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“I don’t care if you hate it.” His father waited until Michael looked back at him. “You’re not to go near that family again. Do you understand me?”
“Me! What about them?” He was almost shouting now, and he didn’t care. “You know what Tyler did to—”
“Not again. If you see them, you go somewhere else.”
Michael gritted his teeth and looked at the back door just so he wouldn’t have to look at his parents. “I want to leave.”
His father made a disgusted noise. “We’re not talking about this again. If we move to a new community, there’s no guarantee we could keep your abilities hidden—”
“Not all of us,” Michael snapped. He pointed to his chest. “Just me.”
“Go ahead,” said his father, his tone equally sharp. “They’d report you before dark. Rogue Elemental on the run? You’d be lucky to make it ’til sunrise.”
“John,” said his mother. “That’s enough.”
“He’s bluffing.”
Michael leaned down and put his hands against the table. “Try me.”
His father stared back. “This isn’t a game.”
“Trust me. I’m not having any fun.”
His father’s voice lowered and lost some of the anger. “I’m not kidding, Michael. Running away from this won’t work. It’s a death wish.”
Michael flung his chair in against the table. “Maybe I should just take my chances.”
He stormed across the kitchen, sure his father was going to call him back, to lecture more, to issue ultimatums and threats until Michael caved and promised to try harder.
How do you try harder at something that consumes every waking thought?
But his father didn’t say anything. Michael kept going.
Only to find his three brothers waiting, wide-eyed, just outside the kitchen doorway, their expressions some mix of betrayal and anger and confusion.
Great.
“You’re leaving?” said Nick.
“Look. Guys . . .” Michael sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean right this second—”
“So you are,” said Chris. “You’re leaving.”
Gabriel had backed up against the wall, and his arms were folded across his chest. “What’s going to happen to the rest of us?”
“Are they going to kill you?” said Chris, his voice hollow.
“Tyler won’t stop,” said Nick. “Just because you’re gone, the rest of them will still—”
“Boys.”
Michael felt their mother come up behind him, felt her slim hand on his shoulder. “No one is leaving,” she said. “People say things in anger all the time. Michael didn’t mean it.”
Three sets of eyes locked on his.
“Tell them,” she said.
Michael looked at his three brothers. He could read the new emotion there: desperation. They wanted him to deny it.
