He felt drunk. He wished he could open his eyes.
He wished he could move.
He smelled oranges and cloves.
Adam.
Oh, and Adam was kissing him. This was nice. Breath rushed across his tongue and filled his lungs. Power flared in his chest, finding his blood and sparking through his body.
Another breath and he could move.
Another breath and he could hear. Quinn’s voice. “Come on, Nick. Come on. Please, Nick.”
She sounded so worried. Didn’t she remember their whole conversation about air pressure?
Another breath. Wait, this kissing was all wrong. Nick brought his hands up and captured Adam’s cheeks.
Adam jerked back and swore.
Nick opened his eyes and found wide, panicked brown ones gazing down at him.
“ ’Sup?” said Nick.
“Holy shit,” Adam whispered.
“Holy shit,” Quinn echoed. Her bright blue eyes appeared next to Adam’s.
“It’s . . . it’s impossible,” said Adam.
“Nuh-uh,” said Nick. He shook his head and the ceiling tilted and spun. “It’s physics.”
“He still needs an ambulance.” Adam turned his head to look at Quinn. “Try your phone again. Can you get a signal yet?”
“I can’t even get the stupid thing to turn on.”
Nick sucked in a deep breath, buying himself further clarity. It wasn’t working. His brain couldn’t seem to organize.
Adam was still staring down at him. “He shot you. I saw—I saw—there’s blood—”
“Nothing works,” said Quinn. “Whatever that guy did, there’s no cell signal, no electricity, no cars on the road—”
“Me,” said Nick. He winced as reality started to reform, bringing more pain with it. “I did it.”
“What?” said Adam.
“The end of Twilight would have been so much cooler if this had happened in the dance studio, wouldn’t it?”
“Are you seriously joking right now?”
Nick struggled to shift so he could sit up, and his arms found shards of glass. The pain helped his thoughts focus.
God, his head hurt.
“Easy,” said Adam. His voice was still full of mixed emotion, as if panic and wonder battled for space. “Just lie still. Wait for help.”
“I can’t wait,” said Nick, more sure now. “I need to tell—need to warn—”
“We can’t warn anyone. Nothing works,” said Quinn. “It’s like a bomb went off or something.”
“A bomb did go off,” said Nick. “But without the explosion part. Help me up.”
He took Adam’s outstretched hand and pulled himself to sit up.
It wasn’t the best idea. He had to grip hard just to stay upright. His stomach rolled and he worried he’d throw up all over the floor.
He had no idea how much damage his pressure wave had caused, or at what distance. Had he knocked out power to more than this building? What had Quinn said? No cars on the road?
God, he needed his brain to work.
“You’re bleeding,” he said, blinking at Adam.
“Most of it’s yours.”
Nick reached toward his temple. “No, there.”
“Whatever happened knocked me into the wall.” Adam glanced left. “Quinn hit the risers.” He paused. “You were . . . you were out for a long time.”
“It didn’t hurt that asshole,” she said. “He was gone when I woke up.”
Of course. “Does he know I’m still alive?” said Nick.
“We didn’t know you were still alive until about two seconds ago,” said Quinn. “You had no pulse, Nick. You were . . .”
“I’m all right,” he said. “I’m okay.”
But no pulse. If the guy had checked, he would have thought Nick was dead.
Hell, looking at the pool of blood on the floor, Nick might not have checked himself.
Adam touched his face again, as if trying to reassure himself that Nick was really sitting here talking. His breathing was shaking, just the slightest bit, but his expression was full of resolve. “Why didn’t he kill us all?”
“He’s only after us. Me and my brothers.”
Damn it, he needed to call home.
“The office,” he said. “Is there a phone?”
“Dead,” said Quinn. “We already tried.”
Dead.
Chris and Michael were together, but Gabriel was home alone.
Did the Guide know that?
Had he gone there first?
