Spirit (8 page)

H
unter stared at the ceiling and waited for sleep to find him, but it didn’t seem to be looking too hard. Casper was a heavy weight at his side, his muzzle tucked under a paw. Nick’s breathing was slow and even, a solid indicator of sleep.

Hunter pulled the phone out of his pocket and scrolled through the menu until he found Kate’s last text.

Bueller . . . Bueller . . . Bueller.

He’d never responded.

He should have just deleted it, but his message from this morning, the one about his grandfather, sat there right above it.

He’d been such an
idiot
. Why had he told her about it? God, he’d been ready to completely unravel in front of her, and then she’d started texting some other guy.

The phone suddenly vibrated in his hand, and he almost dropped it.

I am going to stare at you until you respond. O_O

It made him smile.

He told himself to knock it off.

His phone vibrated again.

O_O

And again.

O_O

Hunter slid his thumb across the keys.

Careful. Your eyes will dry out.

As always, her response appeared almost instantly.

I knew the staring would get you.

He didn’t know what to say to that. A pause, and then another message appeared.

What are you still doing up?

I couldn’t sleep while someone was staring at me.

Why did you throw me out of your car this morning?

Hunter had no idea how to respond.
I didn’t want to get played
seemed like the wrong thing to say.

He already felt like a loser for almost breaking down in front of her. No sense adding more weight to that.

Then again, she’d lost her mother. Maybe he’d misread this morning entirely.

Nick’s breathing changed, and he shifted on the bed, running a hand across his face before looking down at Hunter. “What are you doing?” He glanced at the clock on his nightstand. “It’s two a.m.”

“Sorry. Can’t sleep.” Hunter clicked the phone off and shoved it under the blanket.

“Who are you texting?”

“Nobody.”

A pause. A long one.

A weighted one.

Then Nick’s voice gained an edge as he said, “Is this some elaborate trick to get in our house? Are you reporting back to Bill about us—”

“I’m not.” Hunter paused. “It’s just a girl.”

“Prove it.”

Hunter’s pride wanted him to refuse—but he really couldn’t blame Nick for not trusting him. He pulled the phone out from under the blanket, unlocked the screen until Kate’s texts were visible, and tossed it.

Nick took a quick glance, then tossed it back. The edge was gone from his voice. “Kate? The one who just transferred?”

Hunter looked up in surprise—though her name was clearly at the top of the screen. “How did you know?

“She asked me about you today.”

“She did?” That statement was full of highs and lows. She’d asked about him—but she’d asked
Nick
. Had she sat with Nick again?

He didn’t care. He didn’t.

Yeah, he did.

God, he needed to stop being such an
idiot
.

But he couldn’t stop thinking about her. “What’d she say?”

“She asked if I knew why you were ditching school.”

His heart felt like it was beating faster. No, it felt like it wanted a break from being inside his rib cage. His phone was a warm weight in his hand, and he wanted to pull it out from under the blanket to see if she’d written again. “And what did you say?”

“Ah . . . I said
no
.”

Right.

Hunter rolled back to look at the ceiling.

Nick said, “Do you know her?”

Hunter shook his head.

“Interested?”

Yes. Immensely.
“Not really.” Hunter looked down at Casper, who was blowing puffs of warm breath against his arm. “She seemed into you, though.”

Nick snorted. “Yeah, in a way that made Quinn want to pull her hair out by the roots. I think she’s just friendly.” He paused. “You don’t have to worry about me being interested.”

Well, at least that was something. “You and Quinn getting serious?”

“Something like that.”

“I think Kate’s a player.”

“Yeah?”

Hunter pushed the hair back from his face and sighed. “She climbed in my car this morning, but then started texting some other guy.”

“Quinn saw her get into a truck with someone yesterday.”

Well, there went that. Hunter let go of his phone. It fell off the air mattress and onto the carpet.

Nick continued, “To hear Quinn tell it, he was—well, I’m not going to repeat her phrase, but let’s just say Kate seemed into him.”

Hunter didn’t say anything.

His subconscious was screaming at him.
DUDE. You are an IDIOT.

