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Authors: Brigid Kemmerer

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BOOK: Fearless
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C
HAPTER
5
“So what did you learn?”
Hunter slumped in the free chair in his dad's office. He'd been up all night—and his dad had already made it clear that he expected Hunter to go to school.
Clare and her mother were in the hospital.
So was her father, under police guard. He had a bullet hole through his left shoulder.
“A lot of things,” said Hunter.
“Specifically?”
“I should have told you she took the gun.”
His father smiled, but there was an edge to it. “No, that one I understand. What did you learn about
her?
”
Hunter set his jaw and looked out the window, where sunlight was just beginning to crawl into the sky. “She was using me.”
“And what did Jay tell you about girls?”
Hunter rolled his eyes. “To use them first. That doesn't even make sense. You want me to go through life using everyone I meet?”
“If it will keep you safe, yes, I do.”
Hunter didn't say anything.
“Even last night,” said his father. “Even knowing she'd stolen from you. You wanted to help her. Didn't you?”
“Who
wouldn't
want to help her? Can't you imagine what she must have been going through? Do you
blame
her?”
“She could have told you, Hunter. If she cared about you, if she trusted you, she would have. Jay was here in uniform last night. She could have told
him
.”
Hunter scowled.
“If nothing else,” said his father, “say you used her for the lesson.”
“What about you?” Hunter snapped.
“Me?”
“Do you use Mom?”
“You keep saying the word
use
like it's a bad thing. As if there's nothing given in return. Your mother wanted security. A family. A husband who would take care of her. She got those things.”
Hunter snorted. “You make my whole existence sound like a barter transaction.”
“Good. Start thinking of every relationship in your life that way.”
“What fun.”
“You can think about it while we're gone. I think you'll figure it out.”
“Gone?” Hunter straightened in the chair. “You're leaving?”
“We got another message about this family in Annapolis. It sounds suspicious. We've decided to go a few days early, get the lay of the land before they know we're there. Jay's packing the car now so we can beat traffic.”
Hunter looked out the window. “This is bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
Hunter flew out of his chair. “I said
this is bullshit
. I can do this. You know I can do this. I should get to go. You even said yourself—I could be a decoy. I could help. I could—”
“You're not ready.”
“I am ready! Look at last night! Look at—”
His dad raised an eyebrow. “I am looking at last night, Hunter.”
Hunter flushed. “I don't mean the . . . the
using
. I mean—”
“I know exactly what you mean. I also know that man had every thought to kill you, and you shot him in the shoulder.” His father paused and put his hands on Hunter's shoulders. “You're
not ready
. And that's
fine
.”
Hunter shoved his hands off and moved to brush past his father. “Fuck you.”
Hunter didn't realize his dad had grabbed him until he'd been spun around and pinned to the doorjamb.
His father didn't even raise his voice. “Want to try that again?”
The door frame was pressing into his cheek exactly where he'd gotten the bruise yesterday—and Hunter could swear his dad knew that. “Let me go.”
“Acting like a cocky teenager isn't the way to convince me you're ready.” But his dad let him go.
Hunter shoved him, hard.
And then his dad came after him.
“Hey.
Hey
.” Uncle Jay was there, dragging them apart. “Leave him be, John. The kid's had a long night.”
“Forget it,” said Hunter. “I've got to get ready for school.” He didn't look at his dad, just turned for the steps. “Have a great time on your
trip
.”
 
 
When Hunter came out of the shower, his father and uncle were gone.
It figured.
Hunter slammed through the underbrush surrounding the property. He was exhausted, but fury rode him hard. He kept replaying those last minutes with his dad.
And a small nagging voice at the back of his head kept insisting that his dad had left for a potentially dangerous assignment, and for the first time, he hadn't said good-bye.
Hunter hesitated and pulled the phone out of his pocket. He tapped out a text to Uncle Jay.
 
Tell Dad I'm sorry.
 
Before he could press S
END
, someone tackled him from behind. The phone went flying, disappearing beneath the leaves.
