He ducked his head so he could speak into her ear. “Did you see who started the fire?”
She nodded but Nick grabbed his arm and hauled him to a stop.
“Yeah,” said Nick, an odd note in his voice. “It was him.”
Gabriel looked up. They’d made it to the center of the library, an open space under a skylight. Ryan Stacey was lying in the middle of the floor.
Surrounded by a pattern blazing into the carpet.
A huge, flaming pentagram.
CHAPTER 41
Gabriel was still staring when Hunter appeared at his side.
He looked surprised to see Layne and Nick but then more surprised at the pentagram on the floor.
Not to mention the kid lying inside it.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” said Gabriel.
“No. Not yet.”
Gabriel glanced at him. “You didn’t shoot the firefighters, did you?”
Hunter gave him a look. “No, but we don’t have much time.
They’ll be blasting through here with hoses any minute.”
“Too bad we can’t just shoot him,” said Nick.
“Why can’t we?” said Gabriel. He walked forward, into the circle, scattering flames with every step. He kicked at Ryan’s leg, but the other boy remained motionless. Layne shifted in his arms again, reminding him that he couldn’t linger here. “This idiot can’t be an Elemental I’ve fought with the guy three times, and he’s never called on anything.”
“Then why’s he lying in the middle of a pentagram?” said Hunter.
“And there’s power here,” said Gabriel. “If he wasn’t feeding rage into the fire, then someone was.” He paused, reading the flames around him. He felt eagerness. Expectation. “Someone still is.”
Hunter had the gun in his hand again.
“Are you always armed?” said Gabriel.
“Since we started worrying about Guides, yeah.”
Gabriel thought of all those fires, the focused fury that had made him wonder if he hid in the night with some other guy who shared his affinity for fire. Each fire had been a celebration of sorts. Nothing had been subtle.
Like the pentagram, those fires were a message.
He just couldn’t figure it out.
And there wasn’t time to stand here puzzling it through.
“Can you two drag him out of here?”
“No!”
A female voice. They all turned.
Calla Dean stepped out from behind a flaming bookcase, easily as comfortable in the middle of all this fire as Gabriel was.
“Leave him.”
Hunter lowered the gun. His voice was full of shock. “Calla.”
“You look surprised,” she said.
“He’s not the only one,” said Gabriel.
She reached down and plucked a plume of fire from the carpet, letting it hover in her palm, feeding it power until it started to spiral off her hand. “You’ve been messing with all my pretty fires.”
“You?” said Nick. He glanced between Calla and Ryan.
“But . . .”
“Oh, he started all of them. I just helped them along.” She rolled her fingertips through the flame she’d created. “The first one was an accident, I think. He and one of his idiot friends were goofing off at the house next door, putting lighter fluid in water guns. I just fed a little power into it, and the whole place went up like a match.” She snapped her fingers. “He liked that.
It got a little addictive. For both of us, I think.”
Then she made a face, similar to the one she made when the broccoli was missing salt. “Though he was kind of a pain to follow around.”
“You killed a fireman,” said Hunter, his voice tight.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” she said. “He did.”
“But you drove the fires,” said Gabriel. “It was your rage I felt ”
“Oh yeah?” Her eyes flashed with the brightness of the flames in the room. She smiled and crushed the fire in her palm.
“Prove it.”
“You’re drawing the Guides here,” said Nick. “They were already watching this area, but ”
“That’s the whole point,” she said, and the flames around her grew. “We want them to come. That’s why I drew pentagrams in the houses ”
“You drew them?” said Gabriel. “But why do you want the Guides to come?”
“So we can destroy them.” Her gaze settled on Hunter. “I think you might know about the last two we killed? Convenient rock slide, huh?”
Hunter lifted the gun.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Shoot me. We want a war.”
He cocked the gun.
Then high-pressure water was blasting into them all, knocking them to the ground and soaking their clothes.
And putting out every last inch of flame.
CHAPTER 42
The holding cell was a lot easier to take the second time around.
Because this time Gabriel was sharing space with Nick and Hunter.
They sat against the back wall, their clothes still damp from the fire hoses. Gabriel was freezing, but he couldn’t ask his twin to warm the air. Nick looked exhausted, as if it were a good thing the wall was there to hold him upright.
“You sure Layne will be all right?” Gabriel said.
Nick didn’t even open his eyes. “For the fifteenth time, yes.
I’m sure.”
She’d been loaded onto a stretcher while cops were handcuff-ing them. Gabriel had tried to tell them Nick wasn’t involved, but they’d ignored him. Calla Dean had disappeared.And what would he say about her anyway?
He glanced at Nick. “I bet an arrest record will help the college search.”
“I’ll use it as my learning experience for the application es-says.” Nick looked over, and Gabriel could read the worry in his eyes. “What do you think’s going to happen?”
