Spark (21 page)

All she knew was that suddenly clothes were in the way.

She started yanking at the shoulders of his sweatshirt, trying to drag it over his head. He laughed again, but this time it was a slow sexy growl of sound as he lifted enough to help her yank the hoodie free.

The contents of his pockets spilled across her bare skin, and she giggled, grabbing for keys and his iPod, tossing them on top of the abandoned sweatshirt. Then her fingers closed on something slick and metal.

She frowned as she held it up. “A lighter?”

Gabriel was staring at it in her hand, that same inscrutable expression on his face. Tousled hair, rumpled T-shirt. Somewhat lost, but defiant at the same time. Those typical defenses were falling into place.

For an instant she wondered if his big secret was that he was a smoker. But she couldn’t work that out in her head. She’d never seen him smoke a cigarette, had never smelled cigarettes or pot or anything on him or his clothes and god knew they’d spent enough time together over the last few days.

But why would he be carrying around a lighter if he wasn’t a smoker?

He still hadn’t said anything.

The horse snorted, lifting his head to look at the barn, his ears pricked. He’d moved down the hill a ways, but not far enough for her to worry.

She looked back at Gabriel. “A lighter?” she said again, bewildered. Intuitively, she knew that the time for easy answers had come and gone. It’s my brother’s, or I found it in the woods.

Maybe something like, It’s dead, but it used to belong to my father.

Gabriel sighed and pushed the hair back from his face. “That,”

he said, “is part of my secret.”

The horse snorted again, pawing at the grass. He was probably ready to spook at nothing.

Layne sighed and rolled to her feet, zipping up her jacket as she moved. She caught the horse’s lead rope and kept her voice even, trying to figure out the mystery before Gabriel laid it on the line. But she had no idea. “Your secret has to do with a lighter?”

He reached out to take it from her hand. “No. My secret has to do with fire.”

And at that precise moment, the roof of the barn burst into flame.

Gabriel stared at the flames shooting through the barn roof, blazing flares of orange and red. Smoke poured into the sky. There was plenty of fuel here hay and wood and probably dozens of things he couldn’t even imagine. This fire didn’t rage it celebrated. The entire building would be consumed in minutes.

Something was banging inside the barn. He heard screams, inhuman cries that made him want to clamp his hands over his ears.

Horses.

He could feel his heart in his throat. He’d been pulling power from the sunlight, his emotions riding high.

Had he done this?

This made his mistake in the woods look like a campfire.

Layne was all action, shoving at his chest. Her horse was dancing at the end of his rope, but Layne held fast. She was yelling, her voice hoarse.

He realized she’d been yelling at him for some time.

“Take him, damn it! Get him in the field!” She punched him in the chest again, shoving the rope at him.

Take him. The horse. Gabriel’s fingers closed on the rope automatically, just as the animal reared up, nearly jerking the rope free.

“Just get him through the gate!” Layne cried, pointing behind him.

Like he could do that without getting trampled. The horse had to weigh a thousand pounds, and he was dragging Gabriel in a circle, a snorting panicked mess of muscle and hooves.

He managed to get to the gate, somehow working the latch before the horse swung around, knocking Gabriel into the fence with his shoulder. Gabriel lost hold of the rope but before he could panic, the horse bolted through the opening, tearing along the fenceline with a thunder of hooves against turf.

But the animal was trapped in the field. Gabriel latched the gate.

When he turned around, Layne was gone.

He spun full circle. Gone.

Smoke poured from the barn doors now. Horses were still screaming, banging on the walls. Trapped. Layne couldn’t have . . . she wouldn’t But he was already running before those thoughts could complete themselves.

He made it to the barn doors just as Layne burst through the wall of smoke, coughing as she ran. She had a rope in each hand, two horses trailing behind her. Her face was streaked with soot already. One of the horses had bits of flaming debris on its back. Both were wide eyed, their steel shoes skidding on the concrete outside the barn.

“Layne!” he said. “Don’t ”

“Take them!”

Then she flung the ropes at him, and he was lost in a rush of surging horseflesh.

And she was back in the barn.

He couldn’t catch the ropes quickly enough. The horses bolted for the path behind the barn, the path where he’d first met Layne, the path that led to the woods and safety.

He had no idea whether she was right about the whole herd animal thing, but the woods were better than the barn. He let them go, then dove into the cloud of smoke after her.

After the sunlight, the darkness of the barn was almost absolute. Sparks dripped from the ceiling, catching at loose straw and wood shavings to create small fires in his path. But most of the fire was overhead, in the hayloft, a pulsing glow that called to him through the smoke.

