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“What’s wrong?” said Seth. “Don’t have your girlfriend to protect you?”
God, he’d been stupid. This was Tyler’s SUV. They’d heard the other car. Of course Tyler wouldn’t have been alone.
Chris tried to round on Seth, but the other boy was standing on concrete, and that meant his grip was practically unbreakable.
The rain hardened into hail. With an edge.
Seth slammed him against the grille again. “Cut that shit out.”
“What?” said Chris innocently, hating that his voice carried a wheeze. The rain had fixed his ribs before, but they still ached. “Don’t like rainstorms?”
Seth spun him around and slammed him in the face.
Chris didn’t know he was falling until the pavement whacked him in the back of the head. Jesus Christ, that guy could throw a punch. Chris had to remind his lungs to breathe.
The rain turned to sleet, whipping sideways, striking the truck and making a racket. Seth was going after Gabriel now, dragging him away from Tyler.
Then Seth had Gabriel up against the truck, choking him.
Chris flew off the ground. The rain fed him his brother’s panic. He poured power into the sleet, trying to loosen Seth’s grip.
It was like trying to fight a statue.
Tyler grabbed his arm to wrench him away. They grappled in the darkness. Lightning flared in the sky—bolts of power driving into the grass.
Tyler’s eyes widened, then his grip turned hot, searing into Chris’s forearm. Chris struck at him, but Tyler didn’t let go.
Lightning hit the street, sizzling on the pavement, two feet from a fertilizer bag.
Freeze. Chris just thought it, and Tyler was screaming, his hands on his face.
But Seth still had hold of Gabriel. He made a sharp motion with his hands, like in the movies when someone wants to break a guy’s neck.
Lightning shot through the sky.
Fertilizer exploded. The sound—the heat—was intense. Chris hit the pavement again, and lost sense of all direction. His eyes burned from the explosion, and he couldn’t see yet. Seth couldn’t have held on through that. Gabriel had to be around here somewhere.
His rain worked fast. The fire was already turning to nothing more threatening than billowing smoke.
A hand caught his arm, rolled him over. Chris fought, striking out before he knew who had hold of him.
“Hey! Kid!” A light was shining in his eyes. One guy, no, two, stood over him. “Take it easy.”
Chris stared up, blinking stars out of his vision.
Not Tyler, not Seth.
Cops.
CHAPTER 5
The little green lines on the clock on the dash announced it was almost three in the morning. Chris was glad he sat in the back of the truck’s cab, somewhat hidden in the shadowed corner behind his oldest brother.
“I don’t get what you’re so upset about.” Gabriel was up front, slouched against the door, looking coiled and feral in the dim light.
Michael’s fingers gripped the wheel. Headlights filtered through the back window of the pickup, and Chris could see the muscles of Michael’s forearms stand out from the strain. Nick was following them in the SUV; he’d driven Michael to pick them up.
Chris had wanted to ride home with him, but Michael had practically dragged him to the truck by his ear.
