“Well, yes, but.. ” Hannah stopped. Her mother did encourage that, all the time. Hannah had never realized it had anything to do with her choice of occupation. She’d always thought it had more to do with being a working mother while trying to go to school.

“When you enrolled in fire school,” her father continued, “she wanted to forbid it.”

Hannah set her jaw. “She couldn’t have stopped me.”

Her father smiled—the first real smile she’d seen from him in forever. “That’s what I told her.”

Hannah jammed her hands in her pockets. “Don’t try to turn this around, like you’ve been the perfect parent all along, and this has all been some misunderstanding.”

He lost the smile. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

“You expect me to believe that you gave up a job you loved because you didn’t want Mom popping a few Xanax?”

“No, Hannah.” His voice went low and dark. “I chose to be a fire marshal because I didn’t want your mother to leave.”

If her car hadn’t been right there, holding her in place, Hannah might have fallen back a step. She studied his face, looking for any clue that he was exaggerating.

He looked just as steady as ever.

She couldn’t handle this. She wrapped her fingers through her key ring and turned to open her car door. “I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to.” He paused. “I was just explaining why I didn’t tell her about the shooting.”

“It doesn’t explain anything. I wish you’d never told me.”

He didn’t have anything to say to that.

Hannah slid back into the car and turned the key, ready to throw it into reverse despite the fact that her father was still standing against the opposite vehicle. He reached out and tapped on her window again.

Against her better judgment, she rolled it down.

This time, she didn’t give him a chance to speak. “You can pin all this on Mom if you want to,” she said, “but I think you’re being a real coward. You’re the one who hates that I’m a firefighter. I see it every time I run into you on a job.”

“Hannah—”

“And I know you hate that I got pregnant when I was seventeen. You know what? I made a mistake. I can’t undo it. You’re just going to have to get over it.”

He frowned. “Wait—”

She didn’t want to wait. She’d been waiting for years, and now she was done with it. She slid the car backward, then pulled out of the parking lot without a backward glance.

CHAPTER 24

Michael couldn’t believe he was sitting at a dining room table, eating Chinese food with Hunter and Tyler like it was an ordinary Sunday evening.

He couldn’t believe it was over. He couldn’t believe he was still alive.

And the Guide was dead.

Every time he blinked, he saw the gun. The blood on his hands as he’d driven that stone into the man’s body. The fire that had threatened to destroy him.

The rage had never fully dissipated, leaving Michael feeling somewhat charged, ready for another threat. The past three days had been so full of terror and panic and worry that he couldn’t talk himself down. He’d found it hard to keep still while talking to the fire marshal. He barely had any recollection of what he’d said about the events in the woods, but it must have sounded good, because they’d let him go. The cops had even bought his “adrenaline” excuse about the handcuffs—because what else could they think?

He’d thought for sure that they’d take his cell phone, but they didn’t. They didn’t need it. Any text message evidence was on the phone the police had taken from the shooter. They’d found evidence tying him to the fires. The fire marshal had killed him, so Michael was off the hook.

The man was dead, so there’d be no need for a trial.

Dead. Another dead Guide. Michael wondered how long he’d have before they sent someone new.

It didn’t matter if it was five months or five days or five hours. This time, he wasn’t screwing around. He’d get his brothers out of that group home and then they were leaving. There was nothing to tie them to this area anymore. Nothing.

Hannah, his brain whispered. And your brothers have ties here, too.

He told his brain to go to hell. Those ties weren’t worth anything if they were all dead.

“You’re quiet,” said Hunter.

Michael didn’t look away from his food. “What do you want me to say, Hunter?”

“I think we should talk about what happened.”

“He’s dead. It’s over.”

Tyler stabbed a piece of broccoli with his fork. “You really think that means it’s over?”

Michael shook his head. He pushed chicken around on his plate. “They’ll send another one.”

“Should we have a plan?” said Hunter.

Michael didn’t answer that. Any plan he came up with now would be violent and vicious. He was done with hiding. He’d spent his entire life trying to hide his nature, and look where it had gotten him. He’d lost everything.

His hand almost missed the feeling of the sharpened rock he’d clutched in the woods. He shouldn’t have stopped. He should have pushed the edge all the way through that man’s body. A couple of times.

These thoughts should have scared him. They were risky—and the whole reason the Guides were a threat in the first place.

It wasn’t as if he’d never used his abilities fully before. He’d used his powers on more than one occasion to help the earth absorb a dead body into the soil, leaving no trace of a person’s death.

He’d never used his own strength and power to directly affect another man, seeking death so effectively.

