Storm

by Brigid Kemmerer

Becca straightened. Where’ve you been all this time?

  The words were practically burning her lips. She just wasn’t ready for the answer.

  “What about lunch?” she said when he turned onto her street.

  Her dad kept his eyes on the road. “You didn’t seem like you were into it.”

  Did he want an apology? One almost fell out of her mouth anyway. She bit at her lip as he pulled into the driveway. She was still struggling to think of what to say when he killed the engine.

  She started to climb down from the cab and was surprised when he did the same.

  “You’re coming in?” she said.

  “I want to talk to your mother.”

  Those words had weight to them, and she knew—she knew—they were going to talk about her. Probably thinking up some way to manipulate her into spending more time with him.

  She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

  “I’m not your enemy, Becca.”

  She didn’t have an answer for that, so she bolted up the stairs as soon as they were through the door. He could talk to her mom all he wanted; she didn’t have to be a part of it.

  Her mom would probably scrub the gutters with a toothbrush after this.

  But maybe Becca could use this distraction to her advantage.

  She pocketed her keys and crept down the stairs. Sure enough, they were talking in muted tones in the kitchen.

  She could hear her mother’s voice. “Bill, you can’t show up and expect me to force her to—”

  Then her dad’s whisper. “I don’t want you to force her to do anything. But something obviously happened, and I warned you—”

  “Bye!” Becca yelled, opening the door wide. She could still smell paint. “Going to Quinn’s!”

  “Becca,” her mother called. “Wait just a min—”

  Becca slammed the door.

  Then she hopped down the steps, jumped into her car, and started the ignition.

  But at the end of her block, she didn’t turn right, and she didn’t head for Quinn’s house.

  She turned left and drove straight to Chris’s.

  CHAPTER 18

  When she pulled into the driveway, the garage door stood open. The Merrick brothers were outside, hauling bags out of the garage to load them on a flatbed trailer. It was hitched to a red pickup with their name and a landscaping logo on the side.

  She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. This gave her absolutely no chance to reconsider what the hell she was doing here. She’d planned to talk to Chris privately, to mention what had happened to her house, to demand answers.

  Confronting him in front of his entire family was not part of the plan.

  Sunlight warmed the air as she climbed out of the car, though she was glad for her jacket when a breeze raced through the trees to whisper down her neck. The scents coming from the garage made her think of the garden center at Home Depot, something damp and woodsy and not entirely natural, like mulch and topsoil overlaid with a hint of Miracle-Gro. The open garage revealed a huge space that clearly doubled as storage for Michael’s landscaping business. Pallets were stacked along the walls, with bags of things like soil and white sand and red cedar chips. Tools hung everywhere, crammed into every space imaginable, though there had to be a method to the madness.

  Michael was closest to her. He dropped a bag labeled LIMESTONES CREENINGS on the pile at the front of the flatbed. He wore a red tee shirt and jeans and his arms already sported a fine layer of dust. As usual, his voice wasn’t friendly. “You know it’s the twenty-first century?”

  She had no idea what he was talking about. “What?”

  He swiped his hands on his jeans and turned back to the garage. He called over his shoulder, “Ever hear of a phone?”

  She straightened her back and stared after him. “Ever hear of manners?”

  He was already heaving another bag onto his shoulder, his expression lost in the shadows. “You mean like driving up to someone’s house uninvited?”

  What an asshole. “Maybe if you weren’t—”

  “Becca.” Chris was carrying a bag of the same stuff out of the garage. “Just ignore him.”

  He flung the bag on top of the pile, then jumped off the trailer to come over to her. His tee shirt was black, and dust streaked across the front of his chest. Sweat had collected on his forehead, and he ducked his head to wipe it on his sleeve.

  He seemed wary; that vague tension they’d shared last night still hung between them. “What’s up?”

  “I just—” She faltered. One of the twins was carrying another bag to the flatbed. He barely gave her a nod. They looked tired—and those bags looked heavy.

