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Then his fingers slid across the face of his phone quickly. He didn’t look at her.
Her phone buzzed in her hand after a moment.
My grandfather threw me out of the house last night. The school counselor called and told him I was hitting Calla, the girl you saw in the caf. So he punched me and told me to get out.
She snapped her head up. Her mouth opened, but he held up a hand, his eyes still on the windshield.
“Don’t,” he said.
No wonder he was barely holding it together.
In a flash, she remembered the first time her mother had brought her to that tiny farm somewhere in southern Virginia, saying they were going to the “training compound,” which turned out to be a dark barn that reeked of alfalfa hay and blood. She hadn’t wanted to go inside, and then a massive man had walked out of the darkness.
When his hand came out, she’d thought he was going to introduce himself.
She’d never been hit in the face before that moment.
She remembered rolling in the dust and scattered straw, wondering when the world would right itself, hoping her mother would intercede.
Instead, she’d said, “Stop disappointing me, Kathryn.”
Kate typed quickly on her phone.
Are you OK?
When his phone chimed, he glanced down. Then he looked back at the windshield.
And shook his head.
She knew that feeling, when your life felt so out of control that you had to do something to get it back on a track, any track, just so you didn’t explode with tension from staying in one spot.
She was supposed to be doing some kind of reconnaissance, but she couldn’t disregard the brittle state of the boy sitting beside her.
“Was Calla your girlfriend?” she asked softly.
He hesitated. “No. I thought—I don’t know.”
“What did you think?”
His eyes were locked on the steering wheel. “She found me at a party a few weeks ago. Her dad is in the Marines—mine was, too. I just thought she needed someone to talk to. I didn’t realize—”
Kate waited, but he stopped there.
“You didn’t realize what?” she said.
Hunter took a deep breath—but then he didn’t let it out, and the tension rolled around in the car with them. “You should get out and go inside. I think I’m going to cut, and you’ll be late for first period.”
“I’ll cut with you.”
He shook his head. “No—I mean, I’ve got things I have to do.”
Things? What kinds of things?
Her phone buzzed in her hand, and she was so surprised that she almost dropped it.
Silver.
What are you doing?
