn’t last long, however. He staggered to a knee, planting a hand against the pavement. He coughed and it shook his body; then he spit what looked like blood.

  Now that he wasn’t lying on the ground, she recognized him. Christopher Merrick. Chris. He was a junior, like she was, but she couldn’t think of two words they’d ever exchanged. He was the Merrick twins’ younger brother, the type of guy who’d slouch in the back of the classroom and stare at the teachers with disdain, daring them to call on him. People left him alone, but that’s how he seemed to like it. An outsider by choice.

  Unlike her.

  “You gave me water,” he rasped, his head down.

  His voice startled her, made her realize she was just standing there, clutching her water bottle so hard it made the plastic crackle.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Those guys—they could come back—”

  “Are you stupid?”

  The derision in his voice was like a punch to the chest. “Funny. I was just asking myself that.”

  “No. I just—I could have hurt—” Chris coughed again, then pressed his forehead to the ground, making a low sound in his throat. He spit blood again. She felt like she was standing in the middle of one of those cable crime dramas—the kind where the violence is too much for network television.

  “Do you have a cell phone?” She cast a quick look out into the darkness, but the night remained still. “You need an ambulance.”

  “I need a damn rainstorm.” He seemed to laugh, but it choked him. “A drizzle. Fog even.”

  He was delirious. “Can you get into the car? I can drive you to the hospital.”

  “No. Home.”

  “Whatever. Climb in the car. Those guys could come back, and I’m not—”

  A hand closed on her arm, hot and meaty and painful. A voice spoke from the darkness. “Did you think we wouldn’t wait and see?”

  “Big surprise.” The other voice now. “No sirens.”

  That hand swung her around. This guy didn’t go to her school. He looked older. College, maybe. Short blond hair framed a severe face, all angles and lines.

  Something scraped on the pavement. “This is going to suck,” said Chris.

  The other one was dragging him to his feet.

  Becca knew how to swallow pain and keep emotion off her face. “Let me go. I didn’t call the cops, but he did.”

  Those sharp features cracked into a smile. “We took his phone.”

  “Good try,” said Chris. He coughed again. The other guy punched him in the side, and he dropped to the pavement.

  The one on her arm shoved her up against her car. It hurt. She squealed before she could help it.

  “You should have driven away, sweetheart.”

  “Nah,” said the other, his dark hair making him look sinister. “That right there is dessert.”

  Then she recognized his voice. Seth Ramsey. A senior. And part of the reason she’d been in that self-defense class.

  His friend reached out to cup her chin. “Yeah. Dessert.”

  Maybe it was Seth’s presence; maybe it was the implication in their words. Whatever, her mind didn’t think, her body just moved. The water bottle went flying and her arm swung.

  Eye gouge.

  Something squished under her fingers. He dropped her arm like a hot potato, shoving her away, flying back to put a hand to his face. “Bitch! You bitch!”

  Holy crap! It works! She was choking on her breath, but she was free.

  “Shut up, Tyler,” Seth hissed. “She might not have called the cops, but you’re gonna—”

  “Freeze. Right there.”

  At first she thought the cops had shown up. But it was Chris, her water bottle in his hand. He’d found his feet somehow, and though he looked a little unsteady, their assailants went still.

  Chris drew a shaky breath. “Back off. Or I’ll mean that literally.”

  Mean what literally?

  “Yeah, right,” said Seth. “It’s one bottle.”

  Chris shook it. The water sloshed. “Try me.”

  K TEEN BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2014 by Brigid Kemmerer

  All rights reserved. No part
of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K Teen logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-0-7582-9439-5

  eISBN-10: 0-7582-9440-9

  First Kensington Electronic Edition: October 2014

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7582-9439-5

  ISBN-10: 0-7582-9439-5

  First Kensington Trade Paperback Printing: October 2014