  They were busy.

  All at once, she wanted to slink back to her car. Someone had just painted a star in a circle on her door. Tyler had a gun, and had demonstrated he wasn’t afraid to use it—would he really stoop to something like teenage pranks to intimidate her? Maybe it was just like her dad said, some stupid kid being stupid. It wasn’t as if pentagrams were unique to Elementals.

  “You’re busy,” she backpedaled. “I shouldn’t have just shown up like this—”

  “It’s all right.” Chris moved closer, until she caught his scent, like sunshine and limestone.

  “Chris.” Michael had another bag, and he added it to the stack. “Less talk. More work.”

  A spark of irritation lit Chris’s features, but he turned toward the garage. “Come on. Talk to me while I load. He’s just pissed because he’s already late.”

  Becca followed him into the cool cavern of the garage. He picked up a bag from the stack and heaved it onto his shoulder.

  This felt awkward. “Can I help you? Or—”

  “Go ahead.” He flashed a smile. “Bring one out.”

  She bent and slid her hands under the slick edges of the sack. It felt like a bag of sand, and it was marked 35KG. She could never remember if kilograms were more than pounds or the other way around, but she crouched and heaved and attempted to lift the sack of limestone.

  Christ. It’s more. Kilograms are more. The bag had to weigh at least eighty pounds. She couldn’t even get it off the pallet.

  “Excuse me.”

  One of the twins, his voice threaded with humor. She stepped back, already sensing sweat on her back, just from that moment of effort. She felt like an idiot.

  Especially when he hooked his hands under two bags and lifted them against his chest.

  “Showoff,” she said.

  He shook the hair off his forehead. “Maybe you could go in the kitchen and bake us some cookies or something.”

  “Shut up.”

  He gave her a wicked grin over his shoulder. “Just saying.”

  Then Chris was back, grabbing another bag for himself. “Come on. Gabriel will rag on you all day if you let him.”

  How does he tell them apart?

  He let her walk in silence until he dumped his bag. Then he stood on the side of the flatbed and looked down at her.

  “Becca?”

  She had to give him some reason for being here. “I ... ah ... thought we should talk about the project.”

  His brow furrowed. “For History?”

  Yeah, it sounded lame to her, too. “I didn’t have your number, so I thought maybe—”

  He pointed at the side of the truck. “It’s the same as the business number. I’ll write it down for you, or you can just Google it—”

  “Chris!” Michael had a clipboard in one hand now.

  Chris swore under his breath and gave his brother a scathing look. “Would you give it a rest—”

  “I’m supposed to lay a flagstone patio by sundown. Move.”

  “I’ll go.” Becca tucked her hair behind her ear and glanced quickly at Michael. “We can talk on Monday.”

  Chris shifted closer to her. “He can wait one minute.” He studied her face, and his voice dropped. “Tell me what you really came to say.”

  This close, she could hear his breathing, just a little quic
k from the exertion. He looked good, all dirty and rugged and streaked with dust. She felt like she should move away.

  Michael came around to their side of the trailer, and she felt Chris stiffen. Becca almost wanted to duck behind him. But his brother held the clipboard out to her. “Here. You want to stay? Keep count.”

  She opened her mouth. Closed it. “Ah ... okay. Sure.”

  He didn’t even stay to explain what she was counting, just handed her the pen and walked off to grab a bag for himself. Chris followed him. The clipboard held a carbon form, with scrawled handwriting listing different products she’d never heard of. But she made out Limestone Screenings, followed by the number 18.

  She hustled to count. “You need three more,” she called.

  The other twin—had to be Nick—lifted his shirt to wipe his face. “How many bags of pavestone?”

  And just like that, she found herself playing foreman.

  They worked fast once they found a rhythm, and she did her best to keep track of what was what, especially when each brother started loading a different product. She called quantities when they asked for them, making tiny marks to keep herself straight. The labeled bags were easy, but who the hell knew the difference between flagstone and granite pavers? Or arctic slate and pavestone dividers? At first she felt awkward, especially when they were clearly looking to her for direction on what to put on the trailer.