Nick thought of his connection to his twin brother, the way he always seemed to know what Gabriel was thinking, almost before it happened. When Gabriel had rescued Layne from the barn fire, then run home with a broken hand, Nick had known. His twin brother’s panic had woken him from a sound sleep.
God, he needed his head to stop hurting.
Nick pressed his hands to his temples. One came away sticky and wet. He looked at his palm and found a hand covered in blood.
Was he still bleeding?
What had happened to the bullet?
“Help me up,” he said again. “I need—we need—”
“You still need an ambulance,” Adam said, his voice finding that quiet confidence. “Quinn, I’ll run up the road and see if I can find a place with a phone. Keep him still—”
“No,” said Nick. If there was any chance the Guide was out there, he didn’t want them to separate, too. “No.”
“Yes.” Adam put his hands on Nick’s shoulders. “I don’t care what you want this time. You were—you were—” Now his voice faltered, and he visibly struggled to keep it together. “You’re hurt. We’ll call the cops, and—”
“No.” Nick caught his wrists. “We need to get out of here. We need to warn my brothers. He’ll shoot them next and they won’t—they won’t—” Now Nick’s voice broke. Gabriel had been able to stop a gun from firing once. Nick had no idea whether he could do it again, especially without Hunter’s power helping him focus. Chris and Michael would be on a job, oblivious to a threat sneaking up on them.
Nick thought of Chris’s voice, the last thing his little brother had said to him.
I love you, brother.
It sounded so much like a good-bye.
Stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it. This wasn’t helping anything.
“Help me, Adam.” Nick squeezed his hands and heard his voice break again. “Please. Help me.”
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ll help you.”
“Me, too, Nick,” said Quinn. “Me, too.”
“Me, three,” said a voice, and a shoe crunched on broken glass.
They all jumped and scrambled, ready to face a new enemy.
But there in the frame of the broken window, looking shaken and frightened himself, stood Tyler.
CHAPTER 31
Nick swayed with the motion of Tyler’s truck. He leaned against Adam and wished his head would stop aching. At Quinn’s insistence that they couldn’t drive around town covered in blood, he’d washed his face in the studio bathroom—at least the water worked—but now he was damp and cold and shivering. Shock, probably.
Or maybe it had something to do with the agonizing pain he’d felt when he’d pried a bullet fragment out of his own forehead.
Adam had found him on the tile floor, and he’d been ready to drag Nick to a hospital again.
But now they were in the truck.
He didn’t trust Tyler. At all.
But what choice did he have?
Tyler’s cell phone didn’t work, either. The Guide’s car was still in front of the studio, windows blasted out. The trees along the road had been ripped out of the ground and lay across the parking lot, except for a few taller ones that lay across power lines.
The Guide was on foot, then. Good, in a way, because it would buy them some time.
Tyler had to veer around fallen trees, and every swerve made Nick clench his teeth and grip Adam’s hand. The smaller trees and branches, T
yler drove straight over. That was worse. A few cars had run off the road here and there, and sirens wailed in every direction, but they kept driving. Once they got a mile away, trees were standing and they encountered more vehicles, but traffic lights were still nonfunctional.
No one was talking.
In the silence, Nick could only think of his brothers, and he was going to freak the fuck out if he kept doing that.
“What made you come back?” Nick finally asked, making no effort to keep the distrust from his voice.
“Quinn,” said Tyler. He glanced over at her, sitting curled in the passenger seat. “I realized you were doing it again, pushing me away to see if I’d snap back.”
“No,” she said, “I was pushing you away because you were an asshole.”
“That, then.”
And they lapsed back into silence.
Gabriel, Nick thought. He wished his brother was with them now. He’d know what to do. He’d take charge and organize a plan. He’d figure out a way to find Michael and Chris, or at least a way to warn them.
“They’ll be okay,” Adam murmured. “We’ll find them.”
Nick looked up to find his eyes, warm and worried and intent on his. “You’re taking this well.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure my brain will explode with wtf any minute.”