“Payback's a bitch, huh?”
Jeremy Rasmussen.
A foot kicked Hunter in the side. “
Someone
's a bitch.”
Garrett Watts.
Normally Hunter would fight them enough to stay alive, to keep his dignity. Anything more always seemed to up the ante.
Today wasn't the day for that.
It took him less than three minutes to have them both on the ground. Jeremy's head had collided with a tree trunk, and he lay unconscious in the leaves. Garrett's arm was pinned behind his back, and he was whimpering. Hunter was all but kneeling on his throat.
And for the first time, Hunter considered driving his knee down, crushing Garrett's windpipe.
He thought of his father's question, of whether he could do it.
Thinking
and
doing
were two very different things.
The world would be a better place without a jerk like Garrett Watts.
Just like the world probably would have been a better place without a man like Clare's father. Hunter's dad was right—he should have shot to kill.
But Garrett was a
kid
. He still had time to figure out what kind of man he was going to be.
So did Hunter.
He stood. “Get your friend out of here,” he said. “If you guys ambush me again, I won't stop there.”
Then Hunter picked up his backpack and started walking. But he headed for home, instead of school. If his dad was gone, there was no one to crack the whip. He had a lot more use for a day spent sleeping.
When he got there, the car was back in the driveway.
His dad and Uncle Jay were in the kitchen.
They didn't say anything when Hunter walked in, and he wondered if he could feed them a line about forgetting a textbook.
Then his dad said, “I changed my mind.”
Changed his mind? After everything? Hunter could count on one hand the number of times his father had
changed his mind
. Now it made Hunter wonder whether he'd made the wrong decision in the woods just now—or the right one.
He dropped his backpack. “You . . . what?”
His dad glanced at Jay. “Your uncle convinced me. Go pack a bag. You can come with us.”
Turn the page for a sneak peek at
Spark,
the second book in the exciting Elemental Series, available this September.
C
HAPTER
1
Gabriel Merrick stared at the dead leaf in his palm and willed it to burn.
It refused.
He had a lighter in his pocket, but that always felt like cheating. He
should
be able to call flame to something this dry. The damn thing had been stuck in the corner of his window screen since last winter. But the leaf only seemed interested in flaking onto his trigonometry textbook.
He was seriously ready to take the lighter to
that
.
A knock sounded on his bedroom wall.
“Black,” he called. Nicky always slept late, always knocked on his wall to ask what color he was wearing. If he didn't, they ended up dressing alike.
Gabriel looked back at the leaf—and it was just that, a dead leaf. No hint of power. Behind the drywall, electricity sang to him. In the lamp on his desk, he could sense the burning filament. Even the weak threads of sunlight that managed to burn through the clouds left some trace of his element. If the power was there, Gabriel could speak to it, ask it to bend to his will.
If the power wasn't, he had nothing.
His door swung open. Nick stood there in a green hoodie and a pair of khaki cargo shorts. A girl on the cheer squad had once asked Gabriel if having a twin was like looking in a mirror all the time. He'd asked her if being a cheerleader was like being an idiot all the time—but really, it was a good question. He and Nick shared the same dark hair, the same blue eyes, the same few freckles across their cheekbones.
Right now, Nick leaned on a crutch, a knee brace strapped around his left leg, evidence of the only thing they didn't share: a formerly broken leg.
Gabriel glanced away from that. “Hey.”
“What are you doing?”
Gabriel flicked the leaf into the wastebasket beneath his desk. “Nothing. You ready for school?”
“Is that your trig book?”
“Yeah. Just making sure I told you the right assignment.”
Gabriel always attempted his math homework—and then handed it over for Nick to do it
right
. Math had turned into a foreign language somewhere around fifth grade. Then, Gabriel had struggled through, managing Cs when his twin brought home As. But in seventh grade, when their parents died, he'd come close to failing. Nick started covering for him, and he'd been doing it ever since.