  But it felt good to have a task to occupy her mind, to do something normal.

  Less than an hour later, the trailer was packed with bags and equipment, and Michael stopped in front of her, his hand out for the clipboard.

  She gave it to him, ready for a snide remark.

  He didn’t give her one. He just read down the list—checking her numbers, she guessed—then glanced up. “Nice work.”

  Becca waited for the other shoe to drop. “Thanks?”

  He reached into his back pocket for his wallet. Then he pulled a twenty out of the fold and held it out to her. “No, thank you.”

  She shook her head quickly. “I didn’t—you don’t have to pay me.”

  “Sure I do. You worked, you get paid.”

  “Take the cash!” called Gabriel. He’d found a basketball somewhere, and despite the fact that he’d been hauling eighty-pound bags for the better part of an hour, he was tossing it at the basket above the open garage door. “We’ll get a pizza.”

  She blushed and faltered, surprised at the sudden camaraderie. “But—”

  “Would you take the money?” Michael thrust it forward. “I’m late.”

  “Fine.” She snatched it out of his fist.

  He turned away to slide the clipboard onto the dash of the truck. “Come on, Nick.”

  Nick was already climbing into the cab. He’d pulled a baseball hat onto his head, a red one with a logo that matched the one on the truck. “See you, Becca.”

  Michael leaned out the window and looked at his brothers. “Stay out of trouble.”

  Gabriel bounced the basketball off the side of the truck. Hard. “No promises.”

  Michael actually looked like he was going to get out of the cab and go after him, but Nick grabbed his arm. “I have his keys. Let’s just go.”

  Now Gabriel flung the ball at the truck. “Nicky, you suck.” But Michael was starting the diesel engine, and then they were pulling down the driveway.

  She stood there for a moment, feeling awkward. She’d flown over here, ready for everything to fall apart at the seams. Finding them doing normal Saturday things left her thrown.

  Chris was watching her; she could feel it. Just when she’d worked out how to get back in her car and pull down the driveway without looking like too much of an idiot, he said, “You hungry?”

  She hesitated—and it was long enough for him to turn away, for her to realize he expected her to refuse.

  “I am,” said Gabriel. He’d reclaimed the ball, and threw from halfway down the driveway for an easy three-pointer.

  “Come on,” said Chris, and she wasn’t entirely certain he was talking to her. “Pizza sounds good. Let’s go inside and call.” He reached up and grabbed the garage door, giving it a yank to start it rolling.

  Becca was still deliberating whether Chris had issued a real invitation—or whether he was just waiting for her to leave. So she didn’t pay attention to the stripes of red spray paint on the light blue of the wooden panels as they rolled, and she didn’t make out the pattern until the whole thing had slammed to the ground.

  But there in the middle of the garage door, as tall as she was, sat a red pentagram.

  CHAPTER 19

  Becca couldn’t stop staring. “A pentagram.”

  Gabriel whistled through his teeth. “Wow, brother, you do pick the Mensa candidates.”

  Chris shot him a glare. “Shut up.”

  Becca couldn’t even get offended—she was still staring at the garage door. This couldn’t be a coincidence. “But ... what does it mean?”

  “It’s a warning,” said Chris.

  “Wrong,” said Gabriel. “It’s a target.”

  A target. She glanced between them. “I don’t understand.”

  Chris came to stand beside her, staring at the door. He lifted a hand to rub at the back of his neck. “It means they’ve called the Guides.” He hesitated. “Nick found it this morning. Michael doesn’t know.”

  Gabriel snorted and flung the ball at the center of the pentagram. “Like it would matter.”

  She bit at her lip. “But that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “They’ve been threatening this for a while.”

  “No,” she said, rotating to face them both. Her fists clenched at her sides. “It doesn’t make any sense because there’s one on my door.”

