Sacrifice

  Fate had punched him in the gut. He still felt the blow.

  But it wasn’t permanent. The judge had given him thirty days to figure out a suitable living situation.

  A month without his brothers. He thought back to his dad’s mantra: You can do anything for fifteen minutes.

  Thirty days was a hell of a lot longer than fifteen minutes.

  But he understood it. When he’d been eighteen, he would have fought like hell to challenge even that. Now? His brothers’ lecture the night they’d lost Hunter still echoed in his mind. They were old enough to take care of themselves—a little.

  He needed the time anyway. To get his life back together.

  He glanced at Hannah. “I understand why the judge did what she did. Your dad—he’s been amazing. It’s a relief knowing they’ll stay together, and that I know where they are... ” He stopped walking and looked at her. “Wait. This isn’t why you came out here, is it? Have your parents changed their minds about letting them stay? I know a month is a long time, and—”

  “No! No, Michael, they didn’t change their minds. Are you kidding? My mother has practically adopted them already. It might break her heart when they leave.”

  Michael smiled. His brothers could be charming when they wanted to be. “The guys said she bakes them cookies every day.”

  “Just about.”

  “That’s good. They could use some mothering.”

  She didn’t answer, and he lost the smile. They fell into silence again.

  He peeked over at her. The sunlight was bright on her hair, and the chill in the air had thrown pink on her cheeks. She rubbed at her arms, and he realized he’d been an idiot.

  “Here,” he said, shrugging out of his coat. “It’s cold with the wind.”

  She straightened in surprise when he dropped it around her shoulders, and he thought she might refuse. But then she grabbed the lapels and pulled it closer.

  Her eyes flicked up at him. “Too bad we don’t have Nick to make it stop, right?”

  That felt a little too pointed. Michael frowned.

  She looked up at him. “What’s with the look?”

  “I wish I’d told you,” he said. “If I could go back and do it over, I would.”

  She didn’t say anything to that.

  She kept walking, though, so he kept pace with her.

  “That night you came to Tyler’s,” he said, “when you implied that I didn’t think you could take care of yourself . . . that’s not what I think, Hannah.” He paused. “That’s not what I think at all.”

  Now she did stop, and she got in front of him. “Then what do you think?”

  He studied her. “Why did you come out here?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t do that. Answer the question.”

  He rubbed a hand across the back of his head and looked past her, at the field. “I think I spent five years wondering if I’d ever meet someone who could handle my life. Not just my brothers or the Elemental stuff. All of it. Then I met you, and I thought . . . maybe.” He paused. “I’ve been carrying this all by myself for a while, Hannah. I couldn’t figure out how to share some of the load without dropping all of it.” He glanced at her, then away. “I don’t just mean you, either. My brothers, too. I forget that they’re not little kids anymore.” He shook his head. “The morning after the fire, Adam told me that it was okay to let other people take care of me. The problem is that I’ve forgotten how.”

  She was still looking up at him. “I can understand that.”

  “I know you can.” He gave a short laugh. He wanted to touch her so badly that it hurt. He jammed his hands in his pockets. “Probably better than anyone else.”

  “Irish told me that it was okay for me to start acting like a grown-up, instead of like a kid with something to prove. I don’t think I’m the only one.”

  “You’re not.” He paused and looked down at her. “So . . . you and Irish . . . ?”

  He let that thought trail off.

  She turned and started walking, but she didn’t torture him too long. “We’re friends.”

  Michael fell into step beside her. “That’s all?”

  “That’s all. I’m still too hung up on someone else.”

  His heart tripped and stumbled and raced to catch up. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  He caught her arm and turned her to face him. “Hannah—you’ve seen what we’re up against. It won’t stop.”

  “Irish says that things are changing. That the Guides are losing the power they once had.”

  It was so surreal to hear her talk about it like she’d known all his secrets all along. Bemused, Michael shook his head. “Maybe. But change is never immediate.”

  “Maybe we could deal with it together?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  She grabbed his arms and shook him. “Damn it, Michael, this is one of those times when you can let someone else carry the load.”

  He grinned. “Like I said, change is never immediate.”

  She smiled back and started walking again.

  He reached out and caught her hand. “So we’re okay?”

  “Nope.”

  Her voice was light, so his eyebrows went up, and he matched her tone. “Nope? What do you want from me?”

  “A grown-up relationship.”

  “You mean we should argue about home equity loans and where to find the cheapest gasoline?”

  She smacked him on the arm. “No. I mean no more hiding our relationship from your brothers.” She paused. “Or my father.”

  “I was never hiding you, Hannah.”

  “I don’t mean hiding, exactly.” She paused. “I mean no more acting like we don’t have a right to be together.”

  “Oh.” He nodded and stopped her again, but this time he slid his hands under the jacket to catch her waist in his hands. “I think I can do that.”

  “No more big secrets, either.”

  “I can do that, too.”

