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“Yeah.”
She gasped a little and stopped short. “Really?”
He shrugged. “My dad was in the military. He still works defense jobs. I’ve known how to handle a gun practically since I could walk.” He paused. This might be the longest conversation he’d ever had with a girl, and he couldn’t tell what that gasp meant. “It used to freak my mom out, but Dad always told her that I’d be a lot safer if I knew what I was doing with a firearm.”
She was staring at him, wide-eyed. “You don’t, like, have a gun on you now, do you?”
God, he wished he could carry weapons to and from school. Flashing a handgun would certainly save time with those idiots. “No. Are you crazy? That’s a good way to get expelled.” Not to mention his dad would go ballistic if Hunter took one out of the house without permission.
“But still.” Clare started walking again. “Wow.”
He had no idea how to take that, either. And she didn’t say anything else. Their feet crunched through the leaves.
Hunter wondered if there was any possible way he could have made this interaction more awkward.
Here. Let me give you a concussion and then scare you.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s never been a big deal in my house.”
“My parents are total pacifists,” she said, and there was something bitter in her voice. “They’re completely against guns, and war, and . . . well, you know.”
He didn’t know. But he said, “Yeah. I get it.”
“My older brother graduated last week, and he’d secretly enlisted in the army. He left on Saturday.” She hesitated. “Mom and Dad are having a really hard time with it.”
Clare was, too. He could tell from her voice, could feel the uncertainty in the air around her.
“My mom would have a really hard time with it, too,” he said. He had no idea whether that was true, but it felt like the right thing to offer.
“Your dad would probably be proud, huh?”
“He’d probably throw a party.” Then again, maybe not. His dad wasn’t exactly the celebratory type. But he never lost a moment to impart a lesson that would fit right in with the military. Even when he was younger, Hunter had known that each gun lesson, every moment spent in self-defense was twofold: part knowledge, part training.
Sometimes he liked that. Even now, barely sixteen years old, there was some self-assurance in knowing he could take care of himself, that his father’s rigid adherence to discipline served some purpose. With his connection to the elements, control could be a fleeting thing, and he’d take what he could get.
But sometimes he wanted to say screw it, to grow his hair out and get piercings all over, to let his abilities run rampant, just to break free of the mold for a minute.
“Does it scare you?” said Clare. “Living in a house with guns?”
Hunter smiled. “It’s not like I wake up in the middle of the night to find them staring down at me.”
“Shut up.” She gave him a light shove. “No, I mean, are you ever worried you’ll accidentally get shot?”
“You mean, when I catch the assault rifle raiding the refrigerator? Like maybe it’ll turn on me?”
Her breath caught again. “You have an assault rifle in your house?”
“Sure. It’s partial to lime Jell-O.”
“Hunter. Seriously.”
He liked the way she said his name, the way her tongue lingered on the T, just the tiniest bit.
He lost the smile. “Seriously.”
They’d stopped again, and she was staring up at him. Her eyes were a little wide, her breathing a little quick. There was a slight flush of pink across her cheeks.
“Scared?” he said, amused.
