Storm

  “You kids get away!” some lady shouted from far back. “That car’s on fire!”

  Fist. Glass. Crack.

  “Becca!” Jesus Christ, why wouldn’t she open the door?

  The ground shook. Hard. Chris caught at the side mirror to keep his footing.

  Nick caught his arm to keep from falling. “He’s flooding the bridge.”

  “No,” Gabriel yelled. “He’s taking out the bridge.”

  The ground shook again. Cars were sliding, shifting along the concrete surface. The water was halfway up Chris’s calves now. People were screaming, running for solid ground.

  If the bridge collapsed, they’d go down with at least six cars.

  For the first time in a long while, Chris wished Michael was with them.

  He punched the window again. His knuckles split and left a wash of blood across the glass, gone in an instant from the downpour.

  But the instant the water got inside his skin, Chris couldn’t refuse the element. This time his fist went right through the glass.

  Smoke poured through the hole, blasting around his arm and almost forcing him out. He felt the wind whip around him. Nick was forcing clean air into the car.

  “Chris,” said Nick, his voice low, yet carrying over the storm. “She’s not breathing.”

  Chris ignored him and fumbled to find the door lock. Blood streaked down his arm, but he didn’t care.

  The bridge dropped a few inches. Nick grabbed his arm and kept Chris on his feet. Becca’s car started to slide. They were going into the water in a second.

  Gabriel jumped on the hood. “Chris, get her out!”

  Glass ground into Chris’s skin, feeling like it might take his arm off.

  There. He found the latch and jerked. The door gave.

  Her body weighed nothing. Chris dragged her out of the car and into his arms. Blood was everywhere, in her hair, on her clothes, down the side of her face. His own joined it, soaking into her sweater.

  Rain poured down her cheeks, taking the blood with it.

  “Breathe,” he whispered.

  She didn’t.

  “Nick!” Was his voice shaking? “Nick! Make her breathe. Please—”

  “I can’t.” Nick pressed a hand to her cheek. “Chris, I can’t.”

  “Chris!” Gabriel was still on the hood of her car. The flames were huge, lighting his eyes. “We have to get off the bridge!”

  The concrete fell another few inches. Chris almost dropped her.

  She’d saved his life, and now she was losing her own.

  Because of him.

  The rain was in his blood. In hers.

  Save her, he thought.

  The bridge groaned and dropped again. Metal shrieked as cars slid and collided.

  Save her.

  Rain poured down on her cheeks, into her mouth, over her eyes. Chris watched it streak down her skin.

  He’d never done this before, fed power into someone else. He didn’t even know if it would work. The water swirled around his legs, begging for direction—for his direction, not the man’s on the hill.

  “Save her,” he said.

  “Holy crap.” Nick’s voice was breathy. “Do you feel that?”

  “What are you guys doing?” Gabriel called.

  Then Chris could feel it, through the rain. Gabriel’s wonder, that the fire suddenly belonged to him. Nick’s awe in the air, that he’d harnessed the wind, that it bowed to his will.

  Chris pressed his bleeding hand to the side of her face. Blood to blood. Save her, he thought.

  Becca opened her eyes.

  And inhaled.

  Chris gave a choked sob. “Becca.”

  “Chris—” Her voice was raw. “Wait—there’s an accident—”

  The bridge dropped again. She screamed and clutched at him.

  Nick grabbed his arm, hauling him back. They dodged between two cars and made it to the walkway of the bridge. Water was pouring over the side.

  “Is it the Guides?” Becca said.

  “Yeah.” Her voice was steady, and the rain was rinsing the blood from her face. He saw no injuries—had the power healed her? “Just one.”

  “Just one?”

  “I told you they don’t fuck around.” Chris glanced back. Gabriel was still on the hood of her car, surrounded by flames.

  “Come on!” Nick yelled to his twin.

  “Run!” called Gabriel. “I’ll hold off the fire—”

  Lightning hit her car. The front end exploded.