  They both stared at her for the longest moment.

  Becca didn’t like the way they were looking at her—a little too intensely. “My dad painted over it this morning. Aren’t the Guides the ones who kill people? Who take out the accused and the accusers?”

  Gabriel shoved Chris on the shoulder. “I see you held nothing back.”

  Chris ignored him. “When did you find it? This morning?”

  She nodded. “So ... does that mean Tyler put it there?” That would make sense, since Tyler clearly thought she was involved. It would make her feel better somehow, as if she could extricate herself from this mess with a simple explanation or a written note.

  To whom it may concern: I’m not involved. Honest. Hugs, Becca

  “It doesn’t have to be Tyler. It could be any one of them.” Chris shrugged. “The Guides come to town in secret, just to observe.”

  “Then,” said Gabriel, emphasizing his words with another three-pointer, “they judge.”

  “How are you so calm about this?” she demanded. “They’re going to kill me, and you’re—”

  “Shh.” Gabriel put a finger over her lips. Her eyes widened.

  “First,” he said quietly, “anger is not our friend right now. You get me?”

  His hand was warm against her face. She stared up into his eyes and remembered the coil of flame on his palm last night.

  Or Tyler’s grip on her arm in the pet store.

  She swallowed and nodded.

  “They’re not going to kill you,” he said. “Because you don’t matter.”

  He didn’t mean it the way it sounded. She knew that. But the words still made her flinch, just a little.

  Chris grabbed his brother’s hand and shoved him away. “Leave her alone. She doesn’t know.”

  “You should have kept it that way,” said Gabriel. “The more naïve she is, the better off she’d be.”

  “She is standing right here,” said Becca.

  “The Guides won’t bother you,” said Chris. “Sure, they might be watching you—”

  “Watching me?”

  “—but you aren’t one of us. They’ll realize that you aren’t an Elemental.” Chris leaned in, and she heard the strain behind his voice. “When I said they’r
e judge, jury, and executioner, I meant they don’t fuck around. But they aren’t stupid.”

  Her breathing felt too quick, matching his.

  “What about you?” she finally said.

  His blue eyes hardened, and his voice was flat. “If they’re watching you, you should probably stay away from me.”

  A phone started ringing, and it took Becca a minute to realize it was in her pocket. She looked at the display of her new phone and recognized Quinn’s number.

  She pushed the button to answer and skipped the greeting. “How did you know I have a new phone?”

  “Called your house. Your mom’s pissed.” Quinn sounded pissed herself.

  “Why?”

  “Because you told her you were with me.”

  Crap. “What’d you say?”

  “That she shouldn’t worry; I’d only seen you drunk behind the wheel a handful of times. Where are you that you need a cover?”

  Becca glanced up and swallowed. Chris hadn’t moved. He still stood in her personal space, very close. He could probably hear Quinn.

  She turned to face the front walkway and had to clear her throat. “Chris Merrick’s house.”

  There was a very obvious pause. “Uh huh,” said Quinn.

  “Is that a girl?” Gabriel bounced the ball across the driveway. “Invite her over.”

  “Is that Chris?” said Quinn. “Did he just invite me over?”

  Were they crazy?

  “His brother,” Becca ground out. “And he’s kidding—”

  “Listen,” said Quinn, “if you’re busy and all, I get it, but I was wondering if you’d go to the mall with me for a few hours.”

  “Now?” Becca felt heat crawling up her neck. Chris had to have moved close—she could feel the warmth from his body again, could smell the limestone dust on his skin.

  “Well, you’re working tomorrow,” Quinn prattled on, “and I need a dress—”

  “Go,” said Chris.

  He spoke right at her shoulder. She couldn’t focus on both of them at once. “A—a dress? For—”

  “Homecoming,” said Quinn. “See, after last night, I thought Rafe might ask me, and I wanted to have some ideas—”

  “Go,” said Chris. There was no give in his expression.