Sacrifice

  He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, took a glance at the screen, and grimaced. “I can’t believe it’s after seven. I missed one from your mother, too.” He centered on Hannah, and his voice turned brusque again. “That doesn’t answer my question. What do you need?”

  She blinked. “I don’t need anything.”

  “Were you just trying to find out the fate of your boyfriend? I’ve already told you that I’m not going to let personal feelings get in the way of—”

  “Dad.” This was so typical. She almost slapped her hand on the desk to get his attention. “I’m not here because of Michael. Is that what you think? That I came here to beg you not to arrest him?”

  “I sure hope you’re not here to make your case about being an adult again—”

  “I’m not here to argue at all!” She stood up. It was a struggle to keep her voice low. “God, you make it impossible to talk to you.”

  “I’m not the only one.”

  That made her stop, a quick retort dying on her tongue. For the first time in a long while, he was looking at her—really looking at her—and his expression revealed that maybe he was as frustrated by their relationship as she was.

  When she’d been a child, all she’d needed to do was shed a tear, and he’d swoop her up in his arms and make her feel better. She wished he would do that right now.

  Because that wouldn’t be awkward right here in the middle of the police station.

  She took a long breath to ensure her voice would be level. “I really was worried about you. That’s the only reason I came looking for you.”

  And because she couldn’t take any more rejection from him, especially now, she turned on her heel and headed for the door.

  By the time she made it to the parking lot, she realized she’d expected him to follow her. He didn’t.

  Shocking.

  She climbed into her car and put the key in the ignition. She felt like such an idiot. It didn’t help that his last comment kept pinging around her brain, making her question her own actions.

  I’m not the only one.

  He wasn’t right. He couldn’t be right. She’d made one mistake in high school, and he’d turned into a different person. He’d gone from someone who always did the right thing to someone who’d barely give her the time of day. Nothing she did was ever good enough.

  Fuck him. She didn’t need this. She shoved the gearshift into reverse and pressed down on the accelerator.

  A hand knocked on her window. Hannah jumped and slammed down on the brakes. Her car was half out of the parking place, and her father stood just outside the driver’s-side door, about six inches away from being squished between two cars.

  She rolled down the window. “Are you crazy? I could have killed you!”

  His eyes were dark and shadowed in the darkness. “Maybe you shouldn’t back out of a parking place at forty miles an hour, then.” Before she could get all up in arms, he leaned closer. “You’re a paramedic. I would have been all right.”

  She looked at the windshield. Her eyes were burning, and she was ashamed to realize she was a breath away from crying. “I’m not a paramedic yet.”

  “That’s all right. I already know you’ll be a good one.”

  Hannah turned to look at him. She expected a patronizing smile, maybe even a mocking one. But shadows still darkened his face, and he looked serious as ever.

  It was possibly the kindest thing he’d said to her in years.

  That didn’t mean she had to take the bait. “What do you want?” she said.

  He glanced at the open lane of traffic behind her. “Could you park your car for a moment?”

  She was tempted to refuse, to press down on the accelerator, and then zoom off, leaving him standing here.

  But she didn’t want that any more than he did.

  She pulled back into the parking place, rolled up her window, and got out of the vehicle, slamming the door behind her. Her breath fogged instantly, and she rubbed her hands together, leaning back against the driver’s-side door.

  “Parked,” she said. “Now what?”

  He leaned against the adjacent car. “I try not to tell your mother too much because I don’t want to worry her.”

  “You were a fireman for years. You don’t think she’s used to it?”

  He laughed, but without any real humor to it. “Not anymore. She thinks this job is code violations and safety inspections. Most of the time, she’s right, so I don’t spend much time correcting her. But your mother hated it when I was a fireman.”

  “No, she didn’t. She loved it.”

  His expression didn’t change. “No, Hannah. You loved it.”

  Hannah stared at him, too shocked to come up with an immediate response. He was right about her, of course. She’d been so proud of her father when she was little. Her mother still had a massive box of crayon drawings from when she was a child, and just about every picture featured a fire truck on its way to a blazing building, or a tall, blond fireman rescuing a kitten.

  Her father spoke into her silence. “Don’t get me wrong. Your mother loved it when we were first dating. But after we were married, she seemed to realize that firefighting carried a little more risk than a desk job. Every time I had a tour, I had to watch her choke back a handful of anxiety pills.”

  Hannah thought about her mother, the perfect homemaker, the perfect mother, the perfect grandmother. Always calm, always even-keeled. “Mom never said a word about that.”

  “You think your mother would have wanted to pass that along? To tell her ten-year-old that every time her father walked out the door, they might never see him again?”

  Hannah watched her breath continue to cloud. She tried to wrap her head around this new information, but there were too many memories, too many years to scroll through quickly. “But she’s been so supportive of my becoming a firefighter. She watches James at the drop of a hat.”

  Her father gave her a look. “He’s her first grandchild. Your mother would watch James if you were jumping out of planes all day long.” He paused. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but . . ” He trailed off.

  “Yes. You should definitely tell me.”