  The force knocked them back. Chris saw nothing but sky and fire for a moment. He couldn’t breathe.

  Then he could.

  Gabriel. Chris couldn’t see him. He couldn’t feel him. Nick lay beside him, his presence a cool breeze inside his mind, like always. Water rushed over his legs. He sent power across the bridge, seeking his brother, seeking information.

  Nothing.

  Chris couldn’t think. Becca shook against him. “Where did he go?” she whispered. “Is he—”

  “No,” Chris said. But he’d seen that explosion.

  Nick was white, his eyes wide. “Chris,” he said. “I can’t—I don’t—he’s not—”

  “I can’t, either.” He sent another surge of power into the water, begging, praying.

  Nothing. He punched a fist into the water. “Damn it, where is he?”

  Wind whipped across the bridge, blowing water and stinging Chris’s eyes.

  Nick found his knees, supporting himself against the crumpled guardrail of the bridge. His eyes were dark, his jaw set. Wind blew faster, harder. Large trees in the distance started to bend.

  Smaller trees started to snap.

  “What’s happening?” said Becca. “Chris, is the Guide doing this—”

  “I am,” said Nick. “I’m going to kill him.”

  Chris felt his brother’s fury. His own responded, sending the rain on a path of destruction he’d never attempted before. He didn’t care if he lost control; he didn’t care if his power brought every Guide to their door.

  Wind spun, dragging the rain and the clouds into a spiral. Roof tiles began to tear loose and fly.

  “Oh my god,” said Becca. “You’re making a tornado.”

  He was. They were. He’d never felt this strength, but it was all funneled in one direction.

  Lightning struck the bridge, ten feet in front of them. They jerked back.

  Chris poured more power into the rain. He urged every drop to find the Guide, to destroy. Becca’s hand was clenched on his.

  Their enemy was having trouble keeping his feet. Chris could see it.

  “More,” he called to Nick. “Stronger.”

  “Can you control it?” said Becca. “You told me—”

  “I don’t care,” he said.

  She grabbed Nick’s hand, too. “Please—this will kill people—”

  “He killed my brother.” Nick’s voice was strong, emotionless. But his hand didn’t let go of hers.

  Maybe it was because she clutched both their hands, or maybe it was because she sat in water up to her waist. But Chris felt a sudden connection, a link to Nick’s power he’d never felt before. Like the moment he’d fed power into Becca, he felt every drop of water, every particle of his element. He felt the water and the wind, and fed strength into the space around them.

  The wind howled, beating at their clothes. The Guide made it to the other side of the bridge, grabbing his end of the guardrail. Chris still couldn’t make out any features in this storm—just focus and control.

  Lightning struck five feet away.

  Becca screamed.

  Then lightning hit the other end of the bridge, almost directly hitting the Guide.

  Chris froze.

  Another bolt, five feet off. The man darted back, away from the bridge, fighting to keep his footing in the wind.

  Another bolt. And another. Lightning rained from the sky, targeting their enemy.

  The Guide ran.

  “Yeah,” growled a voic
e from behind them. “Watch that fucker run now.”

  Chris whirled. Gabriel was on his hands and knees, holding on to the bumper of a Chevy Tahoe. His clothes were scorched and his face nearly blackened from smoke, and blood marked his skin, but he was alive.

  Nick grabbed him before Chris even realized he was moving.

  “Easy, Nicky.” Gabriel coughed. “I mean—me too—but explosion—hurt—”

  But Chris didn’t hear what else he said.

  Because he was hugging him, too.

  CHAPTER 25

  Becca ended up in the ER.

  The Merrick brothers didn’t.

  She’d lost track of them somehow, when emergency personnel stormed onto the bridge and separated them all. Four different men had stood in the rain shouting questions at her, shining lights in her eyes, taking her pulse. Did she know her name? The date? Did she know she’d been in an accident?