“I’m sorry,” Nick said. “I should have—”
“Told me?” Adam gave a small laugh, but there wasn’t much humor behind it. “You can fill in the blanks later.” He paused. “Well, maybe you can fill in one now. How exactly did you do . . . whatever?”
“A pressure wave,” said Nick. “You ever see an explosion on television, where it blows people back?”
“Yeah?”
Nick nodded. “Like that. All air pressure. It didn’t stop the bullet, but it stopped it enough.”
Quinn twisted in her seat. “And that blew out the windows?”
Nick winced. “Honestly, we’re lucky it didn’t bring the building down on top of us.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t wreck my truck,” said Tyler, meeting Nick’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “The shock wave ran me off the road.”
“Yeah, too bad,” Nick snapped.
“Hey, dickhead, I’m helping you—”
“Shut up,” said Quinn. Nick shut up, but she was really glaring at Tyler. She was twisted on the seat and jabbing at him. “You don’t get to be nasty to him. You don’t get to say anything to him. Do you understand me? If you want to talk to Nick, if you want to talk to my friend, the first word out of your mouth better be I and the next words better be am sorry. Otherwise, shut the fuck up and drive.”
“Don’t waste your breath,” said Nick bitterly, though he appreciated the sentiment. “He’s not sorry.”
Tyler met his eyes in the rearview mirror again, and Nick expected him to snap back with something vicious, but he held the eye contact for a second, then looked away.
He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was rough. “Can you do that again?” he said. “The pressure wave?”
Nick hesitated, wondering if there was a trap in the question. “I don’t know.” He paused and glanced down at Adam’s fingers linked with his. “I didn’t know I could do it in the first place. It wasn’t on purpose—sometimes power takes over when we’re in danger, and we can’t fully control it.” His voice turned sharp and mocking. “Know anything about that, Tyler?”
“You covered a lot of ground,” Tyler said, ignoring his tone. “At least two miles. Could you do something smaller scale to warn your brothers somehow?”
Nick wasn’t sure. He thought of his connection to Gabriel again, tried to focus on it, to imagine what his brother was doing right now.
Was this a typical twin connection? Or did it have something to do with his element? Did the air know Gabriel, know their bond? All this time, was it just a matter of feeding power into the atmosphere?
He had no idea.
“Open the windows,” he said.
Tyler pushed the button, and wind streamed through the truck’s cab. Nick listened to the air, threading his power among the currents.
Danger, the wind whispered.
No kidding, he thought back. But then he paid more attention, focusing on the source of that danger. The clouds overhead were shifting, darkening in the south, promising a storm sometime in the future.
A storm. Rain.
Chris.
But Nick didn’t sense Chris’s power in the storm. Feeding energy into the wind might get them nowhere.
Tyler came to a stop sign at the end of Magothy Beach Road. “Still going to your house?” he said.
“Wait,” said Nick. “Just wait.”
They were half a mile from the house now. The air here was calmer: the storm was a few miles off yet.
Gabriel, he thought, sending power into the sky.
For an instant, nothing.
Then he felt it, his brother’s presence, like a blazing beacon in his mind.
“Fire,” said Tyler.
“Where?” asked Quinn. Nick didn’t sense it, either—but then again, he wasn’t a Fire Elemental.
And then he felt it, the reason danger rode the wind. It had nothing to do with the storm in the east.
And everything to do with the smoke to the west.
Quinn spent each moment vacillating between wanting to kill Tyler and wanting to hug him.
“Stay in the truck,” he snapped, when he parked alongside the woods. She could smell the smoke now, a primal scent that warned her to stay away.
But she glared at Tyler and climbed out anyway.
“Stay in the truck,” Nick agreed. But he wasn’t focused on her. He was focused on the woods. She wondered how much he could sense, whether Gabriel was in immediate danger. “This guy isn’t messing around. You saw that.”