  He leaned down to kiss her, but she put a finger against his lips. “If you kiss me like a grown-up,” she said, “are you going to start earthquakes and stuff? Just how dangerous are you?”

  Her voice was still teasing, but he heard the honest question there, too. He caught her face in his hands. “Let’s find out together,” he said.

  He pressed his lips to hers.

  And despite the fact that it was mid-November, every single wildflower in the field burst into bloom.

  Read on for all three bonus novellas in The Elemental Series.

  ELEMENTAL

  FEARLESS

  BREATHLESS

  ELEMENTAL

  CHAPTER 1

  The thrill of having a summer job wore off about fifteen minutes after Emily Morgan started working. She’d had two customers all day. The sports complex was such a joke. No wonder she hadn’t had any competition for this job.

  It wasn’t even a sports complex, not really. Mini-golf that no one wanted to play when it was a hundred degrees outside. Batting cages that no one would use until school started up in the fall. She probably wouldn’t see another soul until after five, when the white-collar dads showed up to use the driving range in a last-ditch effort to avoid going home to screaming kids.

  Even then, in this heat, she’d be lucky if there were many. Ugh, her hair was already plastered to her neck. Days like these, she wished she had enough power to do more than stir up a gentle breeze.

  Then she choked off that thought.

  She knew what happened to kids with power.

  Besides, sitting here wasn’t so bad. She worked the shop alone, so she could blast the entire sound tracks to Rent and Les Mis and sing along, and no one would give a crap. She didn’t have to watch her brother, Tyler, light insects on fire with a magnifying glass and a sunbeam, like he’d done last summer. She didn’t have to listen to her parents argue.

  She could count the days until she turned eighteen.

  Until she could get away from her family.
r />   The shop door creaked and rattled, sticking in the humidity. Emily straightened, excited for a customer, for someone—anyone —to break up this cruel monotony.

  Anyone but Michael Merrick.

  For a second, she entertained the thought of diving behind the counter.

  Real mature, Em.

  But her hands were slick against the glass casing.

  It wasn’t that he looked all that intimidating. He’d be starting his senior year this fall, just like she would, but sometime over the last six months he’d grown to the tall side of average. He worked for his parents’ landscaping company, she knew, and it couldn’t have been light work—his arms showed some clear definition, his shoulders stretching the green tee shirt he wore.

  He was filthy, too. Dirt streaked across his chest and clung to the sweat on his neck. His jeans had seen better days, and his work boots would probably track dirt across the floor. Even his hair, dark and wild and a length somewhere between sexy and I-don’t-give-a-crap, was more unkempt than usual.

  Emily didn’t care about any of that.

  She had her eyes on the baseball bat in his hands.

  He’d gotten into it with Tyler last weekend, had sent her brother home with a black eye and a bloody nose, leaving their parents to argue for an hour about how they were going to handle the Merrick problem.

  Emily slid her hand along the counter, toward where they kept the putt-putt clubs for little kids.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” she said, her voice solid but too quick. Her fingers wrapped around the handle of a club.

  Michael’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t either.”

  Then she realized he hadn’t moved from the doorway, that he was still standing there staring at her, his hand on the knob.

  He glanced past her, at the corners of the shop, as if reassuring himself that they were alone. She had no idea what that meant. She watched him take in her stance, the way she’d half pulled the putt-putt club free.

  He followed her gaze to the bat resting against his shoulder.

  His expression hardened, and he shoved the door closed. He was halfway across the floor before she realized he’d moved, and she yanked the club free, ready to swing if he gave her an excuse.

  Then he was within reach, and she registered the bat leaving his shoulder, and, god, her parents were right—

  He was going to swing—

  He was going to kill her—

  His hand shot out and caught the steel bar.

  Emily stood there gasping. She’d done it—she’d swung for his head. The end of the putter hung about five inches from his face.

  And his bat was leaning against the counter.

  Harmless.

  She couldn’t move. He didn’t let go of the club, either, using his free hand to dig into the pocket of his jeans. A five-dollar bill dropped onto the glass counter between them.

  “So can I get five tokens or what?”

  Tokens. For the batting cages.

  Of course.

  Emily couldn’t catch her breath—and that never happened. Her panic had kicked the air into a flurry of little whirlwinds in the space between them, teasing her cheeks and lifting his hair.

  She could catch his scent, though, sweet and summery, mulch and potting soil, honeysuckle and cut grass. A warm fragrance, not something that belonged on someone she was supposed to hate.

  He was staring at her, and he had a death grip on the club. She could feel his strength through the slim bar. “Well?”

  “Yeah.” She coughed and cleared her throat, using her own free hand to punch at the cash register. “Sure.”

  It took effort to look away from the dark brown of his eyes. Wasn’t there some kind of rule about not looking away from an enemy? She fished the tokens out of the drawer, almost dropping them all over the floor. Somehow, she got them onto the glass counter and slid them toward him.

  Then they stood there comically, connected by the slim rod of the club.

  She wanted to let go—but she didn’t.