You’re here! Come play.

“Layne!” he yelled. The roar of the fire was a living thing, muting his voice. Horses were still screaming in the darkness a sound that had started as panic and now carried mostly pain.

He shouted her name again, dropping to his knees where the smoke was less dense though it didn’t help. The fire had found something new to burn, and metal cans were bursting somewhere to his left. He could smell chemicals.

Settle, he pleaded.

He hadn’t realized how much Hunter’s presence helped, how much another Elemental let him focus his power.

This was too much for him to handle alone.

“Layne!”

Nothing.

How could he have done this? His control was no better than when he’d killed his parents. And it was going to happen again.

He swept the aisle, going from side to side, using his hands to learn if she’d collapsed in here somewhere. He found all kinds of items he couldn’t identify no Layne. He heard a crash, and before he could identify the source, something heavy ran into him, knocking him aside. Hooves hit his rib cage; his head hit the wall. Metal horseshoes scrabbled at the concrete flooring, and then the animal was gone, tearing into the sunlight.

Gabriel coughed and rolled back to his knees, ignoring the new pain in his chest, the starbursts flaring in his eyes. He deserved a broken rib or two. A concussion.

He deserved to be trampled. To death.

“Layne!”

Fire rained down more steadily now. Bits of wood struck his back, his cheeks, his hands.

There was only one horse banging now, from what he could tell. Had they all escaped? Or had some died from the smoke, the heat?

Would he find Layne, or just a body?

Stop it.

Larger parts of the ceiling fell behind him, flaming planks of wood crashing into the aisle. Fire leapt onto the walls, into the open stall doors, catching the sawdust bedding and turning it into a carpet of flame.

What if Layne wasn’t in the aisle at all, but inside one of the stalls?

Help me, he begged the fire. Where is she?

But this fire didn’t care about people. It cared about the burn, the destruction, the pure energy.

Metal struck concrete again, and Gabriel scrabbled out of the way. Smoke swelled around the running animal, revealing a white head, soot-covered flanks, and then a tail swallowed up by the smoke.

No more banging.

Someone had let that horse out.

“Layne!” Gabriel dove forward. The horse had come down the center of the aisle, so he didn’t know which side to check first.

This new silence was terrifying.

He started left.

Closed door. Closed door. Open door but no Layne. Maybe it had been pushed open by one of the earlier horses.

The heat was scorching his lungs. He refused to think of what it must be doing to Layne’s.

He scurried across the aisle. Closed door. Closed door. Closed where the hell was she?

And then his hand came down on something solid.

A body.

She wasn’t moving. Wasn’t breathing. When he put his hands on her face, he felt something wet blood, running from her hairline. Gabriel was choking on smoke, on tears, on saying her name. He had her in his arms, but it was like clutching a doll.

Power breathed in the air around him. A fierce contradiction to the lifeless girl in his arms.

He wanted to lie down and die beside her.

But the sheer irony was that he could lie here forever, and the fire would never hurt him.

So much energy, right here for his taking. He could level the woods around them, could destroy the entire city.

But he couldn’t save one person.

He slid his hand against her throat, checking for a pulse he knew wasn’t there. His fingers slid through blood, and he choked on another sob.

Blood.

He remembered the night Becca’s father had tried to kill them all, when they’d been standing in three feet of water, and Chris had been so sure Becca was dead. They’d pulled her broken body from a mangled car. Blood had been everywhere. Chris had cut his hand on glass, and he’d put his blood to hers.

He’d fed his power into her.

She’d been healed.

She’d lived.

But Becca was an Elemental a Fifth, like Hunter. Had that been part of it? Had her body known to draw from Chris’s energy, to heal itself?

Gabriel didn’t know. But he was already pounding his knuckles into the rough concrete of the aisle, feeling the skin break.

He was already inciting the flames higher, pulling power from the fire, drawing strength from the inferno around him.

Energy coiled inside him, waiting for release. He felt strong, like he could tear this building down. Like he could destroy towns. Cities. Like energy could pour from his fingertips with the power of a hundred suns.

Gabriel coiled his hand into a fist and pressed his knuckles to her forehead, blood to blood.

And then he drove all that energy into her.

Layne’s body jerked so hard he almost dropped her. But then she didn’t move.

“Layne!” He caught her up against his chest. Her head fell against his shoulder. “Layne?”

Nothing.

He choked on another sob.

And then her body jerked again, not quite as violently.

She started coughing.

“Holy shit,” he said.

