Spirit. Brigid Kemmerer

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Hunter looked up. “I’m not giving you any attitude. I said I would pay for everything.”

      “It’s no wonder your mother can’t get it together, with all the trouble you give her.”

      Hunter stiffened, but he didn’t say anything. He had no idea why his mother couldn’t get it together. He didn’t think it had anything to do with him, but maybe it did. The last time he’d gone up to her bedroom, her eyes had filled with tears. She’d put a hand against his cheek and said, “I wish you’d cut your hair again, Hunter. You used to look just like your father.”

      He’d pushed her hand away. What are you so sad for? he’d wanted to ask. Dad was just using you.

      His grandmother was no help, either. She didn’t rag on him like his grandfather did, but she’d watch him with pursed lips, and he could feel disapproval radiate through the room until he wanted to grab her by the shoulders and rattle her body and shout in her face.

      “What?” he’d yell in this imaginary scenario. “Not good enough for you?”

      And then he’d shake her so hard that her dentures would fall out, and she wouldn’t be able to make that expression with her mouth anymore.

      Hunter almost smiled, but he only let himself enjoy it for half a second.

      His grandmother didn’t even wear dentures.

      A hand closed on Hunter’s arm, hauling him to his feet. “You think this is funny?” his grandfather demanded, his voice rising in pitch as well as volume. “Your friends destroy hundreds of dollars’ worth of our property, and you think this is funny?”

      It took every ounce of self-control not to jerk free and drop his grandfather on his ass.

      But Hunter met the man’s eyes. “Let me go.”

      His grandfather’s grip tightened, his thumb pressing into the muscle behind Hunter’s elbow. It hurt, but Hunter wouldn’t let it show.

      He knew some of this was his ability. His talents drew people to him—and that usually meant pulling their attention in whatever way they were wired to give it. Sometimes it was nice—like with Becca, his almost-could’ve-been girlfriend.

      Sometimes it was not.

      Like now.

      “I should have left you in jail last Monday,” his grandfather said. “Let the justice system scare some sense into you.”

      Like his grandfather had done anything more than pick him up at the police station. The cops hadn’t even pressed charges. No evidence—because he hadn’t started that fire. “Let me go.”

      “You’re going to straighten up, or you’re going to be sleeping on the porch. You understand me?”

      Hunter wouldn’t even consider that a punishment. He loved being outside.

      Then again, it was getting into the thirties some nights, and all his camping gear was still in storage from the move.

      “I understand,” he said. God, his head hurt. “Let me go.”

      His grandfather let him go, adding a little shove. “Get this cleaned up before school. And I expect you back here right after, too.”

      “Yes, sir,” said Hunter.

      “And cut the sarcasm.”

      Fuck you.

      But Hunter didn’t say it. He wouldn’t give his grandfather the satisfaction.

      Instead, he held on to his temper and cleaned up the mess on the floor.

      If only the mess in his life would be so easy.

      CHAPTER 3

      School had been closed for a week, but that didn’t mean Hunter felt any eagerness about returning. He sat in his jeep in the parking lot and watched students stream through the doors.

      He didn’t want to go inside.

      He shared American Lit with Calla. How was he supposed to sit there in class with her and pretend nothing was going on?

      Calla had been using Ryan Stacey to start fires in an effort to bring the Guides to town. She’d been drawing pentagrams in lighter fluid inside each of the houses they burned—a mocking call to the Guides, who painted pentagrams on houses where they suspected pure Elementals lived.

      Now Ryan Stacey was in jail, and Calla had renewed her threat. She and that mystery boy would start burning down houses until he brought Guides here. How the hell was he supposed to do that?

      And even if he could, was that any better? Luring people into a death trap?

      He pulled out his cell phone, scrolling through his contacts until he found Bill Chandler.

      They hadn’t spoken in days, but Becca’s father answered almost immediately. No preamble, just: “Hunter?”

      “Calla Dean broke into my house this morning.”

      “What did she want?”

      Hunter couldn’t get a read off his voice. No curiosity, no anger, no boredom or exasperation. Hunter never had any idea where he stood with Becca’s father—which was reassuring in a way because he’d never had any idea where he stood with his own, either.

      “She wants me to bring the Guides here.”

      A pause. “This isn’t news.”

      “She said she’s going to keep burning down houses until they come.”

      “If these arson attacks continue, she’ll bring the Guides here on her own, eventually. She doesn’t need you.”

      That wasn’t the answer Hunter was looking for. “Do you have any idea who she could be working with?”

      “No, and I don’t care.”

      Hunter blinked. “You don’t . . . care?”

      “No. The Guides will come and eradicate the problem. If I get involved, it puts Becca at risk.”

      “Calla will kill people. She’s not making little fires. She—”

      “She’s alive because you missed an opportunity, Hunter.”

      Shock trapped the words right in Hunter’s throat, lodging there until he could barely breathe around it.

      “I told you to make sure Gabriel Merrick didn’t cause trouble. Instead, you helped him find it. You shouldn’t be involved.”

      Hunter gritted his teeth. Yeah, Bill had asked him to keep an eye on Gabriel Merrick, a Fire Elemental with a temper to match. But Gabriel had been using his abilities to rescue people from the mysterious fires popping up all over town.

      Hunter СКАЧАТЬ