  She’d been freezing. A fireman had wrapped her in a Mylar blanket and carried her to the ambulance. She’d been so shaken that she let him. The rain refused to stop, streaking into her eyes and creeping under her clothes, as much a stranger to her as it had been before the accident.

  Had she imagined that connection?

  Was that what Chris felt, that link with the elements?

  He’d held her so close—had she been feeling his power?

  Now, in the hospital, she huddled on her stretcher, pulling the thin hospital blanket more tightly around her shoulders.

  Her mom stuck her head through the curtain. “You all right, Bex?”

  One of the best parts of her mom working the ER was that Becca didn’t have to wait long for anything.

  One of the worst parts was that her mom was actually working the ER tonight. When Becca proved to be shaken but unharmed, her mom left her to sit alone in an eight-by-eight cubicle.

  Someone moaned nearby. A baby screamed somewhere down the hall. The place was packed with victims from the storm. Becca kept hearing nurses speak in low voices about things like crushed femurs and compound fractures. Becca didn’t even have a concussion. She just wanted someone to hold her hand.

  God, could she be more selfish? Becca sniffed back waiting tears and nodded. “I’m fine. Can we go home?”

  “Your dad’s on his way, sweetie.” Her mom’s voice trailed after her as she rushed down the hall.

  “What?”

  “I can’t leave,” her mom called back, “and Quinn’s mom wasn’t home.”

  Ugh. Her dad. Now Becca wished she did have a concussion.

  Especially when he showed up in work clothes, his boots caked with mud. Dirt streaked across the khaki shirt he wore, and it looked like he’d been in a fight with a wild animal—his pants were torn, and dried blood trailed out of his shirtsleeve and across the back of his hand.

  He came rushing into her cubicle, flinging the curtain to the side. He seemed to draw up short when his daughter obviously wasn’t dying. Just wet.

  “Hi,” she said without enthusiasm. “What happened to you?”

  “Becca.” He studied her, as if he must have missed some life-threatening injury. “Are you all right?”

  Just great. They got me out of the car before it blew up.

  She wanted to say it, to roll her eyes and push past him. But his eyes were dark with concern, his hands hovering halfway between his body and her own, as if he wanted to hug her but he just wasn’t sure how she’d take it.

  Becca swallowed. She wished he’d jingle his keys and act like this was a hassle. It was hard to keep walls up against someone who truly gave a crap.

  But maybe it was just the shock. Had Mom made it sound bad so he’d rush?

  “I’m fine,” she said. Her voice sounded like she’d been swallowing gravel. “I just ... I want to go home.”

  “We can go back to my place—”

  “No!”

  He flinched, and she shut her eyes. “No—just—I don’t have any clothes there. I want to go home.”

  “You have keys?”

  Her keys were in her car—and probably melted into a ball of steel by now. She shook her head. “Mom will give me hers.”

  But her mom didn’t like that idea. “Becca, go home with your father. You’ve had a rough day, and you shouldn’t be alone—”

  “I just want to get into some dry clothes and go to bed.” She shoved herself off the stretcher. A patient down the hallway started screaming, and Becca clamped her hands over her ears. “Please, just take me home. Please—”

  Arms wrapped around her, stroking the hair back from her face. For a bare instant she thought it was her mom—but then she felt the strength in those arms, the solid wall of her dad’s chest.

  “Calm down,” he said, his voice a gentle rasp. “I’ll take you home.”

  His voice sparked another memory, of an eight-year-old Becca who’d found a half-dead bird in the backyard. She’d been near hysterical, sure her father was going to have to kill it—so she hid with it in her bedroom, trying to feed it sliced Velveeta and bits of hot dog.

  Her mom had been furious when she found out. A bird! In her house!

  But her dad had talked Becca out of her closet, then taught her how to set the bird’s wing and nurse it back to health.

  “Becca?”

  His breath touched her hair. Becca realized she’d been leaning on him for what felt like a while.

  “Okay,” she whispered. “Let’s go.”