“You’ll be fine. I think I’m screwed.” Gabriel considered what had happened in the hallway, the way Hunter had pulled a gun on a fireman though he’d lost the weapon in the water. “I don’t think I’m the only one, either.”
Hunter sat a few feet down the wall, damp hair trailing into his eyes. He hadn’t said a word since they’d been arrested.
“I can say it was me,” said Nick. “We can switch ”
“No,” said Gabriel. “I know what I did. I don’t need you to cover for me anymore. I can take it.”
But he kept thinking about Calla Dean. He should have been worried about other Elementals in town, about her threats of war, her purposeful attempts to draw the Guides near. He should have been worried about how she was the real arsonist, but he’d never be able to prove it.
Instead, he kept thinking about what she’d said to Hunter.
So we can destroy them. I think you might know about the last two.
The last two. Hunter’s father and uncle.
He opened his mouth to say something, but then remembered that Hunter had never been his friend. Not really.
Gabriel shut his mouth and faced forward.
A policeman came to the gate, a ring of keys jingling in his hand. “Hunter Garrity?”
Hunter got to his feet, his expression resigned. “Yeah.”
“You’re out. Your grandfather is here to pick you up.”
Hunter’s eyebrows went up. “I’m what?”
“Turns out the fireman who reported you with a gun changed his story. Said he made a mistake in all the smoke, and since we didn’t find one at the scene . . .” The officer paused. “He also said you helped pull half a dozen kids out of that library.”
Hunter stood there staring at him, like he wasn’t sure if he should trust this stroke of luck.
“Go,” said Gabriel. “Get out while you can.”
But Hunter sat back down against the wall. “I’m not leaving until they do.” He jerked his head toward Gabriel. “I didn’t pull those kids out. He did.”
Gabriel didn’t look at him. He swore under his breath.
“Don’t do me any favors.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said the officer. “You’re all out.”
Now Gabriel and Nick snapped their heads up at the same time. “What?”
“Your brother is here to take you home. Seems the librarian heard that Ryan Stacey boy admit the whole thing. Too bad the smoke got to him before he finished his little design.”
The officer didn’t sound like there was anything too bad about that at all.
“He’s dead?” asked Nick.
“He’s in the hospital.” The officer didn’t sound too broken up about that, either. “You kids coming or what? I’ve got real criminals to book.”
Gabriel was ready to face Michael in the waiting room of the police station.
He wasn’t ready for the firefighters.
More than a dozen men, plus Hannah and one other woman.
Most of them, including Hannah, were wearing fire pants and suspenders, their faces smudged with soot, though a few just wore Tshirts with the fire house insignia and jeans.
Gabriel stopped short in the doorway and swallowed. He glanced at Michael, standing at the counter and signing a form.
No answers there.
Then some of the firemen separated, revealing a guy in a matching T-shirt in a wheelchair, his leg in a Velcroed cast from ankle to thigh. He glanced between Nick and Gabriel. “Which one of you is the kid who pulled me out of the house on Winterbourne?”
Then Gabriel recognized him. This was the guy who’d fallen through the floor. Gabriel didn’t know what to say.
Nick hit him in the shoulder, shoving him forward. “He is.”
The guy held out a hand. “Thank you. I owe you a lot.”
Gabriel couldn’t move.
This time Hunter shoved him in the shoulder. “Shake his hand, you idiot.”
Gabriel reached forward, not feeling like he deserved any thanks at all. He hadn’t been enough. He should have been able to stop the fire.
The man’s hand closed around his. “I heard about today, too.
How did you do it?”
Gabriel shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.” He glanced back at Hunter. “I had help.”
“Luck doesn’t last forever, kid.”
Gabriel snorted. “No kidding.”
The fireman didn’t let go of his hand. “No more playing fireman. Promise?”
“Yeah,” he said, thinking of Calla Dean and her vow to lure the Guides here. He wouldn’t be able to stop if she kept this up.
But he lied, because what else could he do? “I promise.” He moved to pull his hand back.
The fireman held fast, surprisingly strong despite the fact that he was stuck in a wheelchair. “I’m serious. You want to walk into fires, go through school and do it for real.”
“You know,” said Hannah, “you can start fire school at sixteen.”
Fire school? He’d never considered making a career out of his abilities. “I’ll think about it,” said Gabriel.
Nick clapped him on the shoulder again. “No, you’ll do it.”
Layne stared at the ceiling in the emergency room and listened to her parents bicker. For the second time in less than a week.
She was wearing a hospital gown, so they knew her scars were gone.
And unfortunately, it had turned into one more point of argument.
“Well, David,” her mother snapped, “obviously you haven’t been paying attention to the children if you weren’t aware ”
“You weren’t aware, either, Charlotte! Don’t try to tell me about . . .”
Layne put the pillow over her face.
She hadn’t known what to say.
Because she didn’t know how it had happened, either.
The doctors had lots of theories, about growth spurts and skin regrowth, and healthy eating.