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“Because he was negotiating with the one who did. You were with him. Why didn’t you detain him?”
“I was getting the people off the Ferris wheel.”
Wind was snapping at her hair, throwing smoke in her eyes and inciting the flames higher. Silver, by comparison, seemed to stand outside the maelstrom, as if it didn’t dare ruffle him.
“That is not your task here, Kathryn.”
“Isn’t our task to protect people?”
“Have you never heard the saying, the end justifies the means?”
He glanced at the sky, and Kate followed his gaze. The flames were over ten feet high now. At first she’d thought smoke obscured the stars above, but now she realized those were clouds moving in.
Heavy clouds, flickering with lightning. Thunder cracked overhead, and she watched Gabriel Merrick crouch over a very still Hunter.
Silver raised the gun again.
Kate didn’t know if he was pointing at Gabriel or Hunter. Her heart was beating a path into her throat.
She had to think. Think think think.
Silver cocked the gun.
“Kill them now and you’ll send the rest to ground,” she said.
She kept her voice even, a mere observation in the middle of an inferno fed by a windstorm. Sweat rolled down her back, tracing a line between her shoulder blades, and she ignored it.
Silver hesitated.
Kate shrugged like she didn’t care. “They’ve already outsmarted . . . how many Guides did you say?”
He released the hammer and lowered the weapon.
“Don’t you have a body to get rid of anyway?” Kate asked, thinking of Hunter’s issues with Calla—and wondering how this all fit together.
He’d been negotiating with her?
“I’ll make sure the fire takes care of it,” said Silver.
Thunder cracked overhead again. A bolt of lightning struck the carousel. Sparks shot into the air. Kate jumped a mile. She could feel cool air swirl through the grounds, tickling her cheeks despite the fires.
Hunter and Gabriel were gone.
Silver had his gun up again, and he was headed for where they’d been. “I will not stand by while they cause more harm.”
Another bolt of lightning blasted into the dirt ten feet behind them, and this time even Silver jumped, whirling with the gun in hand.
The power stroked along her skin, so she knew Silver had to be feeling it. Part of her wanted to drop her guard and ride the streamers of energy.
She shut down the thought almost before it could form. That would make her like them.
If Hunter’s father had been a Guide—what was he doing with the Merricks?
How did they fit with that Calla girl?
The sirens were close now. The wind picked up more fully, swirling sparks and debris from the ground, lashing at her face. The power in the fire pulsed against her skin. It had to have spread farther with the wind—she couldn’t see an end to the flames. For a while she’d felt nothing but pain and suffering, but now she felt nothing.
Had she made a mistake, stopping Silver when he could have stopped the Merricks? Were they working with Calla? Did that explain Hunter’s fight with Gabriel in the cafeteria?
