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The air brought the words right to him. Nick stopped and lowered the hood. Tyler stood by the curb, two cars up, leaning against his truck.
What was he doing here? Nick gritted his teeth and balled his hands into fists.
He hated that his first thought was to wish Gabriel was here.
Especially when Tyler moved away from his truck to approach him.
Thunder rumbled through the sky overhead. Wind blasted Nick in the face and pulled at his clothes. He called for more, asking his element to rip Tyler’s face clean off.
Nick knew better than to fight him physically. Tyler fought dirty enough to give Gabriel a run for his money. Nick couldn’t suffocate him, either, not with his senses so scattered. The wind pulled his power in too many directions. Thunder cracked and rolled again.
He begged for cold, and the next blast of wind was downright arctic.
“Go away, Tyler,” he said, keeping his voice low. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
Tyler laughed in his face. “I’m not allowed to pick up a girl?”
Nick froze. Was Tyler here for Quinn?
Then Nick thought of that second bruise on Quinn’s cheek, and he started forward. Quinn was exactly the type of girl to fall in with someone like Tyler, someone who’d make promises to take care of her, but would then turn around and backhand her across the face. He thought of Adam’s history, and fury made his voice tight. “You leave her alone. She has enough problems without you screwing around with her.”
Tyler shoved him back. “Yeah, and what do you know about it?”
“I’ve seen enough. You keep your hands off her.”
“Jealous?” sneered Tyler. “That’s funny.” Then he hit Nick in the chest again, hard enough to knock him back, toward the woods.
Nick shoved him back, feeling his wind pick up fistfuls of twigs and rocks to pelt them at Tyler.
Bonus: twigs and rocks pelted Tyler’s truck, too.
Nick had the satisfaction of seeing Tyler fall back a step, an arm raised to protect his eyes. A rock hit his face and drew blood. Then a small branch hit his upraised arm with enough force to tear his shirt—and the skin below it. Nick caught the scent of blood on the wind.
Tyler surged forward to grab Nick’s arm. “Cold out. Maybe I should light something on fire.”
Nick swung a fist and called for stronger wind, but Tyler ducked and caught his wrist. They struggled, but Tyler had him by a good thirty pounds. He twisted Nick’s arm until Nick thought his elbow might give out.
More thunder, more wind. Trees began to sway.
Tyler applied more pressure. “Aw,” he said. “Is that painful?”
Yeah. It was.
“Fuck you,” Nick gasped. He remembered a time when he was younger, when Tyler had trapped him after gym class, when he’d pinned him much like this to let Seth Ramsey beat the shit out of him.
God, he hated this guy. He hated his own fear more.
Wind tore between them, stinging Nick’s cheeks, pelting him with the same debris he was using to attack Tyler. But then his gusts began to pull into a spiral, almost against his will. The clouds overhead shifted. In a minute, he’d have a tornado. His power was always like this—no middle ground. Lively breeze one moment, massively destructive weather event the next.
At least Gabriel’s fire needed something to burn. Air was everywhere.
He needed to rein this in before he leveled the school.
Tyler smiled. “Guess what, douchebag? You don’t get to play like that anymore.” He tightened his grip on Nick’s wrist.
And then flame curled from under his hand.
Fire bit through fabric to find skin, and Nick yelled, fighting like mad. His sweatshirt was on fire, a flame trapped beneath Tyler’s fingers. Nothing anyone else could see. The burn clouded his senses, eating into his arm like something alive.
