Nick swallowed. ‘But what?’ Adam looked at him, hard. ‘But if you wake up hating yourself, I don’t want you taking it out on me.’
Nick studied him, allowing some of the earlier moments to click into place. Adam asking if Gabriel would hurt Nick. The tension in his eyes when he said, ‘You’re strong.’
Even now, he was holding himself at a slight distance.
There was more to Adam’s story, hiding behind this easy self-confidence.
Nick shifted his weight, and Adam almost flinched. Without the air to reinforce his impression, Nick might have missed it altogether.
Slowly, carefully, Nick reached his hands out and put them on Adam’s shoulders. ‘You’re safe here,’ he said softly. ‘Okay?’
Adam’s eyes widened as Nick fed his words back to him.
Nick smiled, just a little. ‘You don’t have to watch your words or your thoughts or whatever has you so wound up.’
Now Adam was blushing. ‘Okay, okay —’
Nick kissed him. Not with the feverish intensity of a few moments ago, but a bare brush of lips.
When he tried to pull away, Adam caught his face and held him there, putting his forehead against his. ‘You’re going to break my heart. I can feel it.’
‘Not if I can help it.’ He put a hand over Adam’s, holding it to his cheek. ‘Slow?’
Adam nodded, turning his head to kiss Nick’s palm.
Then he grinned. ‘Well,’ Adam said. ‘
Slower
.’
Quinn pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up and shivered. She
still had her dance shorts on, but there hadn’t been time to change. Her jaw hurt like a bitch, and she knew there’d be a bruise there tomorrow.
Her older brother had welcomed her home by slamming her face into the wall and demanding to know where his money was.
Like she had a clue. Quinn would be so happy when Jake went back to college. Her little brother Jordan had already taken to crashing at friends’ houses every night, rotating through his circle of gamer buddies so no one’s parents got suspicious.
Quinn had been sitting on the curb out in front of the 7-Eleven, but the old Korean woman who worked there had come out shrieking about teenagers loitering, so now Quinn was sitting on a milk crate out back, clinging to the darkness.
She was
this close
to stealing food from the Dumpster.
When she’d lived within walking distance of Becca’s house, Becca’s mom had always left her a plate of food. She’d known about Quinn’s disagreements with her mom. Quinn still had a key to their house on her key ring.
But now that Becca and Chris were an item, Quinn increasingly felt like a third wheel.
Especially now that she knew the truth about Becca and the Merricks.
A truth she’d learned from
Nick
, not Becca.
Some best friend.
Hunger clawed at Quinn’s insides and she wished she’d gone with Nick and Adam for coffee. But she didn’t have any money and she didn’t want to be a mooch
and
a third wheel.
But now that she had nowhere to sleep . . . Her fingers traced over the face of her cell phone, and she considered texting Nick.
A metal door slammed a little distance down the back wall. Quinn saw a flare of light, then a cigarette glowed red. The light over the door was out, but from the person’s size it looked like a guy. Dark clothes.
She pulled her hood down, tucking her blond hair more tightly under the covering.
It didn’t help. ‘Hey!’ The sharp male voice made her head snap up. The musty scent of cigarettes burned her nostrils. He was coming toward her. ‘You can’t be out here.’
Quinn didn’t move. ‘Says who?’
‘Says me.’
‘And who are you, the owner of the parking lot?’
‘No. The whole strip mall.’
Well, she hadn’t expected that answer. She still didn’t move. ‘Prove it.’
‘What, you want to see the deed?’ He moved like he was going to grab her, and she scrambled off the crate, dusting grit from her clothes.
‘Fine, fine. I’m going.’
He followed her, taking a draw from his cigarette, clearly planning to make sure she exited his property. When she reached the sidewalk running beside the 7-Eleven, she whirled, ready to lay into him for being an asshole.
But here the light found his features. It was Tyler, the guy from Nick’s driveway. She thought of Nick’s revelations and knew she should be afraid of Tyler, but her life was overflowing with cruel people, and she didn’t carry that much adrenaline around with her.
‘It’s you,’ she spat.
‘It’s you.’ He put the cigarette to his lips and inhaled again. ‘Where’s your boyfriend?’
‘He’s picking me up. He’ll be here any minute.’ Just because she wasn’t afraid didn’t mean she was stupid.