Not like it was a big challenge. Math came to Nick like breathing. He was in second-year calculus, earning college credit. Gabriel was stuck in trigonometry with juniors.
He was pretty frigging sick of it.
Gabriel flipped the book closed and shoved it into his backpack. His eyes fell on that knee brace again. Two days ago, his twin's leg had been broken in three places.
“You're not going to make me carry your crap all day, are you?” His voice came out sharp, nowhere near the light ribbing he'd intended.
Nick took it in stride, as usual. “Not if you're going to cry about it.” He turned toward the stairs, his voice rising to a mocking falsetto. “I'm the school sports hero, but I can't possibly carry a few extra books—”
“Keep it up,” Gabriel called, slinging the backpack over his shoulder to follow his brother. “I'll push you down the stairs.”
But he hesitated in the doorway, listening to Nick's hitching steps as he descended the staircase, the creak of the banister as it supported his weight.
Gabriel knew he should help. He should probably be taking the place of that crutch. That's what
Nick
would do for
him
.
But he couldn't force himself through the doorway.
That broken leg had been his fault. Thank god Nick could pull power from the air, an element in abundance. He probably wouldn't even need the brace by the end of the week.
And then Gabriel wouldn't need to stare at the evidence of his own poor judgment.
He and his brothers had always been targeted for their Elemental abilities. Being pure Elementals, they should have been put to death as soon as they came into their powers. Luckily, their parents had struck a deal with the weaker Elementals in town.
A deal that had led to their parents' deaths.
Their oldest brother, Michael, had been able to keep the deal in place—until a few weeks ago, when Tyler and Seth, two of the other Elemental kids in town, had attacked Chris. It started a snowball of events that led to an Elemental Guide coming to town to do away with the Merrick brothers for good.
He'd almost succeeded, too. After the Homecoming dance, they'd been attacked.
They'd fought back the only way they knew how. But Gabriel had let Nick call storms that were too strong. He'd begged his twin for more power. When Nick fell, the accident had practically shattered his leg—if they weren't full Elementals, he probably would have needed surgery.
That night, Gabriel couldn't keep him safe. The Guide had kidnapped Nick and Chris, had held them prisoner.
Becca and Hunter had found them. But Gabriel couldn't do anything. Ineffective and out of control, just like always.
But now they were safe, and things were back to normal. Nick was his usual self.
Life's good. Move on. No use complaining.
He hadn't even said a word about what had happened on the field.
As far as Gabriel was concerned, he didn't need to.
Just like with math, Nick was used to his twin being a failure.
 
 
Gabriel pulled onto Becca Chandler's street and glanced in the rearview mirror at his younger brother. Chris was chewing on his thumbnail, leaning against the window.
“Nervous?” said Gabriel.
Chris looked away from the window and glared at him. “No.”
Nick turned in his seat. “Make sure you open the door for her. Girls eat that crap up.”
“Nah,” said Gabriel. “Play it cool. Make her work for it—”
“For god's sake,” Chris snapped. “She just broke up with Hunter, like,
yesterday,
so it's not like that. Okay?”
Jesus. Someone was worked up. Gabriel glanced back again. “But she asked you for a ride.”
Chris looked back out the window. “I offered.”
Nick turned his head to look at his twin. “Very nervous,” he whispered.
Gabriel smiled and turned into Becca's driveway. “Very.”
“Would you two
shut up?
”
Becca was waiting on the front step, her arms around her knees and her hands drawn up into the sleeves of a fleece pullover, dark hair hanging down her back.
“She looks upset,” said Nick.
She did, her eyes dark and shadowed, her shoulders hunched. Or maybe she was just cold. Gabriel wasn't one for figuring out emotion.
Her face brightened when she saw them, and she sprinted for the car almost before Chris had time to jump out and hold the door for her.
She stopped short in front of him, spots of pink on her cheeks. “Hey,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Hey,” Chris said back, his voice soft and low.
Then they just stood there breathing at each other.
Gabriel hit the horn.
