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“Yeah.”
She pointed at the star he’d drawn. “But there are five points.”
“The fifth element represents the spirit.” He glanced up, wet hair drifting across his forehead. She must have been frowning, because he tapped his chest and said, “Spirit. Chi. Life.”
She got it. “Feel the force, Luke.”
“Exactly. The Fifth is almost like a ... a jack-of-all-trades. There’s a connection to everything—or so they say.”
“So they say?” she echoed.
“We’ve never met one.” He grimaced. “Which is kind of a good thing.” Before she could question that, he looked down and moved his hand over the entire circle. “If everyone on earth falls somewhere in this circle, you can see that some people would fall close to the points, while some people would be way off. You might get someone between air and water who grows up to have some skill with sailboats. Or someone between fire and earth who might ... hell, I don’t know, study volcanoes or something.”
She thought of Hunter’s story of his mom, of being drawn to his stones. Did that mean he fell close to Chris’s “earth” point?
“Tyler and Seth are like you, too?” she said.
“Yes. Not as strong, but—yes.” He pointed. “Seth falls along the earth branch, close to a point, but not quite there. He can pull strength from the ground he’s standing on, which is why we needed to get him off the brick patio.”
She remembered the damage Chris had taken that night behind the school.
When she’d found them fighting in the middle of a concrete parking lot.
“And Tyler?”
“He falls somewhere near fire.” Chris gave a short laugh that didn’t have any humor to it. “Which is probably why he’s walking around with a gun.”
“Are there—are there a lot of people like you?”
“Everyone’s like us, Becca. We’re human. We’re all inside the circle. My brothers and I—we just fall on a point.”
She scooped up a handful of water, letting it trail through her fingers. It dropped into the wave below, nothing supernatural at all. Then she gave him a wry glance. “Not everyone’s like you, Chris.”
He sighed. “Yes. There are a lot of people like us. Communities in every town—if you listen to Michael.”
“Every town? Whole communities of people who can control the elements? But that’s—”
“Not everyone can control the elements,” he said, and his voice sounded bitter, plus a little self-deprecating. “Like I said, some people are just born with an affinity. Only those of us with the strongest connection can actually control—god, I’m boring myself.” He swiped the pattern out of the sand.
She caught his arm. “No! I knew—”
He looked up, his face close. “You knew what?”
“Something,” she said. “I knew ... something.”
He held there, unmoving, until she became aware of her heartbeat, of the scent of sand and fire on his skin.
Then a wet tongue was on her cheek, a cold nose in her ear, and a ruff of fur pressed into her hands. She recoiled, pushing the dog’s muzzle away from her cheek.
“Casper!” she cried.
“You know this dog?” said Chris.
Becca rubbed Casper behind the ears until he started his rawr-rawr-rawr. “Yeah, he’s—”
“Mine.”
She whirled.