  Becca couldn’t make herself look out the windshield. Rain freckled the glass, stealing any visibility. Cars seemed to be moving too quickly, every oncoming pair of headlights a collision waiting to happen.

  She stared down at her dad’s hand, resting on the center console.

  “What happened to your wrist?” she asked, just to make her brain focus on something other than the sound of tires on wet roadway.

  He cleared his throat. “Tree came down in the storm. Trapped a buck up against one of those electric fences. I was the closest one, so I took the call. Poor thing was fighting like hell.”

  Now she regretted asking. “So you killed it.”

  He hesitated. “No.”

  Now she swung her eyes up. “Are you lying?”

  “No. I’m not. We hit him with a tranquilizer, patched him up, and let him go.” He glanced away from the road. “Just what do you think I do, Becca?”

  She had no idea—all she had were old memories and the patch on his sleeve. She hunched her shoulders and looked at the glove compartment.

  “Wild animals can be dangerous,” he said. “Sometimes they’re too dangerous to treat and rehabilitate.” He paused. “And sometimes they’re not a threat at all.”

  “I bet you kill more than you save.”

  He stared out the windshield. “What do you want me to say, Becca?”

  “Nothing.”

  Silence filled up the car until there wasn’t room for anything else. He’d gone to vet school, she knew.

  “I don’t always like what I have to do,” he said finally. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary.”

  “For the greater good?” she mocked.

  “Exactly.”

  Becca leaned back against the door and gripped her elbows against her chest. This felt like being chastised. Not quite, but almost. Whatever, she didn’t like it.

  “Are you worried about your car situation?” he asked.

  She was. Becca didn’t want to consider how many hours she was going to have to work to save up enough money to buy a new car. She had no idea how insurance worked. Didn’t a deductible come into play somewhere? That old Honda had barely cost more than a thousand dollars.

  “I’ll talk to your mom,” he said when she didn’t answer. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “I don’t need your money.”

  “I’m not quite sure that’s true.”

  She swung her head around to glare at him. “Look, you can’t come swooping in here with a MasterCard and pretend to know everything I need.”
r />   He sighed, loudly. The exasperation was clear. “All right, Becca.”

  She pressed her forehead against the window. “All right, Dad.”

  Irritation thickened the air in the cab of his truck, heavier than the silence had been. He flung the truck in park roughly when he pulled into her driveway and saw the pentagram on the door. “What the hell is with this kid?” he demanded.

  For an instant, she entertained telling him.

  So, Dad, about the accident. Really, there’s a guy who wants to kill me.

  “Who knows.” Her voice sounded tired.

  “I’ll have to come back to paint tomorrow,” he said. “It’s too wet now.”

  He trailed her onto the porch, and she shoved her mom’s key into the lock. “Leave it. They’ll just put it back up.”

  His attention shifted, focusing on her. She felt the change in his demeanor. “Becca.” He caught her wrist, keeping her from opening the door. “Do you know who’s doing this?”

  She wriggled her hand free. “No—god, Dad, I’m tired.”

  He let her go, then stood in the foyer and watched her flick lights on. The house stood empty—no Quinn. Becca felt a flash of guilt for their fight outside the school, but then caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror. She looked like—well, like she’d been in a car accident and a flood. Her hair straggled over her shoulders, and her clothes were ruined. Her makeup formed dark circles around her eyes, making her look almost macabre.

  Quinn was on her own tonight.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” she said.

  He glanced around, like a wannabe police officer checking the place for criminals. “I can make a pot of coffee and stay for a while.”

  “Or you could remember that I’m almost seventeen years old, and I stay by myself almost every night.”

  He stared down at her. She stared back.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  His eyes narrowed a bit—but not in anger. More like assessment. “What’s going on with you, Becca?”

  “My car was just totaled. Sorry I’m not at my best.”

  He kept studying her. She kept looking back at him.

  Just when she thought this was going to end up being some immature staring match, he said, “You need a ride to school in the morning?”