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So she did that. His hand felt normal, warm and steady. Not even waterlogged, like hers felt.
“Show me again.”
He moved closer, scooping the water while her hand was attached to his. Water trickled between their joined fingers, turning to steam that wrapped around her wrist before drifting into the night.
She lifted her gaze and met his eyes. “So ... did you do the fire, too?”
“No.” He paused. “That was Gabriel.”
Her breathing caught, just for a moment. “And the wind was Nick?”
He didn’t volunteer anything further, just nodded and glanced over as if unsure what he’d find on her face.
“How?” she said.
He had to think about that for a while. Then he rolled forward onto his knees and drew a circle in the sand with his finger.
“Imagine everyone in the world lives inside this circle,” he said.
When she nodded, he drew a five-pointed star inside the circle. “Think of each of these points as one of the elements.”
“I’m assuming you’re not talking about the periodic table?”
He smiled, and there was a shred of relief to it. “No.”
“So fire, water, air, earth—” She thought of the landscaping business, the way she’d run from the house that first night and the grass had grabbed her sneakers. “Michael, right?”
“Yeah.”
She pointed at the star he’d drawn. “But there are five points.”
o;We should have run for the cars,” she whispered, though there was no way Tyler or Seth could have picked up her voice from so far away.
“We’re safer here. They won’t come in the water.” Chris glanced at her. “And we had to get Seth away from the patio.”
What did that have to do with anything? “I don’t see your brothers.”
“They’re there.” His eyes were trained on the beach again.
Wind caught her hair and traced an icy finger along the inch of skin exposed by her shirt. She shivered again, bracing an arm against her stomach. The gust caught the flames in the drums, whipping them higher, making the girls on the beach giggle and scatter a bit.
Tyler and Seth flinched away from the drums, as if the fire reached for them.
Seth strode between the fires, spinning full circle to scan the beach. “Cut it out!”
Something cracked and split in one of the drums, shooting sparks and flaming bits into the wind.
A piece must have caught Seth on the arm, because he swore and smacked at his bicep.
Chris smiled, his eyes bright in the distant firelight. “See?”
She didn’t see anything. Another wave brought the water almost to her thighs. Had they moved? The water felt deeper suddenly, as if they’d drifted out another ten feet. She watched the wave roll up the shore, carrying foam and debris far higher than the last one had.
Seth began to pace the shoreline while Tyler hung back behind the drums, looking infinitely more frightening with the glow of the fires on his face.
Her teeth were starting to chatter, some mixture of cold and adrenaline. Chris’s hand was still wrapped around hers, strong and warm. She focused on that feeling. “How long do you think they’re going to wait?”
“They want to kill us.” His voice was dry. “It might be a few minutes.”