She was probably laughing about him with this other guy.

The room was so silent that Hunter was sure Nick had fallen back to sleep. Tension still had him by the throat, but he started to doze himself.

Nick’s voice caught him. “Hey.” His voice was rough with almost sleep. “I didn’t mean to see the text about what happened with your grandfather. You didn’t say that earlier.”

Now Hunter was fully awake again. “It’s fine.”

“I won’t tell—”

“I said it’s fine,” he snapped. This whole situation was just one big reminder of all his failures. Besides, Hunter didn’t want to think about his
home stuff
, not now, in the dark, lying on the floor of someone else’s room.

Then he realized that he probably shouldn’t be a total shit in someone else’s room, either.

“Sorry,” he said. “Long day. I really . . . I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“I get it.” Another pause. “Gabriel can come on like a freight train, but he doesn’t hate you.”

Hunter wasn’t too sure about that.

“Chris, either.”

“Really? So Chris turning the water ice cold while I was in the shower was friendly?”

“Gabriel paid him twenty bucks to do that.”

Hunter smiled.

Nick added, “And then he felt like a
moron
when I told him he could have just turned off the hot water in the basement . . .”

Hunter laughed softly.

And all of a sudden it nailed home how lonely he’d been. The Merricks had each other. He had no one.

He lost the smile. The air in the room suddenly felt heavy. Hunter looked back at the ceiling.

Nick sighed, then rolled up on one arm. “Do you want some space? I can go crash with Gabriel.”

Hunter had no idea what the right answer to that was.

“Seriously, man,” said Nick. “I can feel your tension in the air.”

That made Hunter look over. “Really?”

“It woke me up.”

Hunter looked back at the ceiling. “Sorry.” He paused. “My dad always used to say that Air Elementals were the ones you really had to watch out for.”

Nothing but silence for a moment. Then, “I think it’s a breathing thing. People breathe differently when they’re stressed.” Another pause. “It’s new. I’ve only recently been able to sense emotion that way.”

Hunter remembered a day when Nick had gotten into a fight with Gabriel and made him stop breathing, and Hunter thought maybe his father had been right. “My dad told me about this one guy who always knew if someone was lying, using that same thing, I think. He said he was the strongest Air Elemental he’d ever seen. The guy could jump across buildings, like in Spider-Man, you know?”

“Now
that
would be useful.” Nick sounded intrigued, but then he hesitated. “What happened to him?”

His father had never said specifically—but if he had
known
the guy, he hadn’t known him long. Hunter looked away. “I don’t know.”

“Yeah, you do.”

Hunter gave him a sharp look. “Then so do you. You know what my father was.”

Nick didn’t back down, but he didn’t say anything, either. That weighted silence again.

Then he said, “Why aren’t you like
that
? Aren’t you supposed to be in some training program or something? Isn’t that what happens with you Fifths?”

Nick’s tone almost mirrored the way Hunter’s father used to talk about pure Elementals. “I would have. This fall. I wanted to go when I was younger—when I first
knew
, you know? But my dad wanted to wait, to make sure I was strong enough.”

And he hadn’t been strong enough. He’d thought he was: he’d begged his father and uncle to take him along on their last assignment. Uncle Jay had argued on his behalf, claiming it was just supposed to be surveillance—only his dad had put his foot down.

But his dad changed his mind. They came back for Hunter.

And then one of the numerous rock walls along the Pennsylvania Turnpike had come loose, and the car had been crushed.

Calla claimed responsibility. But Hunter knew it was his own fault.

He shouldn’t have been in the car with his dad and his uncle when it crashed. He shouldn’t have been along at all, because they shouldn’t have turned back for him.

If he hadn’t pitched such a fit, the car wouldn’t have gotten trapped in that rock slide. Calla and her friends would have been too late.

“Do you know other Guides?” said Nick.

Hunter shook his head. “Calla thinks I do, though.”

“Would you bring them if you could?”

“I don’t know.”

“She’s going to kill people.”

Hunter looked over. “She’s going to kill people either way. If I convince a bunch of Guides to come here, is that better?”