They jumped apart—but Chris punched him in the shoulder when he climbed back into the car.
Becca buckled her seat belt. “I'm glad you're all here.”
Her voice was full of anxiety. So Nick had been right.
Chris shifted to look at her. “You all right?”
She shook her head. “My dad just called. He wants to meet with me. Tonight.”
No one said anything for a moment, leaving her words floating in the warm confines of the car.
Her dad was the Elemental Guide who'd been sent to kill them all.
When they escaped and didn't hear anything for two days, they'd all started to think he'd run off again, the way he had when Becca was eleven.
Chris took a breath, and his voice was careful. “Do you want to meet with
him?
”
Gabriel glanced at her in the rearview mirror. She was practically hunched against the door, staring out the window. “I want him to get the hell
out of here
.”
Chris was still watching her. “He is your father.” He paused. “You sure?”
“He might have made a ‘contribution,' but that man is
not
my father.”
“I want to see him,” said Gabriel. His shoulders already felt tight.
She hesitated. “Wait. You'd . . . go with me?”
“Yeah. I owe him a little payback.”
“We,”
said Nick. There was heat in his voice, too.
“Did he say why he wanted to meet?” asked Chris.
“He said he wants to help us. That they'll send another Guide if he doesn't report back that you were . . . um . . .”
“Killed.” Gabriel hit the turn signal at the end of her road.
She swallowed. “Yeah. Hey, make a left. We need to pick up Quinn.”
Gabriel glanced at her again. He wasn't a big fan of Becca's best friend, so the last thing he wanted to do was pick her up—especially when there was so much left to talk about. “Anyone else?” he said. “Should I pick up Hunter, too?”
Becca faltered and glanced at Chris. “I'm sorry . . . I should have asked—”
“It's fine,” he said, and Gabriel could feel his youngest brother's eyes in the rearview mirror. “I'm sure he's not intentionally being a dick.”
Gabriel ignored him. “What time tonight? Did he say where?”
“Annapolis Mall. Eight o'clock. Make a right at the stop sign. She's down at the end of the block.”
“He wants to meet at the
mall?
” said Nick.
“Food court,” said Becca. “I told him it had to be somewhere public.”
“Great,” said Gabriel. “More people in the line of fire.”
“Do you think the mall was a mistake?” said Becca.
Gabriel shrugged. Her father hadn't hesitated to put normal people in danger last week.
But really, what difference did it make?
They were pulling alongside the curb, and Quinn threw open the door and launched herself inside. Blond hair was caught inside her jacket, and her backpack was barely zipped. Notebooks spilled onto the floorboards before she could get the door shut.
“Jesus,
drive,
” Quinn said, hitting the back of his seat. “God, I hate my mother.”
She was just so frigging
overdramatic
. Gabriel pulled the car away from the curb, deliberately moving as slowly as possible.
But Nick turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. “Everything all right?”
Quinn shoved the notebooks back into her bag and yanked the zipper. “I'm stuck living with Satan. When's the car situation going to improve, Bex? I can't keep doing this.”
Nick was still looking into the backseat. “We can keep driving you to school, if you need a ride.”
Quinn stopped fighting with her things and looked up at him. “Really?”
“We'd love it,” said Gabriel, making sure his sarcasm carried an edge. “Maybe we can pick up half the junior class.”
“What is
with
you?” said Chris.
“Don't worry,” said Quinn. “I already know he's an ass.”
“Love you, too,” said Gabriel.
But Nick grinned. “You can tell us apart?”
“Please. When you're talking, there's no challenge.” She punched the back of Gabriel's seat again.
He glared at her in the rearview mirror. “What are you, six years old?”
“Oh, you don't like that? What about this?” She licked her finger and stuck it in his ear.
He smacked her hand away. He'd never punched a girl, but she might be the first.
Becca laughed. “Quinn has two brothers.”
“I know all the ways to irritate a boy,” Quinn said.
Gabriel snorted. “I don't doubt that one bit.”
BOOK: Fearless
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