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Gabriel. Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel. Where are you?
“He’s not dead,” said Tyler.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” Tyler reached down and scooped up a handful of fire, letting it burn from nothing, a rolling ball of flame suspended over his palm.
Nick stared. He’d seen Gabriel do this hundreds of times. It was unsettling to see the same show of power from Tyler.
“Fire likes him,” said Tyler. “It likes me, too. He’s still alive out here. He’s just hiding.” He glanced up at Nick. “If I can follow the flames to find him, so can the Guide. He’s being smart.
Not using his power. Letting the smoke cover him.”
It was covering him and Tyler, too, and Nick could keep the smoke dense around them. But Gabriel was hurt—the air or their twin connection or whatever had told Nick that much.
In a flash, Nick realized that all this panic he was feeling wasn’t just his own. Fear bled through the smoke, riding the very air to find Nick’s senses.
I’ll find you, he thought. I’ll save you.
He remembered playing hide-and-seek with James, and Nick threw power to the wind, opening his senses fully.
Seek.
In his mind, he saw the land as a grid, the atmosphere stretching around him in a circle, locating people like flashing pinpoints on a map. Him and Tyler. Quinn and Adam, running like hell.
The Guide, a flare of power so bright that Nick wondered how the guy had snuck up on them at the dance studio.
And Gabriel, a fading light. Not far. Maybe fifty feet straight ahead.
Nick’s temper flared and the air responded, shifting, moving the smoke. Wind whipped through the trees, bringing debris and flaming sparks to sting his skin.
“This way,” he said to Tyler, and started walking.
Tyler caught his arm. “He has a gun.”
More wind, blowing harder. It ruffled Nick’s hair and fed him power, sending smoke spiraling. “He shot my brother.”
Then he jerked free.
Nick kept his mind focused on the Guide, letting his wind swoop and whirl, remembering his demonstration for Quinn, the way he’d surrounded her with leaves.
This time, he did it with fire.
He did it carefully, the way he’d done for Quinn, slowly at first, enough power that it wouldn’t be noticed right away. But then he sent it spiraling high enough to block forward motion, sending it faster and faster, until he could see it, a near tornado of fire, trapping the Guide inside. At the same time, he drew oxygen into the flames from the inside, choking the man where he stood. Tyler helped, feeding power to the fire, until it was a spinning web of energy and destruction.
For an instant, Nick felt a rush of victory. He’d close this knot, collapse the flames. The Guide might not die, but he’d lose consciousness.
Then he could die from other things.
But then power flared back at him. The tornado began to expand. Nick’s tight cone of power loosened, like a skein of yarn being shaken free.
“Oh, shit,” said Tyler. Nick could feel his struggle to keep the fire where it needed to be—but the air pressure was too strong.
uide was on foot, then. Good, in a way, because it would buy them some time.
Tyler had to veer around fallen trees, and every swerve made Nick clench his teeth and grip Adam’s hand. The smaller trees and branches, Tyler drove straight over. That was worse. A few cars had run off the road here and there, and sirens wailed in every direction, but they kept driving. Once they got a mile away, trees were standing and they encountered more vehicles, but traffic lights were still nonfunctional.
No one was talking.