“Michael says they’ll come anyway, if she keeps this up.”

“He’s right.”

“So I’ve got a question.”

“Yeah?”

“When they do, whose side are you on?”

Hunter didn’t move. He couldn’t. He’d never nailed it down to such a fine point.

But Nick was right. If the Guides came, they wouldn’t stop with Calla and her crew. They’d take out the Merricks, too.

Hunter had no idea where that left him.

Nick rolled out of bed, dragging his pillow and his comforter with him.

Hunter sat up. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to crash on the floor in Gabriel’s room.”

Hunter didn’t know whether to apologize—and before he could figure it out, Nick was through the door.

He probably should have offered to go downstairs himself.

Nick stuck his head back in the door. “We’re not trying to screw with you, man. None of us are. We’re trying to
help
you.”

Hunter didn’t look at him.

Nick snorted before pulling the door closed. “Maybe doing the same for us wouldn’t be out of line.”

L
iving in the Merrick house was both complicated—and not. Hunter hadn’t thought it would be possible to feel so isolated in the middle of so much . . .
energy
. Gabriel woke him up at the crack of dawn with a cup of water to the face and a kick in the ribs.

“Get up, slacker. Don’t you have a marathon to run at the end of the month?”

Hunter tried to jerk free of the sleeping bag. It wasn’t even four thirty in the morning—and he hadn’t drifted off until after two. “God, are you insane?”

Gabriel was already heading out the door. “Be grateful I didn’t light you on fire.”

“I’m going to break your ankles.”

“Have to catch me first, jackass.”

But the run felt good, getting out of the house and feeling the fresh air on his face.

Even if Gabriel didn’t talk much.

It made Hunter wonder how much of his conversation with Nick had been repeated.

There’d been breakfast, a selection of cereals like Lucky Charms and Cookie Crisp. When he’d asked for fruit or eggs, they all looked at him like he’d grown a second head.

They weren’t mean. They weren’t indifferent.

They were just guarded.

It was exhausting.

By the time school started, he was ready to focus his attention on something else, no matter how mundane the subject.

But then he found Calla Dean by her locker—looking innocent as ever, applying lip gloss. As usual, she looked like a punk sex goddess, tight jeans, an almost see-through shirt, and black rubber bracelets lining her arms, crisscrossing over the flame tattoos. Feather earrings, a bright yellow streak in her hair.

His fists were tight at his sides, but he couldn’t approach her.

He’d gotten a lecture from Michael this morning.
If you’re staying here, you go to school, and you stay out of trouble. We don’t need attention right now. Understand?

“Hunter.”

He turned at the soft voice and found Becca standing there, a spill of dark hair hanging over one shoulder. For the first time in a long while, her voice was gentle, and her eyes were intent on his.

She’d been the first girl he noticed in this school, the first one who didn’t look at him like something to eat—or something to despise. He hadn’t been able to parcel out the Merrick brothers’ powers at first, but hers—hers, he’d sensed from the beginning.

“Hey,” he said.

“Are you okay?”

He glanced past her. “I’ve been better.”

“Chris told me about your grandfather.”

Hunter gritted his teeth. “Yeah, well. I’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

Calla had put her lip gloss away and was staring at them now. She tapped her wrist and mouthed, “Tick tock.”

Hunter sighed. “Come on. Before Calla causes a scene.”

Becca followed him, and her voice was low. “Chris said she’s threatening to start more fires?”

“Yeah.”

Becca’s eyes hardened. “And we can’t just take her out ourselves?”

Of course Becca would immediately want to challenge her. “We need to find out who she’s working with. She had someone with her when she trashed my house. I’ve never seen him before.”

“Another teenager?”

“I think so, but I’ve been watching for him around school and I haven’t seen him.” He couldn’t figure that out, either. Calla’s friends looked at him like they genuinely believed he was roughing her up. They weren’t like Calla, calculating and manipulative, whispering taunts at every turn.

Who was the missing kid? And who else was she working with?

Becca was staring back at Calla now. “Can’t we just ask her?”

