AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He glanced up. “What were you doing out here?”
“Nothing. Just talking.”
“I don’t buy that for a minute.”
She flushed and hugged her arms against her body. “We did. I don’t care if you believe me or—”
“Fine. Then it must have been one hell of a conversation.” Michael gestured. “Come here. Touch the ground.”
She squatted and pressed her fingertips through the grass and into the dirt. At first she felt nothing but mud, cold and gritty, sliding below her fingers.
Then awareness crawled up her arm.
Her brain couldn’t quite comprehend what she felt. Not words—more like things that wanted to be words. Like a foreign language she’d studied years ago and could barely remember. She could almost piece it together, but the concepts kept evading her, turning from wisps of thought into coils of something darker.
Whatever it was, the longer she kept her fingers planted in the earth, the less she liked it.
She yanked her fingers back, feeling her breath quicken. Her heart was already racing in her chest. “What just happened?”
“You see why I’m not buying the ‘we just talked’ crap.”
“Chris saved me,” she said, talking quickly because the words wanted to escape her lips. “Some guys—they were—they were—”
“I get it.” His voice was even. “There’s blood here.”
“There was a fight. Just boys from school. Chris—we ran them off. But something happened. Lightning started chasing us across the field or—I don’t know.” Again, she didn’t have the right words. “But when it started, he gave me his cell phone and told me to get his brothers.”
“Jesus, Becca.” Michael set his jaw and looked off across the field, then back at her. “I’m his brother, too.”
She flushed as guilt smacked her in the face. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Michael punched the ground, and the field between them cracked and split like a windshield hit by a rock. She scrambled back a few feet, but he was looking out at the trees now. “I could have helped them. I could have—” He punched the ground again. “Where are they?”
“I should have called you last night,” she said, hearing pain behind the fury in his voice. “I just—he told me to text the twins, and they were able to chase off the Guide at the bridge, so I thought—”
“Stop.” His eyes locked on hers. “Run that by me again.”
“Last Monday, when the Guide destroyed the bridge—” She stared at him for a long minute. “They never told you.”
“No,” he said, his tone resigned. “But you can.”
So she talked, going back to the morning she’d found the first pentagram on her door. She gave him every detail about the Guide she could remember, right up to the bolts of lightning last night, to the way the rain had turned to daggers on her cheeks. Then she had to back up and tell him about the night at the party, the way Chris had dragged her into the water, the way Tyler came after them with a gun.
She didn’t falter until she noticed the ground knitting itself together, mending the break between them.
“That’s all you know?” said Michael. His tone implied it wasn’t very helpful.
“Yeah. That’s all.”
“Was there gunfire last night?”
She thought back, to the chaos on the field. “No. I don’t think so—but the thunder was loud.”
Michael looked out across the field again. “Tyler came after you with a gun because it’s one of the few surefire ways to kill us.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe they wouldn’t tell me.”
She could.
She was beginning to sweat beneath her dark hoodie. She pulled it off and knotted the sleeves around her waist, glad she’d worn a tank top underneath.
