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Before, he’d been tired and twitchy and panicked.
A few hours’ sleep had brought focus. He wanted to kill whoever was behind this.
Michael took a sip of coffee—old, but not too old—and realized Hunter was still just sitting there, shoulders hunched, eyes fixed on the back door.
“You didn’t say why you weren’t out back,” said Michael.
“I didn’t feel like going outside.”
“Did something happen?”
“No.”
That no sounded like a whole lot of yes.
Michael waited, inhaling the steam from his cup, keeping his eyes on the backyard.
Finally, Hunter looked at him. His voice was almost belligerent. “Are you going to make me go home?”
Go home? But home was—
Oh.
Oh.
Michael looked right back at him. “I hadn’t even considered it. Do you want to go home?”
Hunter didn’t say anything, just kept staring back.
Michael traced a finger around his coffee mug, considering. “When I was a kid, I used to sneak out of the house and sleep in the woods. The first time my dad caught me, I thought he was going to drag me back.”
“He didn’t?”
Michael shook his head. “He brought sleeping bags and flashlights.” He paused. “What do you want to do, Hunter?”
“Home would probably be better.”
“Better for who?”
“You. Then you won’t have to worry about me.”
“I hate to break it to you, kid, but you’re probably just as big a target with your family as you are with mine. And if you think I could drop you off with your mom and stop worrying, you’re dead wrong.” In fact, he’d probably worry more.
“I didn’t mean worrying like that.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I made a bad call last night. We should have stayed at the house. Then we wouldn’t have been gone—then those people—we wouldn’t—” He caught himself before his voice broke, and shook his head.
he did.
He remembered being young, being terrified of the strength of his affinity to the earth—but finding relief in it too. When he’d been fourteen, he’d snuck out of the house to sleep in the woods almost every night.
His father had found him, every time.
He’d been an Earth Elemental, too.
With a jolt, Michael realized that’s what Chris had been doing: finding solace by the water. How had he missed that?