  “I don’t want to drive a wedge between you.”

  “You don’t have to worry about my relationship with her.”

  He winced, then hesitated so long that Hannah worried she wouldn’t get an answer at all. “She hates it just as much that you’re a firefighter. She’s counting down the days until you get your paramedic license.”

  “She’s never said a word!”

  Her father narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure? She hasn’t encouraged you to find a less stressful job?”

  “Well, yes, but.. ” Hannah stopped. Her mother did encourage that, all the time. Hannah had never realized it had anything to do with her choice of occupation. She’d always thought it had more to do with being a working mother while trying to go to school.

  “When you enrolled in fire school,” her father continued, “she wanted to forbid it.”

  Hannah set her jaw. “She couldn’t have stopped me.”

  Her father smiled—the first real smile she’d seen from him in forever. “That’s what I told her.”

  Hannah jammed her hands in her pockets. “Don’t try to turn this around, like you’ve been the perfect parent all along, and this has all been some misunderstanding.”

  He lost the smile. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

  “You expect me to believe that you gave up a job you loved because you didn’t want Mom popping a few Xanax?”

  “No, Hannah.” His voice went low and dark. “I chose to be a fire marshal because I didn’t want your mother to leave.”

  If her car hadn’t been right there, holding her in place, Hannah might have fallen back a step. She studied his face, looking for any clue that he was exaggerating.

  He looked just as steady as ever.

  She couldn’t handle this. She wrapped her fingers through her k
ey ring and turned to open her car door. “I don’t believe you.”

  “You don’t have to.” He paused. “I was just explaining why I didn’t tell her about the shooting.”

  “It doesn’t explain anything. I wish you’d never told me.”

  He didn’t have anything to say to that.

  Hannah slid back into the car and turned the key, ready to throw it into reverse despite the fact that her father was still standing against the opposite vehicle. He reached out and tapped on her window again.

  Against her better judgment, she rolled it down.

  This time, she didn’t give him a chance to speak. “You can pin all this on Mom if you want to,” she said, “but I think you’re being a real coward. You’re the one who hates that I’m a firefighter. I see it every time I run into you on a job.”

  “Hannah—”

  “And I know you hate that I got pregnant when I was seventeen. You know what? I made a mistake. I can’t undo it. You’re just going to have to get over it.”

  He frowned. “Wait—”

  She didn’t want to wait. She’d been waiting for years, and now she was done with it. She slid the car backward, then pulled out of the parking lot without a backward glance.

  CHAPTER 24

  Michael couldn’t believe he was sitting at a dining room table, eating Chinese food with Hunter and Tyler like it was an ordinary Sunday evening.

  He couldn’t believe it was over. He couldn’t believe he was still alive.

  And the Guide was dead.

  Every time he blinked, he saw the gun. The blood on his hands as he’d driven that stone into the man’s body. The fire that had threatened to destroy him.

  The rage had never fully dissipated, leaving Michael feeling somewhat charged, ready for another threat. The past three days had been so full of terror and panic and worry that he couldn’t talk himself down. He’d found it hard to keep still while talking to the fire marshal. He barely had any recollection of what he’d said about the events in the woods, but it must have sounded good, because they’d let him go. The cops had even bought his “adrenaline” excuse about the handcuffs—because what else could they think?

  He’d thought for sure that they’d take his cell phone, but they didn’t. They didn’t need it. Any text message evidence was on the phone the police had taken from the shooter. They’d found evidence tying him to the fires. The fire marshal had killed him, so Michael was off the hook.

  The man was dead, so there’d be no need for a trial.

  Dead. Another dead Guide. Michael wondered how long he’d have before they sent someone new.

  It didn’t matter if it was five months or five days or five hours. This time, he wasn’t screwing around. He’d get his brothers out of that group home and then they were leaving. There was nothing to tie them to this area anymore. Nothing.

  Hannah, his brain whispered. And your brothers have ties here, too.

  He told his brain to go to hell. Those ties weren’t worth anything if they were all dead.

  “You’re quiet,” said Hunter.

  Michael didn’t look away from his food. “What do you want me to say, Hunter?”

  “I think we should talk about what happened.”

  “He’s dead. It’s over.”

  Tyler stabbed a piece of broccoli with his fork. “You really think that means it’s over?”

  Michael shook his head. He pushed chicken around on his plate. “They’ll send another one.”

  “Should we have a plan?” said Hunter.

  Michael didn’t answer that. Any plan he came up with now would be violent and vicious. He was done with hiding. He’d spent his entire life trying to hide his nature, and look where it had gotten him. He’d lost everything.

  His hand almost missed the feeling of the sharpened rock he’d clutched in the woods. He shouldn’t have stopped. He should have pushed the edge all the way through that man’s body. A couple of times.

  These thoughts should have scared him. They were risky—and the whole reason the Guides were a threat in the first place.

  It wasn’t as if he’d never used his abilities fully before. He’d used his powers on more than one occasion to help the earth absorb a dead body into the soil, leaving no trace of a person’s death.

