Spirit

He glanced over in surprise. He hadn’t even considered it.

She was looking back at him. “What’s with the look? I thought you guys were best friends.”

“Not really.”

“You braid his hair wrong or something?”

Hunter smiled. He liked this girl. “Something like that.”

“So what’s with your mom? Why are you so mad at her?”

He glared back at the sky and decided maybe he didn’t like this girl that much.

Hannah shrugged and he caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. “I mean, she was practically hysterical when she found out you weren’t here. They must have been talking about the unidentified kids on the news. Michael had to tell her about fifteen times that you had gotten home from the carnival, that you were fine.”

Hunter scowled. He wished that didn’t make him feel guilty.

They sat there in silence for a long moment.

Then Hannah said, “Look, either you’re going to talk or I’m going to have to finish the story about the guy who chopped off his penis. Your call.”

Hunter snorted with unexpected laughter.

Then he sobered, thinking of those unidentified kids. “I don’t know how you can joke after—after last night—”

“Because the alternative is going crazy? If you can’t fix what’s wrong, you focus on what you can make right.”

Hunter looked at her. “My dad used to say that.”

“My dad, too. It’s a good dad thing to say.”

The sudden emotion grabbed Hunter around the throat, and he almost couldn’t breathe through it. He hated this, how it never came on slowly but instead snuck up like a ninja to punch him right when it was least expected. He had to shift to the edge of the chair and press his fingertips into his eyes.

Hannah scooted to the edge of her chair, too, until she was close. She touched his shoulder, and there was something secure about it, something steadying. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Michael said your dad and your uncle died in a car crash.”

Now Hunter knocked her hand away, and he straightened. “I don’t want to talk about it. What are you even doing out here? I don’t even know—”

“You can’t fix it,” she said, her voice strong and even, as if he hadn’t interrupted. “You can’t.”

“I know that! You don’t think I know that? I can’t fix any of it!”

“It wasn’t your fault. Has anyone ever told you that? It wasn’t your fault.”

“You don’t know anything.” God he was sick of the lectures. She and Michael were perfect for each other.

He flung himself out of the chair and stalked through the door.

Chris and Nick were in the living room with Becca. They all looked up when he passed. Becca called out to him, but he kept going—up the stairs instead of out the door.

Then he locked himself in the bathroom and tried to keep from punching the mirror.

He needed to calm down.

Breathe.

What the hell did Hannah know? Had Michael sent her out there? He was ready for a knock at the door, for someone else to want to talk.

It made him think of Kate, how she’d been willing to do anything but talk. Only her methods of diversion weren’t this unpleasant.

He turned the faucet on cold and splashed water on his face, letting the water run off his chin. He looked up at the mirror to make sure it didn’t look like he’d been crying.

Then he kept on looking.

What had Michael said yesterday? There is nothing about you that would make me say you look exactly like that guy. Take a look in a mirror sometime.

When his father had been alive, Hunter had always kept his hair short—not quite the military crew cut, but short enough to be preppy. He’d never had a single piercing.

Then the car had been crushed in the rock slide, and he’d found himself with twenty-six stitches across his hairline, leaving him with white hair to grow back in its place. He’d gone through the funeral, through the packing of their house, through his mother’s withdrawal, without feeling anything.

Except when she reminded him how much he looked like his father.

Then he’d felt resentment.

And anger.

And guilt.

He’d gone to the grocery store one day—because his mother couldn’t be bothered with basic needs—and some biker guy with three hundred and some tattoos and piercings had said, “Nice streak, kid. You need some metal and ink to go along with it.”

Then he’d handed him a card for a local tattoo place.

The burn of the needle was the first new thing Hunter had really felt in weeks.

So he’d kept asking for more.

He stared into his eyes in the mirror.

Michael was right. Hunter looked nothing like his father anymore.

And instead of feeling good about that, it made him feel like shit.

He ducked and dried his face on the towel.

Hannah was right, too. He couldn’t fix the accident. He knew that.

Could he fix this mess with his mother?

Did he want to? Did she want him to?

The upstairs was still empty, thank god. Hunter went into Nick’s bedroom, where the two boxes from his grandparents’ house were stacked in front of the closet.

He cracked open the first one. The photo of his father and uncle was right on top, just like yesterday. Hunter set that aside and kept going.

Yearbooks, from his high school in Pennsylvania. Old, outdated magazines—really, Mom? Old notebooks from school that he’d never need again. His Xbox, with the case of games.

Because he totally felt like gaming with everything else going on.

Some paperbacks he didn’t remember reading, more magazines, more crap he’d never need. And then a brown Pendaflex folder with a rubber band wrapped around it. He could see the edges of file folders and wondered if she’d packed up his old school records, too.

The rubber band snapped when he yanked it out of the box, and two folders slipped out. He expected old report cards.

He found records, but not the school kind.

