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Chris had been with him. He’d just started middle school, and he loved going along on jobs, having a purpose, feeling useful. The windows had been down, their skin full of sweat and sunshine, and Michael had just asked if he wanted to hit the batting cages before sundown.
Then Tyler had tried to run them off the road.
They were driving Dad’s truck—Michael wasn’t going to wreck it. They’d pulled over. Michael had gotten out. Chris remembered thinking his brother wasn’t afraid of anything.
He stared out the window again, running a finger along the weather strip.
“How did Michael get free?” she asked, her voice rough in the silence.
ooked away, out the windshield, and now he knew she was putting two and two together.
Stupid. He shouldn’t have said anything.
“Am I in danger?” she said. “Right now?”
Chris shook his head. He didn’t hear fear in her voice, but he felt like a freak anyway.
Now she cleared her throat. “So with Michael—why did the others care that he was a ... a pure Elemental?”
“Because we’re not supposed to be allowed to live.”
She didn’t say anything, so he kept talking, just so he wouldn’t have to sit there with that sentence hanging out in the silence. “According to legend, pure Elementals used to control the others. Apparently it wasn’t pretty. There were battles for territory, uprisings, rebellions, you name it. If you look back through history for natural disasters, I can almost guarantee each one fell around the time of an Elemental war.”
“Like ... tsunamis and—”
“Think broader. How about the great Chicago fire?” He glanced over. “Or the Spanish Flu?”
“You can spread sickness?”
“Nick can control air. That includes things in it.”
“Holy crap.” She was staring out the windshield again.
“It was getting out of control. So about a hundred years ago, a bunch of the strongest got together and started a sort of law enforcement to take down pure Elementals. It’s not like the cops. We all stay the hell away from them.”
“Is that what the Guides are?”
He swung his head around. “Where’d you hear that?”
“From Tyler. He said he’d called them. And then Seth said it on the patio.”
“The Guides are people who were born on the fifth point. They can control all the elements. They’re rare—it’s like hitting the genetic lottery. Just like people are supposed to report a child who shows the potential to be a full Elemental, they’re also supposed to report a child who shows the potential to be a Fifth.”
Her eyes were wide again. “That’s a lot of dead kids.”
“They don’t kill the Fifths. They track them to see if they come into their full power, and then they train them.”
“To do what?”
“To kill the full Elementals.”
She whistled softly through her teeth. “Holy crap.”
Chris looked back at the road. “When Michael hit thirteen or so, Tyler’s parents told our parents they were going to call the Guides, that Michael had to be turned in.”
Her breathing sounded shallow. Was he frightening her?
“So ...” She sounded like she was reasoning this out. “Why didn’t they?”
