Michael sighed. “I remember when I was eighteen, it was a total shock to realize my parents had been winging it the whole time. Like, there was this one time that Chris—”
“Save it,” said Hunter. “I don’t need any Merrick family anecdotes.”
“Fine,” said Michael equably. “How about a Garrity family anecdote?”
“What?”
“You tell me, Hunter, because we—you and me—don’t have a history here beyond you trying to kill me, and me finding you ready to flatten the Home Depot. You’re not this mad at your mom just for letting your grandfather throw you out. What else is there?”
Hunter gritted his teeth and stared at the trees. The air was crisp and cold, biting through his clothes as easily as the chill in the pavement was biting through his jeans. But being outside helped settle his nerves.
And Michael just waited.
Hunter realized he was holding on to everything so tightly that it was all going to snap and come apart if he wasn’t careful. Like with Gabriel in the cafeteria.
Like with Kate in the car.
And just like that, he found himself talking.
“My parents were a bizarre couple,” he said. “I mean, I never really thought about it, but everybody said so. My dad was in the Marines for a long time. He went through special forces, the whole deal. Even when he got out, he worked private jobs—the dangerous kind. It went right along with being a Guide. I don’t even know all the jobs he took. A lot of them were classified—and now . . . well, now they’re going to be classified forever, I guess.”
He paused, rubbing at the scruff of Casper’s neck.
Michael waited.
“Mom was . . . unique. She had a new age store in the town where we lived, and she played up the part. She did tarot readings, crystal healings, stuff like that. She gave me the stones. I didn’t realize until I started getting powers that they’d start to feel like a part of me . . .” Hunter paused and lined them up along his wrist. “She didn’t know what my dad was—like the Guide stuff—but she always used to dote on him and say he had a special connection to the world around him.” Now, knowing what he knew about his mother and father, Hunter wondered if his dad had laughed about that behind her back.
“Have you ever wanted to tell her?” said Michael. “About what your dad was?”
Hunter shook his head. “No. When I was younger, it was something between me and him. Not like a secret, but more like he got me—” He made a dismissive noise. “This is stupid.”
“It’s not. I get it.”
Hunter glanced over, and Michael shrugged. He was still looking at the trees, which made this whole conversation easier.
“My dad was an Earth Elemental, too.” Michael paused, and it was weighted with feeling. “We didn’t always get along, but—well, you know.”
Hunter nodded and looked back at the trees himself. “People always ask if my dad was strict, and he was—but he wasn’t. I never—I didn’t—”
He had to stop.
His dad would have shit a brick if he’d known Hunter was sitting here crying.
“Was he proud of you?” said Michael.
Hunter snorted. “I never knew where I stood with him.” He had to swallow. God, suck it up. “I never will.”
“I’m sure you have some idea.”
“I don’t. The day before he died, he told me that the only reason he was with my mother was because he was using her. Their whole relationship was based on that. And she has no idea.”
“Wow.” A pause. “What do you think that means about your relationship with him?”
“He said I needed to learn to use people, that it would keep me safe because of what I am.”
“Well, that explains a lot.”
Hunter snapped his head around.
Michael put a hand up before he could say anything. “Take it easy. You don’t have to be on such a hair trigger, kid.” A pause. “But if you don’t mind me sharing one thing I learned when I was eighteen, something that’s bothered me since my parents struck that messed-up deal with the other Elementals in town . . .”
“What?”
“Sometimes parents are wrong.”
The words hit him hard again, and Hunter flinched.
“Come on,” said Michael. He clapped Hunter on the shoulder. “Let’s go get your stuff.”
“I don’t want—”
“Come on,” Michael said. “Let her be wrong for once. It’ll be good for you both.”
CHAPTER 13
No one was home.
Or at least, neither his mother’s nor his grandparents’