and took it out to the curb. Her heart was pounding, but she told it to knock it off.
Then she walked back into the kitchen and grabbed her plate from the microwave.
Quinn was staring at her, waiting for Becca to talk. Waiting to follow some lead.
Becca dropped into her chair. “So.” She picked up her fork. “What’s this drama about your mom’s candle party?”
CHAPTER 4
Chris couldn’t breathe. A hand was clamped over his mouth, pressing his head to the pillow.
Darkness cloaked the room, but other than night, he had no concept of time. He thought of Tyler pinning his arms, holding him down while Seth threw punches. He came out of sleep with fists swinging.
He struck something. His assailant grunted. A hand caught his wrist and trapped it against the bed.
“Jesus Christ, Chris,” a voice breathed into his ear. “It’s just me, you idiot.”
Chris stopped fighting, and the hand came off his mouth.
“Keep quiet,” Gabriel said.
Chris stared up at him, trying to make out features in the darkness. The storm still raged outside, rain slamming against the siding, wanting to be part of his panic.
“What the hell are you doing?” he whispered, trying to convince his heart to slow.
Lightning flashed, lighting up Gabriel’s expression and making his eyes glow for a moment. “I thought maybe we’d give Tyler a little warning of our own.”
Chris felt his heart kick back into action. “You’re crazy.”
“Am I?”
Said by the brother who’d just woken him by suffocation. Chris glanced at the clock on his dresser. It was half past one. “Just—go back to bed.”
Gabriel ruffled his hair. “Aw. Scared?”
Chris knocked his hand away. “No.”
“Liar.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m not in any rush to get my ass handed to me again.” Chris gave him a shove. “Go ask Nick.”
“Forget it.” His brother backed off and stepped toward the door.
Chris sat up and rubbed at his eyes. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d been recruited for trouble. “Wait.”
Gabriel waited.
“Why are you asking me?”
Gabriel smiled, sensing—correctly—that Chris was starting to waver. “Thought you might like a little vengeance.”
“You mean Nick said no.”
“Does it matter?”
Chris hesitated. Did it matter?
Thunder rolled outside, and Gabriel glanced at the window. “It seemed like your kind of night.”
It felt like his kind of night. The rain liked this idea. Chris felt it pulling him, drawing his focus.
He hated Tyler. He hated them all.
But he hated his own fear more.
He nodded. “All right.”
“Get dressed. Think you can rile the storm if I help?”
Chris threw back his blankets. Rain whipped against the screen, already willing. “Sure,” he said, reaching for today’s jeans from the pile in the corner. “Why?”
Lightning lit up the room. Gabriel smiled. “Because we need Mike’s truck.”
Michael’s work truck sounded like an orchestra of chainsaws when Gabriel fired up the diesel engine. As soon as the rain touched his skin, Chris called to it, urging it faster, driving drops against the house until the rattle on the siding would be louder than the engine.
He kept the window of the cab open, his hand on the door. Storms liked adventure. Or maybe they liked panic. Whatever, he kept up a litany in his head, begging the rain to mask their departure.
Gabriel called lightning from the sky. Chris felt every surge, every strike, the electricity racing through his storm to find something to burn. It hit close now, as if the lightning sought his brother the way the rain looked for him.
A tree down the street took a bolt. Wood cracked and split, sounding like gunfire.
Chris glanced at the house, watching the dark upstairs windows for any sign of movement. They were rolling down the driveway in neutral, the headlights off, but any moment the porch lights could flare to life and Michael would come flying out of the house.
Chris swallowed.
Gabriel punched him in the shoulder. “Relax.”
“Try not to strike the truck. We might not be able to explain that away.”
Lightning struck the road at the base of the driveway, not five feet in front of them. Chris jumped a mile.
Gabriel laughed. “Now that was just lucky.”
Chris scowled. “Do we have a plan or anything? Why did we need all the fertilizer?”
“Because it explodes when I hit it with lightning.”
Chris wished he were driving, because he would have stopped the truck right then. “Run that by me again.”
“What did you think we were going to do, toilet paper their house?”
“No—but—”
“It’s just a little flash and bang, a warning not to screw with us. We’re not bombing them. God, you are worse than Nicky.”
Chris stared out the window, watching rain sluice through the darkness, making silver streamers in the path of the headlights. Gabriel drove fast, but Chris didn’t worry about losing control. No matter how slick the roads got, the water would hold them.
“Hey.”
Chris swung his head around. Gabriel was watching him, the humor gone from his expression now.
“Don’t tell me,” said Chris. “You changed your mind about the bomb thing.”
“You know that chick’s been around the block, right?”
Chris shrugged and looked out the window again. He hardly knew her.
She’d just saved his life.
He kept thinking of her eyes, dark and shining in the moonlight when she’d been kneeling in the parking lot.
“No, seriously,” said Gabriel. “Like half the soccer team, some of the lacrosse guys—”
“I get it. Thanks.” Rain beat at the truck, slapping at his hand where it hung outside the window. Feeding on his irritation.
Gabriel looked at the road again. “I just thought you should know.”
Then something occurred to Chris. “You?”
“Please,” Gabriel scoffed. Then he glanced over. “I mean, no offense—”
“It’s fine.”
“She’s cute and all, but I like a little more to grab, if you get my—”
“It’s fine.” But Chris smiled.
Gabriel killed the engine and the headlights when they pulled onto Tyler’s street, letting the truck roll in neutral. Chris pulled his hand inside the cab despite the water’s protest, worried the paleness of his skin would be a beacon in the darkness. He could hear his breathing again, louder than the rain outside, almost echoing inside the cab.
Gabriel was whistling through his teeth.