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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.
Michael studied him. He’d been so wrapped up in his own guilt that he hadn’t considered any of the others might be feeling it, too. “Hunter—”
“Chris was just being stupid, but I made you go after him, and now we don’t have somewhere to live. I’m the one—it’s my—”
“Hunter. Stop.”
“If we’d stayed at the house, we could have stopped it. They were after us. It’s our fault, and then—”
“All right, stop.” Michael set the coffee down. “You didn’t start those fires. And I have no idea what happened in the woods last night, but it wasn’t just Chris, and you didn’t start that either. No one is making you go back to live with your mom and your grandparents. If you want to go back, I won’t stop you. If you want to stay here, that’s fine, too. This was not your fault.”
“What if I’d never come here? What if—”
“Then Becca’s dad would have killed us. What if my parents had never made a deal with the other Elementals in town? What if we’d never been born? Jesus, we can play what-ifs all day, Hunter. Things happen, and we deal with them.”
Hunter still looked tense. Michael could read the warring emotions on his face.
“I don’t want to go home,” he finally said.
“Done.”
Hunter sat there for a long minute, until the silence began to wrap around them. Michael listened to his brothers outside and told himself that Nick would sense danger before it could draw close—and Gabriel would sense anything to do with fire. They needed this time to burn off energy. Part of Michael was tempted to join them.
A bigger part of him was ashamed his family was in this situation.
He didn’t move.
“I wish my dad was here.”
Hunter’s words came out of nowhere, and Michael was surprised when longing for his own father caught him around the neck and made it hard to breathe for a moment. His voice was rough and every bit as quiet. “Me too.” He took his own shuddering breath. “God. Me too.”
Hunter was looking at him again, and Michael realized Hunter was looking for reassurance, and here he was commiserating.