And then he was running, scrambling out of the barn before the raging fire he’d drawn could bring the whole thing down around them.

He got her into the grass, in the bright sunlight, where fifteen minutes ago they’d been lying together. Horses were clustered together along the fenceline, some inside the field, some out. He could see blood on some, could smell burned hair.

But he was more worried about Layne. Her clothes were blackened with soot, her face streaked with blood.

But he didn’t see a cut at her hairline. And she wasn’t coughing now, just drawing in big gasps of air.

He could hear sirens.

“Talk to me,” he said. It sounded like he was crying. “Layne please. Talk to me.”

She coughed then. “Are they . . . are they out?”

He didn’t have the heart to tell her some hadn’t gotten out.

He took a breath, ready to lie.

But she grabbed his arm, her nails digging into his skin.

“Truth,” she coughed.

He stared down at her. And shook his head.

She started crying.

“I’m sorry,” he said, choking on the words. “I’m so sorry.”

The sirens were getting closer. Flashing lights strobed through the trees at the end of the property.

He couldn’t be here.

“Layne,” he said. “I have to go.”

She stared back at him. Her eyes were piercing, alert through the tears.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“I knew you’d run,” she said.

The words hit him like a fist. He fell back.

But she was right: he ran like hell.

Gabriel didn’t see the trees, didn’t feel the air on his face. He didn’t feel the pain in his legs, the way the cool air burned his lungs. He just ran. It took every ounce of focus to keep moving forward, to run away from Layne.

He wanted to bolt back to her, to erase that look from her eyes. To hold her hand while the firefighters turned his flames into smoke and bits of cinder.

He kept feeling the way her body had hung in his arms, lifeless.

He’d killed someone again.

Did it matter that he’d brought her back?

Emotion gripped his throat and almost made it impossible to run.

He pushed through it. Maybe his ligaments would tear and offer some piercing agony. Maybe his heart would give out and he’d collapse in the middle of the trail.

He had no idea how long it took him to get home. The four miles simultaneously felt like they took all day and no time at all. He was just suddenly at the tree line behind his house, gasping for breath with his forehead braced against the bark of an old maple.

Now he could feel the sun, bleeding through the trees, feeding energy into his skin. It still had to be early: The woods around him were silent, as if even the morning wildlife wouldn’t bear witness to his sorrow.

As if he was worth it.

The Guides were right. He should have been killed long before he could cause this kind of damage.

The morning air felt all wrong. Too crisp, too clean, too pure.

He could smell the soot on his clothes.

And then he was puking, or his body was trying to, dry heaves ransacking his empty stomach. He didn’t remember falling, but his knees were grinding into the leaves and underbrush, his forearms barely strong enough to support his upper body against the base of the tree.

He was crying, too probably had been for some time. His eyes felt raw; his throat felt like someone had him in a headlock.

And he was alone.

He put his forehead against the tree and choked on another breath. He clenched his damaged fist and slammed it into the bark of the tree. And again.

Alone.

A hand closed on his arm. “Gabriel. Gabriel.”

Nick. Gabriel turned his head and stared at his twin, wide-eyed and kneeling in the leaves like he’d been there for a while.

His mirror image in a clean sweatshirt and cutoff sweatpants.

No tears. No soot. No blood. Perfect.

Wind swirled through the trees to rustle the leaves. “What happened?”

Nick’s expression was wary, as if he expected Gabriel to hit him, or snap. Or worse.

“I did it again,” Gabriel said, and his voice sounded thick. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and struggled to breathe. “I did it again, Nicky.”

“What happened?” Nick’s voice was softer now.

Gabriel shook his head. “Just go.” His voice broke and he didn’t care. Air swirled through the space between them, and the leaves rustled as Nick shifted to stand.

Good.

But then Nick had a hold of his sleeve, of his arm, and he was pulling. Hard. “Get up. Come on.”

Gabriel fought his grip as anger pierced through the despair.

“Leave me alone.”

“Get up.” Nick was still dragging at his arm. The air dropped ten degrees. “Move.”

“Let me go.”

“Move.”

“God damn it, Nick!” Gabriel wrenched his arm free. “I’m not going in the house!”

Another ten degrees. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to hurt anyone else. ”

Nick stared at him for a moment. Gabriel tried not to shiver.

Then Nick clocked him on the side of the head. “I don’t care.

Move.”

When Gabriel didn’t, Nick kicked him. First in the leg, then in the side. Right where that horse had gotten him with a hoof.

Gabriel swore and pushed to his feet, holding his side.

“Stop.”

