attitude, so Hunter was well practiced in keeping it out of his tone. It had just never been this much of a challenge with his dad.
“Who did?”
“Kids from school. A prank.” He paused. “I’ll clean it up.”
“And you’ll pay for it.”
Hunter set his jaw, but didn’t say anything.
When he and his mother had first pulled up the driveway six weeks ago, his grandfather had watched Hunter climb out of the car, then said, “We’re not going to have any of your nonsense here, you understand me, boy?”
Hunter had turned to his mother, looking for . . . something. Direction, maybe. A cue for how to respond.
But his mother had already been crying on his grandmother’s shoulder. If she’d heard the comment, she didn’t acknowledge it. And then she’d allowed herself to be hustled into the house, to be comforted over tea.
While Hunter had been left to unload the car under his grandfather’s glaring eyes.
He’d learned pretty quickly to make himself scarce.
Even now, he probably had about three minutes before he’d hear a lecture about his piercings, about how he needed a haircut, about how if he was his grandfather’s son, he’d clean up his act or he’d be sleeping on the porch.
At first, Hunter had tried being perfect. He’d done chores without being asked. Taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, doing all his own laundry. He’d fixed the two loose boards on the porch, then repaired a shutter that was hanging crooked on the front of the house—things his father would have expected him to do. No backtalk, just respect for his elders.
His mom was no help. She was so lost in her own sorrow that even talking to her about his grandfather seemed petty and insignificant.
So he’d tried to get along. He’d tried hard.
“It’s drugs, isn’t it?” said his grandfather.
Hunter sighed and carefully stepped around broken glass to right the baker’s rack. “No. I don’t do drugs.” He barely ate processed food, and this guy thought he’d put drugs in his body?
Sometimes this whole arrangement just felt like a big cosmic joke. Where was the grandfather who’d take him fishing and put an arm around his shoulders and ask if he was sweet on anyone at school? Why did he get saddled with the guy who didn’t seem to give a shit that Hunter had lost the two people he felt closest to, less than six months ago? That he was starting at a new high school in his junior year? That he’d spent his life training for something he’d never get to do, because his father’s and uncle’s deaths had left him with no path to follow?
Hunter began stacking pots on the shelves of the baker’s rack. For an instant, he envied Calla.
He wished he could throw a few things himself. But he was a Fifth—his father had drilled endless lessons of self-control into Hunter’s head. He’d been trained well, and he wouldn’t let that training fail him now. Not over this.
His grandfather was still standing there, watching him.
Hunter wanted to punch him. Instead, he gently eased the Crock-Pot back onto the lowest shelf.
“Let me know how much everything costs,” he said. “I’ll figure out a way to pay you back.” He wasn’t entirely sure how. He didn’t have a job here, and while he had some money in an envelope in his dresser, it was slowly creeping toward zero each time he had to fill his jeep with gas.
Definitely not enough to replace everything that was lying in a shattered mess on the floor.
Maybe in between trying to stop a psychotic pyromaniac, he could find a job flipping burgers at McDonald’s.
It would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad.
Sometimes he wished he could just tell his grandfather about what he was, what he could do. How his military training would put Navy SEALs to shame. How he could sense the electricity in the walls, or the humidity in the air, or the anger in his grandfather’s head.
Then again, that talk would probably lend credence to this new drug theory.
“I’m done with this attitude, boy.”
Hunter looked up. “I’m not giving you any attitude. I said I would pay for everything.”
“It’s no wonder your mother can’t get it together, with all the trouble you give her.”
Hunter stiffened, but he didn’t say anything. He had no idea why his mother couldn’t get it together. He didn’t think it had anything to do with him, but maybe it did. The last time he’d gone up to her bedroom, her eyes