  Especially now that she’d tried to hit him, when he’d never made a move to lay a hand on her.

  She swallowed, thinking of Tyler’s bruised face after he’d gone a few rounds with Michael Merrick.

  He leaned in. “I come here every Wednesday and Friday.”

  Emily nodded.

  “You going to try to kill me every time?”

  She shook her head quickly.

  He let go of the club. She sheepishly lowered it, but didn’t put it back in the bucket with the others.

  Michael swiped the tokens from the counter and jammed them into his pocket. He swung the bat onto his shoulder again.

  Emily opened her mouth—for what, she wasn’t sure.

  But then he was through the door, pulling it shut behind him without a glance back.

  The ball came flying out of the machine, and Michael swung the bat hard, feeling it all the way through his shoulders.

  Crack. The ball went sailing into the net.

  One place. That’s all he wanted—one place where he wouldn’t get hassled.

  And now he was screwed.

  What the hell was Tyler’s sister doing here, anyway? She wasn’t a jock chick. From what he knew of her, she should probably be flirting over the counter at Starbucks or something, not babysitting a half-dead sports center.

  Summer should have meant a break from this crap. Ever since they’d moved here when he was in sixth grade, school had been a prison he got to escape at three o’clock every day.

  Only to be hauled back in the next morning.

  Just like in a real prison, not everyone sucked. There were the people who didn’t know he existed. The people who knew but didn’t care. The latter made up the bulk of the student body.

  But then there was the group that knew everything about him. The group that wanted him dead.

  The Elementals.

  Like he’d picked this. Like he’d woken up one morning and said, I’d love to be tied to an element. I’d love to have so much power it scares me.

  I’d love to be marked for death because of something I can’t control.

  Another ball.

  Crack.

  This wasn’t the only place with batting cages, but it was the cheapest. One sat closer to home, with fake turf in the cages and everything, but here his feet were in the dirt, pulling strength from the ground below.

  If he took his shoes off and swung barefoot, he could draw enough power from the earth to blow the ball straight through the net.

  Oh, who was he kidding? He could practically do that now, steel-toed work boots and all.

  That was part of the problem. He was a pure Elemental. Power spoke to him straight from the earth. The others in town had power, sure, but nothing like his. He could theoretically level half the town if he lost his temper.

  Which was why they wanted him dead.

  Another ball.

  Crack.

  At least his parents had worked out a deal: He’d stay out of trouble, and the other families wouldn’t report his existence.

  There’d been money involved, sure. He had no idea how much. But sometimes he couldn’t believe his entire being rested on a signed check and a frigging handshake.

  It didn’t help that the other kids in town—the kids who knew—seemed determined to make him reveal himself.

  The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and Michael punched the button to stop the pitches, whirling with bat in hand.

  He wouldn’t put it past Emily to call her brother and his friends.

  No one stood in the dust between the batting cages and the office. Dad’s work truck was still the only vehicle in the parking lot.

  Michael swiped the sweat off his forehead and turned to slap the button again. Another ball came flying.

  Crack.

  He’d have to think twice before bringing Chris or the twins here again. It was one thing to walk into enemy territory alone, and entirely another to drag his little brothers.
/>
  And, damn it, this shouldn’t have been enemy territory!

  Crack.

  God, it felt good to hit something.

  Well, he wasn’t giving it up. This was his thing. If Emily wanted to take a swing at his head with a putter twice a week, she could give it her best shot. What did she think he was going to do, instigate an earthquake from the batting cages? Make too much grass grow on the driving range?

  That prickle crawled along his neck again. Michael spun.

  Emily stood there, ten feet behind the chain link, her arms folded tight against her chest. Tendrils of white-blond hair had escaped her ponytail to cling to her neck in the humidity.

  Michael could practically hear his father’s daily warning in his head: Don’t start something. Just leave them alone.

  How was he supposed to leave them alone if they kept coming after him?

  He automatically checked behind her. Still no cars in the parking lot.

  “Back to take another swing?” he said.

  She scowled, but didn’t look away. “No.” She hesitated. “I just . . . I wanted to—”

  A ball rammed the fence beside his shoulder, rattling the entire structure. Michael swore, and Emily jumped. He turned to slap the button again.

  When he turned back, she’d come closer, until only three feet of dirt and a chain-link cage separated them.

  “I need this job,” she said, her voice full of false bravado. Like she’d had to dare herself to walk out here.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t try to kill your customers, then.”

  She licked her lips and fidgeted. “I didn’t . . . I thought you were going to—”

  “Yeah, I know what you thought I was going to do.” He adjusted the grip on his bat and turned back to face the machine. No matter how careful he was, all they could see was his potential for damage.

  Like he would have needed a bat. Didn’t she understand that? He hit the button. A ball came flying. He swung.

  Crack.

  “Well,” she said from behind him, “I saw what you did to Tyler last week.”

  What he’d done. That was rich. “Yeah, poor Tyler.”

  “He said you jumped him after school.”