AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chris rounded on him, splashing to a stop in the water. A hard wave rolled up the sand, reaching almost to where she walked. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Look in a mirror and I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
Chris started to slosh his way out of the surf.
She got between them and threw up a hand. “Stop.”
They stopped. Becca could still taste the seawater on the back of her tongue. “Both of you. Just stop.” She looked up the stretch of sand. They were one house down from the party. Music still poured from Drew’s place, and she could just make out kids fooling around on the back patio.
No danger. No drama. It almost made the entire night feel as if she’d imagined it.
But her throat burned and felt raw, and seawater sealed her clothes to damp skin. That trip underwater was no fantasy. No way was she going back through Drew’s. They could cut between houses and make it to her car from here.
Or she could. She pulled her arm free from Hunter. “I’m going home.”
He followed her. “Let me drive you.”
The grass felt soft under her feet, but the gravel by the road was going to be a bitch. She shook her head. “So I can explain to my mother why I’m soaked and my car is gone?”
“You can clean up at my house,” Chris said from behind them.
“Yeah, right,” scoffed Hunter. He was already leading her away.
“I’m serious,” Chris called. “There’s no one home to give a crap if I bring her around. Can you say the same thing?”
That made her stop and turn.
Hunter set his jaw and looked at Chris—but said nothing. He lived with his mother and his grandparents. That felt like a double whammy. She turned back to Chris.
His eyes were dark and intent on hers. “You can. If you want.”
o;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.”