‘He was picking you up
behind
the 7-Eleven?’
Okay, maybe she
was
stupid. She gestured at the darkened storefronts lining the rest of the strip mall. ‘Why don’t you go back where you came from?’
‘What are you doing out here, really?’
‘None of your business.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘What happened to your face? Did that Merrick prick knock you around?’
He didn’t sound concerned, but he didn’t sound like an affirmative answer would surprise him, either. ‘No. And don’t call him that.’
He huffed, blowing smoke through his nose. ‘You girls are all the same. You think those idiots are amazing and perfect and special. Well, you know what? They’re
not
.’
‘I’m sorry, Prince Charming. Clearly not everyone is up to your standards.’ She stepped up and ripped the cigarette out of his mouth, intending to break it in half.
But it flared and burned to ash in her hand. Quinn shrieked and dropped it.
Tyler smirked. ‘You don’t know what you’re messing with, baby girl. With me
or
them.’
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘I just wanted to talk to them, and you saw how that jerkoff treated me.’
‘Yeah, and you were such a gentleman.’ She swung a hand to shove him away.
He was too quick and grabbed her wrist. ‘Trust me, they’ve pushed me way past being a gentleman. Maybe I should get some answers from you.’
God, he was strong. She regretted trying to hit him. Her arm burned like he was pressing the cigarette between his hand and her skin. Quinn was gasping before she could stop it. Part of her wished she’d stayed in the apartment and tried her odds against her brother.
‘Go ahead,’ Tyler said. ‘Scream. I’ll tell them I caught you trying to break in.’
‘Let me go,’ she whimpered. The pain was immobilizing. He was pulling tears out of her, and she wanted to
kill
him for that. ‘Let me go.’
‘You think this is bad?’ he said. ‘This is
nothing.
Just wait until you spend more time with
them
. Wait until you see what they do to you. They are
killers.
’
Sweat bloomed on her forehead. ‘Okay. I get it. Lemme go. Please.’
‘I want to know what’s going on. You hear me? I want to know what really happened at that carnival, and I want to know what happened to the Guide that came to town to take care of it. You tell them I want answers. Got it?’
‘Got it,’ she whispered. The grip on her arm was the only thing holding her on her feet. She was going to pee her pants in a second.
‘Good.’ He let her go. Shoved her, really. She hit the ground, the impact jarring. She was lying where concrete met a bed of large, smooth stones surrounding the streetlamp. She’d probably have sixteen bruises tomorrow, just from this landing.
‘Idiot,’ he sneered.
She seized a rock and punched him in the side of the knee with it, throwing every ounce of strength into the motion. He swore as his leg gave out. He dropped like — well, like a
rock
. Quinn swung her elbow around to jab him in the face.
His hand shot out to grab her, but Quinn was already running. Full out, as fast as her feet would go. Trees stretched along Ritchie Highway up ahead, a gaping pit of darkness full of unseen dangers. Quinn scrambled through the underbrush, not caring about staying silent. She just
ran
.
Branches whipped her legs, but she didn’t slow. She stumbled twice. Then a third time, almost falling. Another branch whipped across her face, followed by a cloud of spiderwebs. Quinn screamed and beat at her face.
Then she shut up. Oxygen whistled into her chest, and she told her lungs to knock it off so she could hear.
Silence.
Darkness swelled around her, and she couldn’t see anything. Quinn yanked her phone out of her pocket and dialed. Third wheel or not, she didn’t know if Tyler would come after her out here.
‘Come on,’ she muttered, bouncing from one foot to another while it rang.
‘Hello?’
‘Nick,’ she said as quietly as she could muster. ‘I need you.’
At first Nick saw nothing along the stretch of Ritchie Highway. He peered into the darkness, looking for Quinn, finding only trees. Down the road a bit, the Jiffy Lube sign threw light into space, but here it was pitch-black. He rolled down the window to listen, but the diesel engine made that impossible.
Worry danced with exasperation in his head. It had taken him only ten minutes to get here from Adam’s apartment, but that felt like a long time when you were hiding from Tyler Morgan. He knew from experience.
What had she been doing with Tyler, anyway? He’d just seen her two hours ago! Safe at home!
