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Hunter woke up in a hospital.
It took a moment to realize he should probably be grateful to be waking up at all.
An IV was in his hand, one of those oxygen cannulas strung around his face. Nothing really hurt, but at the same time, he had no desire to climb out of this bed, either. A dull, unsettling ache clung to his bones.
He tried to move his legs.
They worked. They hurt, but they worked.
He wasn’t handcuffed to the bed, either, so that was a plus.
One of the Merrick twins was asleep in the recliner on the other side of the room. His T-shirt said I Google Myself.
Gabriel.
Hunter wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Hey,” said Hunter.
Nothing. He tried again.
Finally, he grabbed the box of tissues on the small table beside the bed and threw it.
Gabriel sat up with a start. He grabbed the box and tossed it onto the window ledge. “Dude, you’re lucky you’re hurt or I’d be shoving this right up your—”
“Save it. What happened?”
“Oh Em Gee, Hunter, you are so welcome,” Gabriel said in a lilting falsetto. “I had a blast saving your life.”
He couldn’t be too mad if he was cracking jokes.
Or maybe he was furious. Sometimes it was hard to tell with Gabriel.
“Maybe if you told me what happened, I could get around to the thanking you part.”
Gabriel’s face lost the mockery. “When we realized that the shopping center was a false lead, we had to make a decision: find you, or get out of the area before the school blew up.” He shrugged, and mischief sparked in his eye. “So we flipped for it.”
“Thank you for finding me.”
“You should be thanking the coin.”
Hunter didn’t say anything for a long moment. Gabriel waited.
Then Hunter looked away. “I’m sorry I lied about the shopping center. I just—I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt—”
“We knew you were lying.”
Hunter blinked. “What?”
“We knew. How do you think we found you so fast?”
“And you still came after me?”
“I’m not sure anyone has ever told you how this whole friendship thing is supposed to work, but . . .” Gabriel stared at him, hard. “Yeah, you idiot. We came after you.”
Hunter wasn’t sure what to say to that.
So Gabriel kept talking. “It took some time to find you. And then we saw that dickhead pointing a gun at you. I tried the trick you mentioned, the one about stopping the spark before the gun could fire.”
