Spirit

Hunter was too tired to argue. “Fine. We’ll sleep in the sand.” At least they had blankets.

“Sometimes decisions are about picking the lesser evil.”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “That’s really comforting, thanks.”

“Becca never understood what I was doing for her, and she hates me for it. Don’t make the same mistake, okay?”

Hunter just looked back at him, wondering how making two people sleep on the beach was some kind of sacrifice for Bill Chandler.

“Think about it,” said Bill.

“I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time,” said Hunter.

Then he turned his back, dropped to the blanket, and fished through the first bag to find the food.

Only to find he was disappointed when Bill moved away.

Especially since it took everything he had not to turn around and beg for more information.

CHAPTER 29

Hunter woke up to someone moving against him.

He didn’t remember falling asleep, but now he was awake and alert. His eyes opened to meet Kate’s in the near darkness.

Hers were wide. “Where are we?” she whispered.

He heard the worry in her tone. “Safe,” he said. “We’re on the beach behind Becca’s father’s house.”

She shifted under the blankets to look at the sky. Night had fallen completely, and the moon and stars overhead were brilliant. The fire still burned beside them, throwing light across her face, turning her hair gold.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

She made a face. “Both better and worse than I expected. Do you have any water?”

“Yeah.” He secured a bottle from one of the bags and helped her to sit up, though she didn’t really need it. She didn’t even wince. She drained an entire bottle of water, barely pausing for breath.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “There’s food, too.”

When she nodded, he unwrapped a prepackaged peanut-butter-and-strawberry-jam sandwich. She tore into it.

He knew the feeling. He’d done the same thing to three of them earlier. So had Casper.

Halfway through the sandwich, she paused. “Did you take my pants off?”

“Bill helped.”

“Oh, that’s nice. Did you get a good look?”

Her voice was light, not bitchy. “Watching him put stitches in your thigh kinda stole the allure.”

“Stitches?” Her hand moved under the blanket. “Wow. I slept through that?”

“I’m not sure I’d call it sleeping.”

Wind tore across the water to make the flames flicker. Hunter shivered. There’d been clean jeans and a T-shirt in the bag Bill had provided, but nothing warmer than that. His fleece pullover was soaked with her blood, rolled up by the fire.

“Cold?” Kate pulled the edge of the sleeping bag back. “There’s plenty of room.”

If she’d said it in a dirty way, he wouldn’t have taken her up on it. But because he was cold and her voice was casual, Hunter scooted until his legs were under the top blanket and he was sitting up beside her.

Now that they were close, however, he didn’t know what to say.

Kate’s hand found his under the blanket. “Thanks,” she said. “For saving me.”

He turned his hand and laced his fingers through hers. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Silver pointing a gun at us.” She paused. “I didn’t expect to wake up.” Another pause, a longer one. Her voice was heavy. “Your dog . . .”

Hunter whistled. Casper came tearing up the beach from whatever he’d been investigating.

Kate’s face broke into a smile. “He’s okay!”

Hunter rubbed the dog behind his ears until he started the rawr-rawr-rawr. “He’s tough.” He stroked a finger down the line of Casper’s muzzle. “He’s the one you should be thanking. He attacked Silver.”

Kate took him up on that and started scratching Casper behind the ears herself.

The dog flopped over in the sand, looking for a belly rub. Kate obliged him.

Then she said, “So what’s the plan?”

“Staying alive? I don’t know.” Hunter pressed his fingers into his eyes. “I don’t have anywhere for us to go.”

“What do we know?”

“Not much.”

“Let’s lay it out and make a plan.”

Hunter looked at her in surprise.

“What?” she said with a spark of irritation in her eyes. “You think you’re going to figure all this out on your own?”

“No—I didn’t—” He stopped to figure out his words before he sounded like a moron. “I just . . . I’ve been on my own for a long time.”

“Me, too.” She stared at him, and he loved the way the fire cast shadows across her features. “We’re together right now.”

“Okay.” He nodded. “Okay.”

“Lay it out. What do we know?”

“Silver killed my phone, and I dropped the files when he shot you. I have half a tank of gas in the jeep and maybe twenty bucks in cash. I don’t remember all the names of the kids who were involved with Calla, and I don’t know where she’s hiding. All I know is what Noah told me: that she’s alive, and they’re planning something for Monday.”

Kate took all that in and nodded. “Do you know where she might be hiding?”

“Noah said something about tunnels. But I don’t know if that means she’s hiding in a tunnel somewhere, or if she’s planning something to do with tunnels . . . I don’t know. She’s a Fire Elemental. Why start a fire in a tunnel? But if that’s just where she’s hiding, I don’t get that, either. The only tunnels around here are sewer tunnels—also not conducive to fire. Gabriel spent the night in the water a few weeks ago, and he said he’d never felt more drained.”

