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And what it would take to make him snap again.
“Did I miss anything exciting in History?” she said.
He didn’t look over. “Do you really care?”
“I care deeply about the Treaty of Versailles.”
His eyes flicked her way. “Really. Describe it.”
She could call his bluff since she’d read the chapter last night, thinking she’d be in school today. If Silver hadn’t been so damned overbearing, she would have been. “It ended the First World War and made Germany realize they weren’t the badasses they thought they were.”
Hunter sniffed and looked back at the door of the school.
“Look,” she said. “I don’t get what your problem is.”
“I don’t have a problem, Kate.”
“What’s with the attitude?”
“No attitude.” His eyes cut her way again, his gaze sharp as steel. “I’m just done being played.”
“I never played you.”
“Okay.”
“The sarcasm really isn’t attractive.”
ate didn’t show for fourth period, and his texts went unanswered. Now he felt like a fool, sitting around like an eager puppy expecting a bone.
As usual, he was standing at a crossroads, with no idea which direction was right.
Instead of heading to the cafeteria at lunch, he went out back, to where a few concrete picnic tables were lined up under the pine trees. The weather was still crap, with rain dripping between the branches to soak the ground and seal the chill to his body, but it was outside, and deserted, and he could feel the elements and think.
He lay on one of the tables and stared at the sky. The gun dug into the small of his back and the rain seemed to aim straight for his eyes.
He remembered Kate’s words from yesterday. Don’t you trust anyone?
No. He didn’t. It had been his father’s last lesson, and Hunter had learned it well.
A branch cracked and split somewhere to his left, and he was off the table in a heartbeat.
He landed in a crouch and surveyed the pine trees. Nothing.
His hand found the gun, but he didn’t draw it—the last thing he needed was for some teacher to catch him with a firearm.
The trees were still, aside from slow drops of water rolling from leaf to leaf. The air was full of information, centering on the fact that someone hid nearby.
Yesterday, Kate had dropped out of a tree to tackle him. He glanced up, though all he found overhead was sky.
Then he felt motion before he saw anything, and he was moving, spinning, dropping, all before his brain registered the attack.
Everything was too fast—he couldn’t even tell who’d come after him. Sheer size said it was a guy; light hair said it wasn’t one of the Merricks. Then the air dropped ten degrees, turning thin and hard to breathe. Ice formed on his cheeks, stinging his eyes and stealing his vision.
Then a fist caught him in the shoulder. The left one, exactly where he’d been shot.
The sudden pain almost knocked him down. It felt like he’d been shot again. No, it felt like his whole arm was dislocating from his body.
His power flared without direction, pulling strength from the ground and the air, and when he swung a fist, he connected hard.