The top folder was about the Merricks. Personal information that he already knew, like their address and phone number. Grainy photos that had to be several years old, because one included their parents. Chris looked about ten.

Pages and pages about their powers, about surveillance, about potential Elemental hazards linked to the family.

His heart was pounding so hard that he couldn’t believe it wasn’t causing a racket all the way downstairs.

He knew the Merricks. He could read theirs later. He flipped to the next folder.

The Morgan family. Tyler, a Fire Elemental. No extreme risk. Emily, an Air Elemental, deceased. No risk. Pictures, but Hunter didn’t need them. He knew their stories.

The Ramsey family. Seth, one of Becca’s attackers. No extreme risk, according to the file, but obviously they were only talking about the Elemental kind.

Hunter didn’t know the next family, but he wondered if the Merricks did.

In the fourth folder, as soon as he opened it, he recognized the kid in the picture.

It was the boy who’d shown up with Calla when they’d been trashing his grandfather’s kitchen. Hunter felt ready to choke on his heartbeat.

Noah Dean. So he was related to Calla.

But there were no pictures of her, just this boy.

Well, of course. Calla had only just moved here a few years ago, to live with her aunt when her father was deployed. All these files were ages old.

Hunter checked the birthdate and quickly added. Noah was thirteen. Too young to be in high school.

No wonder Hunter hadn’t seen him anywhere around school. He’d been next door to the high school all this time, at the middle school.

Hunter wondered if Noah was among the missing from the carnival. He’d have to check the news.

Then something else occurred to him: had his mother gone through this folder?

He stared at the pages in his hand. The rubber band on the Pendaflex had been old, or else it wouldn’t have snapped so readily. But why would she have given him a stack of files and papers without going through them? His name wasn’t on any of it, and it certainly wasn’t packed up the way he kept his things. He’d never seen these files, so she hadn’t found them in his room.

He quickly shoved all the papers back into the Pendaflex, trying to keep them in the order he’d found them. Then he ripped the cover off the other box.

His quilt. His sheets—again, really, Mom? Frigging threadbare beach towels that he didn’t even consider his.

When he flung them to the side, something heavy clattered free.

Two of his father’s best knives.

The breath left Hunter’s lungs in a rush.

He pulled more towels free, more carefully this time, just in case there were other knives that might not be sheathed.

No more knives.

But between the last two towels, he found his gun, an extra magazine, and a box of bullets.

He picked up the weapon and checked the safety automatically. Just feeling the steel in his hands was as reassuring as if she’d packed his old teddy bear.

She’d packed this folder and these weapons.

I can bring over anything else you want.

His mother knew.

CHAPTER 19

Hunter wasn’t sure how much he needed to keep secret.

The gun, for sure. If nothing else, it was a safety thing. He had too many of his father’s lectures rattling around in his head to leave a loaded firearm lying around—especially if Hannah’s kid was going to be in the house. He didn’t have a lockbox, but he could lock the gun in the glove compartment of his jeep—or he’d keep it on his person.

Considering the events of the past few days, he was ready to sleep with it holstered inside his waistband.

But the folders . . . He just didn’t have a history in this town, so he’d have to tell someone about them, if only to find out who the kids in other folders were. He’d only recognized Noah’s face, but that wasn’t enough.

He needed help. And the Merricks would probably give it to him, if he could play it straight.

They were leaving him alone this afternoon, too, which was nice—though he’d probably earned it by being such a dick that no one wanted to mess with him. When he’d grown up, it had always been three people in the house, with his uncle sometimes thrown in for variety. They lived too far from grandparents for anything more than an occasional visit. Even when he’d moved here with his mom, the dinner table had never been occupied by more than four people.

When he finally ventured downstairs, the Merrick kitchen was practically packed.

The four brothers. Becca and Quinn. Layne and her little brother Simon. Hannah and James.

Hunter made eleven. It brought new meaning to the phrase odd man out.

They had about ten buckets and boxes from KFC. Hannah’s little boy appeared to be eating nothing but macaroni and potato wedges—and half of those were being fed to Casper, who was sitting under the table. The noise and energy in the room was almost enough to send Hunter back up the stairs.

But the smell was holding him right here. He’d never eaten lunch.

Becca appeared in front of him, taking his hand, pulling him into the kitchen. “I was worried about you,” she said quietly.

“Careful,” he said. “That’s catching.”

“Did you fall asleep?”

He’d spent the afternoon reading through the folders, but she’d given him the perfect out. “Yeah. I was knocked out.”

“Well, come eat.”

She dragged him toward the table, and Chris glared at the way her hand was still attached to Hunter’s, so he left it there, actually using it to pull her a bit closer and speak low, under the noise in the room.

“Sorry I ignored you earlier. Long day.”

Becca looked up at him. This close, he could catch her scent over the chicken, something with vanilla and almonds. “It’s okay,” she said. “I know you’ve got a lot going on.”