“He didn’t shoot me in the dance studio,” she said. “Didn’t you tell me that they don’t kill normal people?”
“They kill anyone,” said Tyler, “if it leads to the greater good. He didn’t kill you in the dance studio because you weren’t a threat.”
“Well, I’m not exactly a threat now—”
A gun fired in the woods, and Nick and Tyler both jerked her down and against the truck. Adam crouched beside them.
“I am not helpless!” she snapped. But her heartbeat was in her ears, blocking other sounds.
Nick was practically breathless. Too pale. He’d healed his head wound, but she wondered how much damage he’d really taken. “Can you get to the house?” he said. “Everyone’s number is on the wall. Call Michael. Tell him—tell him—”
“I’m not leaving you,” she said.
“Damn it, Quinn, I can’t help them all! I need—I want—”
Another gunshot. Everyone froze.
The wind kicked up, a sudden gust that lifted her hair. The air temperature dropped ten degrees. Nick went paler, if that was possible. “He’s hurt. He’s hurt. He’s—”
Another shot.
“Go,” said Tyler. “If you can get to a phone, call nine-one-one.”
“We’ll go,” said Adam. “Come on, Quinn.”
Then he grabbed her hand and dragged her, not leaving any room for argument.
CHAPTER 32
The woods blazed with fire, consuming dead leaves and trees and anything it could find to burn. Nick moved beside Tyler, hating that his mortal enemy was going to be at his side when he found his brother’s body.
Stop thinking like that.
But he couldn’t sense Gabriel now. The flames were too thick, and smoke clouded the sky, blocking what sunlight crept through.
More fire was good, right?
Or did it mean that Gabriel had lost all control, and the fire was raging of its own accord?
Nick stumbled and lost his footing.
Tyler caught his arm and hauled him to his feet.
Nick struggled and wrenched his arm away from him. His head still wasn’t ready for this much mov
ement, and he hit the ground anyway, landing in burning leaves.
“Fine,” said Tyler. He took a step closer to Nick and the fire moved away from him, leaving Nick alone, too. “Do it your way. Face this guy while you can barely stand up.”
“Fuck you,” said Nick, despising that he wasn’t even strong enough to find his brother on his own. “I don’t want your help.”
Gabriel. Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel. Where are you?
“He’s not dead,” said Tyler.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” Tyler reached down and scooped up a handful of fire, letting it burn from nothing, a rolling ball of flame suspended over his palm.
Nick stared. He’d seen Gabriel do this hundreds of times. It was unsettling to see the same show of power from Tyler.
“Fire likes him,” said Tyler. “It likes me, too. He’s still alive out here. He’s just hiding.” He glanced up at Nick. “If I can follow the flames to find him, so can the Guide. He’s being smart. Not using his power. Letting the smoke cover him.”
It was covering him and Tyler, too, and Nick could keep the smoke dense around them. But Gabriel was hurt—the air or their twin connection or whatever had told Nick that much.
In a flash, Nick realized that all this panic he was feeling wasn’t just his own. Fear bled through the smoke, riding the very air to find Nick’s senses.
I’ll find you, he thought. I’ll save you.
He remembered playing hide-and-seek with James, and Nick threw power to the wind, opening his senses fully.
Seek.
In his mind, he saw the land as a grid, the atmosphere stretching around him in a circle, locating people like flashing pinpoints on a map. Him and Tyler. Quinn and Adam, running like hell.
The Guide, a flare of power so bright that Nick wondered how the guy had snuck up on them at the dance studio.
And Gabriel, a fading light. Not far. Maybe fifty feet straight ahead.
Nick’s temper flared and the air responded, shifting, moving the smoke. Wind whipped through the trees, bringing debris and flaming sparks to sting his skin.
“This way,” he said to Tyler, and started walking.
Tyler caught his arm. “He has a gun.”
More wind, blowing harder. It ruffled Nick’s hair and fed him power, sending smoke spiraling. “He shot my brother.” Then he jerked free.