He thought of what he’d said to Hunter, about how he tried to live according to what his father would have expected of him. Would his father have expected this? His parents had fought to keep him and his brothers safe from the Guides—but would they have wanted him to employ this kind of violence? Or was this exactly what they didn’t want him to do?

He had no idea. And it wasn’t like he could ask them. Hunter hit his fork against his plate. “Earth to Michael. Should we have a plan?”

“I have a plan. I’m going to get my brothers and we’re leaving.”

The room went silent. Michael could feel them looking at him.

He finally looked up. “I can’t do this anymore. We don’t have a house to live in. I don’t have a truck. We have too much history in this town. We’re too big a target.” He paused and looked at Tyler. “Maybe I should have paid attention to the signs five years ago. I don’t know.”

“This isn’t just about your family anymore,” said Tyler.

“Then you should leave, too.” Michael dropped his fork against the plate. “You should all leave.”

“Fine,” said Hunter. “I’ll go with you.”

“You can’t.” Michael refused to let guilt affect him—but it was hard to meet Hunter’s eyes. “It’s one thing to stay at the house with your mother’s permission, when she lives a few miles down the road. But I don’t have a legal claim to you, Hunter. Like it or not, you’re a minor—”

“So you’re just—you’re going to leave me here, knowing more Guides are coming—”

“I’ll talk to your mother. Explain the situation.”

Hunter shoved his chair back from the table. “Wow, that’s helpful. She moved here because she couldn’t afford to live on her own. What do you think we’re going to do—”

“What do you think I’m going to do, Hunter?” Michael was too charged with adrenaline. He couldn’t keep his voice level. “I’m not made of money, either. It’s not my responsibility to protect every single person I come in contact with.”

Hunter was glaring at him. “What about Hannah and her son? They were threatened, too—”

Michael glared back. “You think I don’t know that? Jesus, Hunter, I can’t even spend fifteen minutes with Hannah without some kind of crisis falling at my feet. In the past week, I’ve spent more time worrying about her than I’ve actually spent with her, and you think I’m not aware of what my presence here does to her family? To my family? To your family?”

“My father and my uncle were coming here to help you, and now you’re going to run, and you’re going to leave me behind.”

“Your father and your uncle never made it, Hunter.”

Hunter flinched.

Michael immediately regretted his words. He took a long breath. “Look—”

“Forget it.” Hunter didn’t look at him. He dug his keys out of his pocket and headed for the door.

For two seconds, Michael didn’t move. He watched Hunter go. He told himself it was better this way. He’d need to separate himself from everyone, and soon.

Then he found himself at the door, a hand above the dead bolt, holding it closed. “Stop. Hunter, stop.”

“Let me go.”

“No. Listen. We’ll figure something out. I won’t—”

“You won’t what? You won’t leave me to deal with this alone? Guess what. You wouldn’t be the first.”

Michael stared at him. Hunter barely had any more ties to this area than Michael himself did. The poor kid was staying with Adam—almost a stranger—because he didn’t want to endanger his family. And here Michael was about to turn his back on him too.

Michael winced. “I don’t want to be the second, either. Finish your dinner. We’ll figure it out, okay?”

After a moment, Hunter returned to the table. So did Michael.

Tyler hadn’t even stopped eating. He looked vaguely amused—but also pissed off. “What happened to ‘it’s not my responsibility to protect everyone’?”

“Shut up, Tyler.” Michael hated this. He hated that he couldn’t turn off his thoughts and obligations and let someone else take the reins for a while.

Hell, fate had already dealt him those cards by taking his brothers away, by offering him a chance to live free of obligation, and he could barely consider it.

Tyler picked up a carton of rice and dumped half onto his plate. “Where are you going to go?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You want my opinion?”

“No.”

Tyler shoveled a bunch of cashew chicken on top of the rice. “You’re getting it anyway. If you want to run, run. But remember that text message from the woods, about who’s the hunter and who’s the prey?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think you’re cut out to be the latter.”

Was that a compliment? Michael wasn’t sure how to respond.

Tyler kept talking. “I’ve never seen you run from anything. Even when I hated you, I knew you wouldn’t back down.”

“Are you an idiot? We ran from the guy in the woods until Jack stopped us.”

“Yeah, and as soon as you thought Hannah was in danger, you ran back in.”

Michael didn’t have anything to say to that.

“What really happened in the woods?” said Tyler. “Give me details, because you weren’t this keyed up before.”

“I told you.” Michael set his jaw. “The Guide pulled a gun and the fire marshal shot him.”

“Then why were you covered in blood?”

Hunter’s fork went still against the plate. He was watching this conversation like a tennis match.

“It’s not important,” Michael said.

“Fuck that. It is important. What happened?”

Michael didn’t say anything.