  He’d never used his own strength and power to directly affect another man, seeking death so effectively.

  He thought of what he’d said to Hunter, about how he tried to live according to what his father would have expected of him. Would his father have expected this? His parents had fought to keep him and his brothers safe from the Guides—but would they have wanted him to employ this kind of violence? Or was this exactly what they didn’t want him to do?

  He had no idea. And it wasn’t like he could ask them. Hunter hit his fork against his plate. “Earth to Michael. Should we have a plan?”

  “I have a plan. I’m going to get my brothers and we’re leaving.”

  The room went silent. Michael could feel them looking at him.

  He finally looked up. “I can’t do this anymore. We don’t have a house to live in. I don’t have a truck. We have too much history in this town. We’re too big a target.” He paused and looked at Tyler. “Maybe I should have paid attention to the signs five years ago. I don’t know.”

  “This isn’t just about your family anymore,” said Tyler.

  “Then you should leave, too.” Michael dropped his fork against the plate. “You should all leave.”

  “Fine,” said Hunter. “I’ll go with you.”

  “You can’t.” Michael refused to let guilt affect him—but it was hard to meet Hunter’s eyes. “It’s one thing to stay at the house with your mother’s permission, when she lives a few miles down the road. But I don’t have a legal claim to you, Hunter. Like it or not, you’re a minor—”

  “So you’re just—you’re going to leave me here, knowing more Guides are coming—”

  “I’ll talk to your mother. Explain the situation.”

  Hunter shoved his chair back from the table. “Wow, that’s helpful. She moved here because she couldn’t afford to live on her own. What do you think we’re going to do—”

  “What do you think I’m going to do, Hunter?” Michael was too charged with adrenaline. He couldn’t keep his voice level. “I’m not made of money, either. It’s not my responsibility to protect every single person I come in contact with.”

  Hunter was glaring at him. “What about Hannah and her son? They were threatened, too—”

  Michael glared back. “You think I don’t know that? Jesus, Hunter, I can’t even spend fifteen minutes with Hannah without some kind of crisis falling at my feet. In the past week, I’ve spent more time worrying about her than I’ve actually spent with her, and you think I’m not aware of what my presence here does to her family? To my family? To your family?”

  “My father and my uncle were coming here to help you, and now you’re going to run, and you’re going to leave me behind.”

  “Your father and your uncle never made it, Hunter.”

  Hunter flinched.

  Michael immediately regretted his words. He took a long breath. “Look—”

  “Forget it.” Hunter didn’t look at him. He dug his keys out of his pocket and headed for the door.

  For two seconds, Michael didn’t move. He watched Hunter go. He told himself it was better this way. He’d need to separate himself from everyone, and soon.

  Then he found himself at the door, a hand above the dead bolt, holding it closed. “Stop. Hunter, stop.”

  “Let me go.”

  “No. Listen. We’ll figure something out. I won’t—”

  “You won’t what? You won’t leave me to deal with this alone? Guess what. You wouldn’t be the first.”

  Michael stared at him. Hunter barely had any more ties to this area than Michael himself did. The poor kid was staying with Adam—almost a stranger—because he didn’t want to endanger his family. And here Michael was abou
t to turn his back on him too.

  Michael winced. “I don’t want to be the second, either. Finish your dinner. We’ll figure it out, okay?”

  After a moment, Hunter returned to the table. So did Michael.

  Tyler hadn’t even stopped eating. He looked vaguely amused—but also pissed off. “What happened to ‘it’s not my responsibility to protect everyone’?”

  “Shut up, Tyler.” Michael hated this. He hated that he couldn’t turn off his thoughts and obligations and let someone else take the reins for a while.

  Hell, fate had already dealt him those cards by taking his brothers away, by offering him a chance to live free of obligation, and he could barely consider it.

  Tyler picked up a carton of rice and dumped half onto his plate. “Where are you going to go?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You want my opinion?”

  “No.”

  Tyler shoveled a bunch of cashew chicken on top of the rice. “You’re getting it anyway. If you want to run, run. But remember that text message from the woods, about who’s the hunter and who’s the prey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t think you’re cut out to be the latter.”

  Was that a compliment? Michael wasn’t sure how to respond.

  Tyler kept talking. “I’ve never seen you run from anything. Even when I hated you, I knew you wouldn’t back down.”

  “Are you an idiot? We ran from the guy in the woods until Jack stopped us.”

  “Yeah, and as soon as you thought Hannah was in danger, you ran back in.”

  Michael didn’t have anything to say to that.

  “What really happened in the woods?” said Tyler. “Give me details, because you weren’t this keyed up before.”

  “I told you.” Michael set his jaw. “The Guide pulled a gun and the fire marshal shot him.”

  “Then why were you covered in blood?”

  Hunter’s fork went still against the plate. He was watching this conversation like a tennis match.

  “It’s not important,” Michael said.

  “Fuck that. It is important. What happened?”

  Michael didn’t say anything.

  Tyler leaned in against the table. “What did you do?”