“You stop.” Nick got in his face. The air was colder now, thin and hard to breathe. “Stop being such an ass and come in the house.”

Gabriel sucked in a breath to fight but the air was frigid and snapped at his lungs. His ribs hurt. His hand ached. He felt like he’d been fighting for so long.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he said, so softly that he barely heard his own voice.

But the wind would carry the words to Nick, whose expression didn’t soften. “Then don’t. Come on.”

And this time when he yanked at Gabriel’s arm, he followed.

The house was quieter than the woods had been, filled with the hush of sleep and early morning. Still, the coffeepot was brewing when they came through the back door, though no one was in the kitchen. Chris’s and Michael’s doors were closed.

Nick practically shoved Gabriel into the upstairs bathroom.

“Sit,” he said, his tone clipped. He jerked at the faucet, turning the water on cold.

Gabriel sat on the closed toilet. He caught the edge of his reflection in the mirror, and just that edge was enough. Leaves and fire debris in his hair, tear-streaked soot on his cheeks.

“Nick,” he said, and speaking still felt like talking around ground glass. “Just ”

“Shut up. Put your hand in the water.”

When he hesitated, Nick sighed and grabbed his wrist, thrusting his raw knuckles under the facet.

Gabriel hissed at the sudden pain, but Nick held fast. “I’ll bet your hand is broken.”

Probably. The skin was torn open across the back of each finger, and the side of his hand was swollen. The water felt fantastic and terrible at the same time.

Gabriel didn’t say anything, just watched the water stream into the drain, dragging dirt and blood with it. Soon his hand would be clean, identical to Nick’s again, except for the gaping wounds.

He sniffed and swiped his other sleeve across his face, but it didn’t feel like it did much. “Nick.”

“Yeah.”

Gabriel glanced up and met his brother’s eyes. I’m sorry.

But he couldn’t make himself say it. There was just too much to be sorry for, as if two words couldn’t contain it all.

Nick finally sighed and looked away, turning off the faucet.

“I’ll get you some ice. Think you can get out of those clothes?”

Gabriel nodded. He’d kicked off his shoes and wrestled out of his sweatshirt by the time his brother came back with an ice pack wrapped in a towel.

Nick didn’t say anything, just set it on the counter and started to back out of the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind him.

But the door stopped with a few inches left. “You want me to bring you a cup of coffee?”

Coffee. The scent of it filled the house now, just like the guilt of his parents’ deaths filled Gabriel’s heart until he couldn’t contain it all anymore. The raw emotion clawed at his chest, at his throat, at his eyes, spilling over until he was crying in earnest.

Then Nick had an arm around his back and Gabriel was crying into his brother’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Nicky, I’m sorry.”

And Nick just held him until he ran out of tears, and they were sitting on the bathroom floor, side by side. They’d used to hide in here, when they were younger, usually after pulling a prank on Michael. They’d lock the door and whisper with the lights off, crouching by the bathtub while Michael pounded on the door and yelled for Dad to get a screwdriver.

Now there was barely enough room to sit.

He didn’t want to think about the past, anyway. Gabriel felt like he’d never have the strength to stand up again. To go to school.

To face Layne.

He wondered if she was okay, if the firefighters had put the fire out.

He wondered if she’d ever forgive him.

He wondered if he’d ever forgive himself.

“Want to know a secret?” said Nick, his voice almost casual, as if Gabriel hadn’t just spent fifteen minutes sobbing on his shoulder and spent days living like an outcast. As if nothing had changed, and they were as close as they’d been two weeks ago.

It reminded him of his conversation with Hunter, about how sometimes you were left with no choice but to move forward and do what you would have done anyway.

Still, Gabriel had to take a steadying breath to speak. “You’re filming this for later blackmail?”

“That, and . . .” Nick paused, and his voice took on a new note. “When Becca’s dad caught us and trapped us in that freezer, I was so glad I was in there, and you were out here.”

Gabriel rolled that around in his head for a moment. “Why?”

“Because I knew you’d be strong enough to get us out.”

Gabriel gave a humorless laugh. “Yeah, but not strong enough to keep you from getting caught in the first place.”

“You were strong enough to get away.”

“Jesus Christ, Nick, you don’t think I feel bad enough about that already?”

Nick swung his head around. “Bad? Why do you feel bad about that? You don’t think I feel bad being such a liability all the time? Like it’s not humiliating enough that my brother has been saving my ass since middle school?”

“What are you even talking about?”

“I’m talking about Tyler. Seth. All of them. How every time they’d want to fight, you’d stand up to them and I’d run.”

