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She beat her friend to her parents’ bedroom door and held it shut. “Forget it, Kara.”
“Layne, I’m doing you a favor, really. Someone needs to.”
Layne tightened her grip on the door, feeling her heart start to slam against the inside of her rib cage. “I said, forget it.”
“What is your problem?” Kara tried to wrench her hand off the doorknob. “It’s not like you’ve got leprosy or something.
Show that body off!” She grabbed the hem of Layne’s shirt and started to yank.
“Stop!” Layne screeched. The word came out like an assault.
Kara backed off. “Jesus, Layne . . .”
Then they heard the key in the front door and her father was calling out, “Laynie? I’m beat. What’s the status on dinner?
Layne?”
“Up here!” Her voice sounded strangled. “You’d better go,”
she said to Kara.
Kara tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Look, I’m just trying to be a friend. I didn’t realize you’d go ballistic. I mean, with that brother of yours, you need all the help you can get ”
“Hey.” Layne bristled. “Don’t talk about Simon.”
Kara shrugged. “You know it’s true.” She ducked into Layne’s bedroom to grab her bag. On the way out, she called, “Take my advice. You might be surprised how it works out.”
“Maybe,” said Layne.
But she knew exactly how it would turn out. If she dressed like Kara or Taylor or any of the other girls at school, she’d be even more of an outcast than she was already.
CHAPTER 4
Gabriel felt the end of his rope coming up quick.
His lighter rolled through his knuckles, making that reassuring click each time it changed direction. Fire at his fingertips it would be so easy to draw flame from this tiny silver square, to send it straight at Becca’s father and let him burn.
He just wasn’t entirely sure how that would turn out.
They’d found a free table near the center of the Annapolis Mall food court: Nick sat to Gabriel’s left, Chris to his right, fingers loosely intertwined with Becca’s. Hunter sat at one end of the table, wearing a denim jacket over a light-colored hoodie, the stones he always strung along his wrist hidden from view.
Michael sat at the other end, still sporting the red T-shirt with their last name across the chest that he usually wore on landscaping jobs.
And on the other long side, completely alone, sat Becca’s father.
The Guide.
“Call me Bill,” he’d said.
Yeah, Gabriel had a few ideas of what to call him.
He looked completely nondescript: just an average guy in his late thirties. Sandy brown hair, a goatee, gray eyes that matched Becca’s. He hadn’t changed after work, either. He was still wearing a beige button-down with the sleeves rolled up his forearms, patches on each shoulder reading Department of Natural Re-sources and Wildlife Control Division.
Not exactly the kind of guy you’d expect to find trying to slaughter a bunch of teenagers.
The tension in the air seemed to be forming a barrier around the table. No other patrons had even come close to sitting nearby.
“So, Bill, ” said Becca, her eyes hard, “why don’t you start with the reason behind this one-eighty.”