“She’s told half the school that I smack her around. I can’t even get close to her.”

“Can
I
ask her?”

Hunter shook his head. “Your dad would lose it if I dragged you into this.”

“All the more reason to help.” She turned on her heel as if ready to confront Calla right there in the hallway.

Hunter grabbed her backpack and hauled her back around. He smiled in spite of himself. “Easy, tiger. Let’s not get crazy.”

“Fine. Give me your gun. Let’s just shoot her.”

He didn’t bother getting shocked over her reaction—he thought about the same thing at least once a day. “My grandfather confiscated it. And you can’t just
shoot
someone.”

“People died in those fires,” Becca whispered fiercely. “Fires that
she
started. Ryan Stacey might have been involved, but she—”

“Yeah, I know.” Hunter held her eyes for a minute, then let go of her backpack. It was only eight a.m., but he was already exhausted. “I don’t want her to start any more fires, either. I’m just trying to figure out how to stop her.”

Becca stared up at him.

And then, to his surprise, she threw her arms around his neck.

Hunter caught her automatically. Her body was warm, and her closeness reminded him of the night she’d slept pressed against him. He’d never had a girl want to be so close to him, and for her to trust him enough to fall asleep in his arms that night—well, he hadn’t wanted to fall asleep himself, just so he wouldn’t miss a minute of it.

He’d wanted to tell her, then. About himself, about who his father was, about his reasons for being in town. He’d told her half-truths, about the accident and about his mom.

He would have told her the rest.

But then Chris Merrick had shown up to drive her to school.

Hunter’s cell phone chimed, snapping him back to the present. He ignored it. Being held felt so good that he didn’t want to let go for anything.

But she pulled back, and he had to release her. “What was that for?” he asked.

“You looked like no one had given you one for a while.”

Hunter stared at her, unsure of what to say. It reminded him of Nick’s comments last night, just in an entirely different way.

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m around if you need to talk.”

“Oh, yeah? Is Chris okay with that?”

“This isn’t about Chris.”

Hunter snorted. His brain felt like it was misfiring about
everything
.

Becca looked at him sternly. “Don’t. Whatever you’re about to say, don’t. You build everyone up to be your enemy, and they’re
not
. Chris and his brothers are trying to help you.”

He took a breath and stared across the hallway at the lockers there. “I know.”

“So am I.” The bell rang and she turned away. “Remember that.”

He watched her walk down the hall, wondering, not for the first time, what would have happened if he’d been honest with her from the start.

Before that thought could go too far, his phone chimed again.

Two texts. Both from Kate.

The first was the one he’d missed while he was hugging Becca.

So are you the pot and I’m the kettle?

Hunter looked up, scanning the hallway, which was quickly emptying of students. If Kate had been watching them, she wasn’t around now.

He looked back at his phone and scrolled to the next message.

Who’s the brunette?

Wow. His fingers flew across the screen.

She’s just a friend.

Her reply popped up in a heartbeat.

She looked very friendly.

He frowned at the phone and typed furiously.

I heard you were pretty friendly with some guy with a pickup truck.

A long pause. Hunter felt his heartbeat slamming against his rib cage.

It felt fantastic to push against someone, to have the upper hand about something.

But it also felt like crap.

Did he really do that?

The phone chimed.

I don’t understand what happened.

He frowned at the phone. Then typed.

Me, either.

And he waited, but she didn’t write back.

All day.

At the end of the day, Hunter drove to the Merrick house, but he sat in the jeep with the engine running.

It felt ridiculous, but he wasn’t entirely sure if he was welcome for another night. He hadn’t gone to the cafeteria at lunch, because he’d been making up a quiz he’d missed while job hunting, and it wasn’t like he and Chris ever said a word to each other in World History.

Really, if Casper weren’t locked in the house, he might have gone back to the Target parking lot again.

His breath was fogging in the confines of the car, and he swore. He wasn’t used to being so off balance.

Finally, he threw himself out of the car, setting his shoulders and shoving his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. If they didn’t want him here, he’d just grab his dog and leave.