Just when he was about to turn off the truck to go looking, Quinn burst through the trees into the path of his headlights, lit up like a beacon.
Her legs were scratched to hell, long stripes of red crisscrossing her thighs. But more concerning was the bruise on her jaw, cut through by one long scratch that was still bleeding. Her eyes were red and tear-filled.
Then she was out of the light and climbing into the truck.
Fury stole Nick’s exasperation. ‘Jesus, Quinn, are you okay?’
‘Do I look okay?’
‘No! Did Tyler hit you? I’m taking you to the cops —’
‘I’m not going to the cops.’ Quinn flung her tangled blond hair back from her face. ‘Drive, Nick, all right? Drive the fucking truck.’
He took a long breath and blew it out through his teeth.
She punched him in the arm. Hard. ‘Drive!’
He shifted into gear. ‘You want to tell me what happened?’
‘No.’
Nick listened to the air threading through the cab, cataloging her injuries as his element fed information to him. Mostly cuts and bruises, nothing more serious than that.
As he thought it, his senses picked up on something else, an unnatural heat making the air jitter around her.
She was cradling her arm.
‘He burned you?’ Nick asked.
‘How did you know that?’
‘It’s his MO. He’s a Fire Elemental. I’ve felt the effects before.’ More than once, too. Tyler and his best friend Seth used to wait to trap Nick alone. They’d pin him down and threaten to burn his skin off, knowing Nick wouldn’t use his abilities to stop them.
Only they didn’t always stop at threats.
Nick should have let him suffocate in the driveway.
‘Fire, like Gabriel?’ Quinn snorted. ‘Why is that not surprising? They should just burn the crap out of each other.’
‘Not like Gabriel. Nowhere near as strong. Give me your hand.’
‘He seemed plenty strong to me.’ But she held out her hand, snatching it back at the last moment when he went to take it. ‘Don’t touch it, okay? It hurts like a bitch.’
He glanced away from the road for a sec. Lights from the roadway reflected off the drying tears on her cheeks. He caught sight of that bruise again and wanted to kill Tyler.
‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said. ‘Come closer.’
She unsnapped her seat belt and scooted to the middle of the bench, until her shoulder was against his side and their thighs were touching.
Her face pressed into his shoulder. She smelled like the woods, pine and dirt and nighttime.
Nick sighed and put an arm around her, stroking her hair back from her face. ‘Quinn. Do you want me to take you home?’
‘To your house?’ her muffled voice asked hopefully.
He hadn’t meant his house, but he felt the pain and fear in every breath she took.
‘Please?’ she whispered.
‘Okay,’ he said, hitting the turn signal to make a U-turn at the next intersection. ‘You have to be absolutely quiet. Mike will kill me if he finds you there.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to be loud?’ she said suggestively.
Nick made a disgusted noise. ‘You can’t be too hurt if you’re 112 making jokes.’
She raised her head and sniffled. ‘You smell like Adam.’
Nick couldn’t figure out the note in her voice, but warmth snuck across his cheeks as he remembered the exotic scent of oranges and cloves. Of course she’d know what Adam smelled like — she’d spent an hour with her hands all over him during rehearsal.
‘Your bag is still here, too,’ Quinn continued, kicking at his messenger bag on the floor of the truck. ‘Nick Merrick, you dirty dog. It’s after midnight.’
‘We just talked.’
‘Is that what the kids are calling it these days?’
‘Quinn. Shut up and give me your arm.’
When she did, he glanced between her wrist and the road. He could feel the heat coming off her skin from here. No wonder he’d found her crying.
He definitely should’ve killed Tyler in the driveway.
Nick blew air along the burn, feeding power into it.
Quinn sucked in a breath. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Healing it.’ He had to be careful, though. Too much power could hurt. He knew that from experience, too.
She relaxed against him, resting her head against his shoulder again. ‘That feels amazing.’
‘I’ll send you a bill.’
‘Can you fix my face, too?’
‘Yes.’ Another breath, another flare of power. She was relaxed, so he tried for information. ‘Why did he hit you?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it. Did you sleep with Adam?’
‘Of course not.’ The thought was terrifying and intriguing all at once, and he told his imagination to knock it off.
‘Don’t get all indignant about it. Two virile guys? Isn’t that like twice the recommended daily dose of testosterone?’