“Nick . . . you’re crazy. You’d fight ”

“No. When the fighting got dirty, when they meant business, you’d fight.” Nick was looking at the wall now. “You’d fight, and I’d run.”

This was insane. “I’d tell you to run! I was usually running right behind you.”

“Forget it. You’re missing the point.”

“Goddamn, Nick. What is the point?”

“Shhh.” Nick glanced at the hallway. “You’ll wake Michael, and he’ll have an aneurysm if he sees you like this.”

Gabriel shut up.

Nick looked down at his hands, rubbing at some of the soot that had come off his brother. “Sometimes I wonder if you didn’t let me in on the fire stuff because you knew I wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

“That’s not it at all.” Gabriel swallowed. Somehow this was harder than telling Layne his secrets. “I knew you’d make me stop.”

Now Nick was looking at him, hard. “Stop what?”

Gabriel took a deep breath.

And he told Nick everything.

Layne sat on the stretcher in the ER and hugged her arms across her chest. Her parents were right on the other side of the privacy curtain, having a whispered argument.

Like she was an idiot. Like she couldn’t hear every word.

“Didn’t you tell them?” her mother hissed. Layne could smell her Chanel perfume from here. “I can’t believe they’re not even examining her.”

“Tell them what, Charlotte?” Her father’s voice was tired.

“She’s fine.”

“She’s not fine, David.” Her mother spat his name like it tasted bad. “She’s already damaged enough, and now you’re acting like nothing ”

“I’m not acting like anything. Why don’t you get a handle on the histrionics. I’m sure you have a pill or something you can take.”

Layne wanted to lie down on this stretcher and put the pillow over her face.

She’s already damaged enough.

Thanks, Mom.

The paramedics had said they were taking her to the ER as a precaution, but a doctor had listened to her lungs and shined a light in her eyes and declared her perfectly well. He’d told her that normally people had breathing difficulties from smoke inhalation, coughing, shortness of breath. She didn’t have any of those things. Now she was just waiting for a piece of paper so she could get out of here.

No one knew about Gabriel. No one asked.

She didn’t start out keeping him a secret she just didn’t know what to say, or when to say it. People kept speaking over her head, never asking her anything more than whether she knew what day it was or how to contact her parents.

She’d found his lighter in the grass beside her, probably dropped when he’d grabbed his things and run. She’d shoved it into her pocket. Even now, she could slide her hand between the fabric panels and run her thumb along the slick metal casing.

I don’t want you to hate me.

She thought about the recent arson attacks in the area. Was he telling her he was responsible?

Had he started the fire in the barn?

They’d lain together in the grass for at least fifteen minutes, maybe more. If he’d put this lighter to a bale of hay or something, how long would it have taken the place to go up like that?

Surely faster than fifteen minutes, right?

And when would he have done it? Though she hadn’t had her eyes on him every second they’d been together that morning, she couldn’t see how he would have been able to climb into the hayloft and start a fire without her even noticing.

Beyond that, why would he have done it?

She kept running his words through her brain, as if they were a math problem, and all she had to do was find the right equation to solve for X.

The night I drove you home was the first night The first night that what?

Her mother yanked back the curtain, making the hangers rattle in the steel track. Though she was wearing a white tennis skirt and a pink trimmed sweater, her eyes were perfectly lined, her mascara unsmudged. Even her lipstick looked freshly applied.

Layne wondered how much time she’d spent getting ready to come see her daughter in the hospital.

She wondered if she’d actually been playing tennis.

“Baby? You okay?”

“I’m great,” said Layne flatly. Baby. As if her mother gave a damn. She’d spent more time on the other side of the curtain than she had in here.

“I’m going to flag down the doctor,” her mother said, her lips pursed. “Don’t they know what I do for this hospital? I’m going to give these people a piece of my ”

“No,” said Layne evenly. “There are sick people here. I can wait.”

Her mom opened her mouth to protest, but then her cell phone started ringing, and she stuck a manicured hand into a designer bag to fetch it.

Layne sighed. She was ready to go home and get a shower.

Her clothes smelled like horses and fire, the sweetness of alfalfa hay mixed with soot and ashes. She hadn’t even unzipped her jacket, knowing the turtleneck underneath was soaked with sweat.

And she needed time alone.

She needed time to think.

A nurse came around the corner wearing pink scrubs with lollipops all over them. Some papers and a clipboard were in one hand, and she glanced between Layne’s father tapping away at his iPhone and her mother, who was gushing about something to do with a celebrity polo match.