The front door was unlocked, but Casper wasn’t inside the house. No one was.

For an instant, Hunter wondered if this was some big trick, if they were all screwing with him.

Then he heard a dog bark from the backyard.

He strode through the kitchen and slid the glass door open. The sky was a gradually darkening gray, and the chill in the air had been biting through his clothes all afternoon. Michael was out in the grass, throwing a tennis ball while Casper went tearing after it.

Michael noticed him and looked up. “Hey. How was school?”

“I didn’t get hassled by Vickers or Calla.” He paused. His dog was trotting back to Michael with the ball half hanging out of his mouth. The only acknowledgment he gave Hunter was a quick
woof
muffled by the ball. Hunter smiled. “Thanks for letting Casper out.”

“He’s been out all day.”

“He has?”

“Yeah. When I walked out the door this morning, he bolted past me and jumped in the bed of the truck. I tried to get him back in the house, but he wouldn’t go. So I just took him with me.”

Casper dropped the ball at Michael’s feet and barked.

“Traitor,” Hunter called.

Michael picked up the ball and beaned it into the woods. He had one hell of an arm—the ball was
gone
. Casper took off like a shot.

“Where’s everyone else?” Hunter said.

“I didn’t have an evening job, so they all made plans. I think they’re hitting the school carnival later. Aren’t you?”

A carnival. Like he could possibly go to something like that while Calla was probably sitting at home figuring out which house she was going to torch first.

“Nah,” he said.

“So I called your mom today,” said Michael.

Hunter snapped his head up. Michael had asked for his mom’s phone number last night—under the pretense of needing it in case of an emergency. “You
what
?”

“She needed to know where you were.”

“She has my cell number,” he snapped. “She could have found me if she wanted.” Hunter felt like he couldn’t catch his breath. Emotions ricocheted around in his head.

She’d watched him walk out. He shouldn’t give a crap what she thought.

But he did. A lot.

He didn’t want to ask what she’d said. His fingernails were digging rivets into the porch railing.

Casper was back, dropping the ball at Michael’s feet and nosing it forward when it wasn’t thrown immediately.

Michael obliged him, flinging it into the woods again. It cracked against a tree somewhere out of sight. Casper was off.

Michael glanced up at the porch. “She said she’d put the rest of your things together, if you want to come get them.”

Those words hit hard. Michael could have thrown the ball at
him
and the impact would have hurt less. Hunter couldn’t even speak. His voice would break and he’d look like a total wuss.

She hadn’t said, “Tell Hunter to come home.”

She’d said she’d pack up his stuff.

Splinters from the railing were beginning to drive up under his fingernails, but the pain was keeping him grounded.

“You doing anything right now? Have any plans?” said Michael.

Hunter swallowed and told himself to knock it off. “Nothing.”

“Good. Come on, I’ll drive you over.”

“I don’t—that’s—” He had to slow his thoughts down or they’d never make it out of his mouth coherently. “I don’t want to go over there.”

“Why?”

Because I don’t want to see
him
.

Hunter set his jaw. “What am I going to do, dump it in your basement? Keep sleeping on Nick’s floor?” His voice was hard, but inside, his heart was a frigging
wreck
. “Casper,” he called.
“Hierr.”
The dog bolted to his side, but Hunter was already off the porch and heading for the front of the house.

For his car.

“Hey,” Michael called after him.

Hunter didn’t stop.

But Michael was faster than Hunter gave him credit for, and he caught up before Hunter could close the door to his jeep.

Hunter slammed the door back at him, making Michael fall back a step. He followed it up with a solid shove. “Leave me
alone
,” he shouted. “Just leave me—”

Then his voice broke and he was crying.

This was horrible and humiliating and he wanted to throw the jeep into neutral and just let it roll over himself.

Michael didn’t touch him. Good thing, because Hunter would have punched him.

He imagined it, the motion, the impact, exactly how much force it would take, what a
release
it would be.

It didn’t help. If anything, he felt coiled more tightly.

He slammed the door and dropped onto the pavement of the driveway, leaning back against his car and pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.