“Does Silver know any of that?” said Kate.

“Not from me.” He scowled. “But he probably has my files now, so all those other kids are at risk.”

“At risk? They’re the ones trying to hurt people.”

“Not all of them. Some of them can’t be older than ten or eleven. They probably have no clue what they’re getting into. And they’re just trying to protect themselves.” He paused. “I still don’t know which is the right side, here. I could never be like Silver. But I can’t sit back and watch pure Elementals hurt innocent people, either.”

“Silver sees harming innocent people as a means to an end. Did your dad?”

Hunter thought back. “I don’t think so.” He paused. “Bill told me that my dad made sacrifices to keep me a secret. Silver said I’m living proof of what my dad did wrong. Do you know what that means?”

Kate sighed. “Maybe.”

Hunter waited. More wind blew off the water to trace through his hair. The air had a definite bite to it now, and Kate rubbed at her arms.

She shifted to slide back under the blankets, then propped herself up on one shoulder, scooting back to give him room. “Get under the blankets. I’ll tell you what I know.”

He hesitated, then slid under, too, mirroring her position.

“When Silver and I first got here,” said Kate, “he told me that John and Jay Garrity had died on a trip to destroy the Merricks. Then I met you, and your last name was Garrity, and you were new here . . . well, it was a big coincidence. Too big. When we tried to find out more about you, there were no listed numbers under Garrity in town, no homes or vehicles registered under that name, no—”

“Because I lived with my grandparents,” said Hunter. “My mom’s parents. And she kept her maiden name, so . . .”

“Right. So that was a mystery. Especially since you knew how to fight—but you’d obviously never been through any kind of training as a Guide. I couldn’t put two-and-two together.”

Hunter frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Hunter, when I was twelve, my mother took me to the Farm. Do you know what that means?”

“You told me about some guy teaching you how to fight.”

“Yeah. There’s this farm in Virginia where a guy named Roland basically beats the sensitivity out of you until you figure out how to put duty before feeling.”

Hunter’s eyes widened, but before he could say anything, Kate added, “Everyone goes there, Hunter. Everyone. It’s mandatory.”

He was trying to push images of someone beating the crap out of Kate from his mind. “My father used to tell me that he’d send me for training,” he said. “He always told me one more year. He said I wasn’t ready.”

Kate’s eyes were vaguely haunted, made more so by the flickering firelight. “No one is ever ready for that, Hunter.”

Hunter bit the inside of his cheek, wanting to ask—but not wanting to.

“I think he kept you a secret,” she whispered. She hesitated. “And that’s a big no-no.”

Like Bill had kept Becca a secret.

Hunter rolled back to stare up at the starry night and wonder what that meant.

Not for the first time, he wished his father were here right now. Not just because he’d be able to answer the thousand and one questions fighting for space in Hunter’s brain. But because he’d know what to do.

His father had been all about duty—but then he’d kept Hunter a secret?

Hunter thought back to the day before they’d all left to go after the Merricks. His uncle had said something about its being surveillance—that was the only reason Hunter had been allowed to go.

But any time someone talked about that mission, they said that his dad was coming here to kill the Merricks.

Had his father’s mission been reconnaissance, in advance of killing the Merricks?

Or had he never intended to kill them at all?

And what did all the folders mean?

And if he’d never meant to kill the Merricks, what was he planning on doing?

Too many questions. Hunter rubbed at his eyes again.

Kate put a hand on his wrist. “Will Becca’s dad help us?”

Hunter snorted. “This is it. Blankets and food. He wouldn’t even let us come in the house.”

“Weird.”

“Not weird. He’s an ass**le.”

“We can’t stay here forever.”

“We can’t just drive around, either. I’m worried the police are looking for me. A white jeep is pretty easy to identify.” His voice turned wry. “The bullet hole in the rear quarter panel isn’t exactly subtle, either.”

“My mom used to say that things look better in the morning.”

Hunter started to say that he didn’t see how that would be possible, but Kate moved closer and laid her head on his shoulder.

It put the line of her body against his.

He kept trying to tell his own body that she was injured, that she was seeking warmth, that this had nothing to do with anything.

His body was replying, DUDE. SHE IS NOT WEARING PANTS.

“I’m glad you took me for a drive this afternoon,” she said.

“You are?” he asked in surprise. “But that’s why the day went to shit.”

“I don’t think so.” She breathed against him for a long moment. “If we hadn’t left, Silver might have come to the Merricks’ house while everyone was still there.”

Hunter froze. He hadn’t considered that.

“You’re a good person, Hunter,” she said. “I know you care about them. I know you see it as a weakness, but it’s not. You’re trying to save them.”

“Kate.” He shifted to try to see her face. “Kate, are you crying?”

“No.” But she was. She’d pressed closer to him, as if that were possible, burying her face in his chest.