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The upstairs was still empty, thank god. Hunter went into Nick’s bedroom, where the two boxes from his grandparents’ house were stacked in front of the closet.
He cracked open the first one. The photo of his father and uncle was right on top, just like yesterday. Hunter set that aside and kept going.
Yearbooks, from his high school in Pennsylvania. Old, outdated magazines—really, Mom? Old notebooks from school that he’d never need again. His Xbox, with the case of games.
Because he totally felt like gaming with everything else going on.
Some paperbacks he didn’t remember reading, more magazines, more crap he’d never need. And then a brown Pendaflex folder with a rubber band wrapped around it. He could see the edges of file folders and wondered if she’d packed up his old school records, too.
The rubber band snapped when he yanked it out of the box, and two folders slipped out. He expected old report cards.
He found records, but not the school kind.
The top folder was about the Merricks. Personal information that he already knew, like their address and phone number. Grainy photos that had to be several years old, because one included their parents. Chris looked about ten.
Pages and pages about their powers, about surveillance, about potential Elemental hazards linked to the family.
His heart was pounding so hard that he couldn’t believe it wasn’t causing a racket all the way downstairs.
He knew the Merricks. He could read theirs later. He flipped to the next folder.
The Morgan family. Tyler, a Fire Elemental. No extreme risk. Emily, an Air Elemental, deceased. No risk. Pictures, but Hunter didn’t need them. He knew their stories.
The Ramsey family. Seth, one of Becca’s attackers. No extreme risk, according to the file, but obviously they were only talking about the Elemental kind.
Hunter didn’t know the next family, but he wondered if the Merricks did.
In the fourth folder, as soon as he opened it, he recognized the kid in the picture.
It was the boy who’d shown up with Calla when they’d been trashing his grandfather’s kitchen. Hunter felt ready to choke on his heartbeat.
Noah Dean. So he was related to Calla.
But there were no pictures of her, just this boy.
Well, of course. Calla had only just moved here a few years ago, to live with her aunt when her father was deployed. All these files were ages old.
Hunter checked the birthdate and quickly added. Noah was thirteen. Too young to be in high school.
No wonder Hunter hadn’t seen him anywhere around school. He’d been next door to the high school all this time, at the middle school.
Hunter wondered if Noah was among the missing from the carnival. He’d have to check the news.
Then something else occurred to him: had his mother gone through this folder?
He stared at the pages in his hand. The rubber band on the Pendaflex had been old, or else it wouldn’t have snapped so readily. But why would she have given him a stack of files and papers without going through them? His name wasn’t on any of it, and it certainly wasn’t packed up the way he kept his things. He’d never seen these files, so she hadn’t found them in his room.
He quickly shoved all the papers back into the Pendaflex, trying to keep them in the order he’d found them. Then he ripped the cover off the other box.
His quilt. His sheets—again, really, Mom? Frigging threadbare beach towels that he didn’t even consider his.
When he flung them to the side, something heavy clattered free.
Two of his father’s best knives.
The breath left Hunter’s lungs in a rush.
He pulled more towels free, more carefully this time, just in case there were other knives that might not be sheathed.
