Hunter watched as the Merrick brothers went through their own files first.
Michael blew out a long whistle. “Your dad had a lot of information.”
Layne poked Gabriel’s cheek. “Did you always look surly? How old are you in that picture?”
Gabriel was staring at the grainy reproduced photograph. “Twelve? Thirteen? I don’t know.” He glanced up at Michael.
“There’s notes in here about Mom and Dad. The Guides knew what happened with Tyler’s sister, and Seth’s parents.”
Nick looked at Hunter. “Why didn’t your dad come after us then?”
“I don’t know.” He hesitated, remembering his father’s caution when discussing the Merricks a few days before he died. Hunter strongly suspected that the four of them together were more intimidating than they even realized.
It reminded him of the conversation with Kate in the field, about his presence in the house making them more formidable instead of less, no matter which side he was on.
Hunter shoved the thought out of his head and pulled more files from the Pendaflex. “There are notes about Seth and Tyler, too.” He slid them onto the table. “And a bunch of people I don’t know.”
They quickly discarded the files about Seth and Tyler. When they got to the first one Hunter didn’t recognize, Nick said, “Jeff Bluster. He was a year ahead of us. His folks were friends with Tyler’s. They were in on the deal.”
“What happened to them?” said Hunter.
Chris shrugged. “They moved away a few years ago.”
Hunter turned to the next file, on Noah Dean. “This is the kid who was with Calla when they trashed my house. She never said she had a younger brother, but maybe this is her cousin? She lives with her aunt and uncle.” Hunter hesitated, then said more softly, “Lived.”
Simon leaned forward and looked at the picture. He turned to Layne and signed something.
“I remember this kid, too,” said Layne. “He’s in eighth grade, a year behind Simon.” Her younger brother signed some more, and she kept translating. “He wasn’t a troublemaker. Had a lot of friends.” She glanced up. “Probably still does.”
“I don’t know him,” said Michael. “His family wasn’t in on the deal—my parents probably never knew they were Elementals.”
Hunter grabbed the next folder. This one and the rest were labeled POTENTIAL THREAT. “How about this girl?”
The Merricks all shook their heads, but Layne leaned over. “Alison Merryman. I know her. She’s a freshman. Quiet. Sweet.”
Next folder. Another seventh grader. And another one. Then an eighth grader.
Simon signed quickly. Layne leaned over. “I know him, too. He’s a jerk.” She glanced at Gabriel as Simon kept signing. “He’s one of the ones who was hassling Simon at the carnival.”
“He ran when I showed up,” said Gabriel. “I just thought he was running from a fight.”
Layne’s brother looked pissed at the memory.
Hunter glanced at him. “I could help you with that,” he said.
Simon’s eyes widened in surprise.
Hunter shrugged. He remembered what it felt like to walk through school hallways and wonder when the next idiot was going to slam you into a locker. “If you want,” he said.
Simon nodded.
“No wonder they’re not getting into it with us at school,” said Gabriel.
“They’re all kids,” said Nick. “They probably just figured out what they are.”
That meant they weren’t under heavy surveillance—yet. “Were they injured in the fire?” said Hunter. “Is there a list on one of the news websites or anything?”
Michael got his laptop and they checked. None of the names matched the list of the missing.
But Hunter noticed something else: Calla Dean was listed as missing, not one of the confirmed dead.
Did that mean something? He’d seen her fall.
Then he dismissed it. The Guide—Silver—wouldn’t have left her lying in the middle of the carnival.
“Well,” said Gabriel, “no one is stopping us from going over there to see.”
“Going over where?” said Michael.
“The middle school.”
Middle school. Nick was right—they were all kids. It was a new wrinkle.
Hunter had been ready to hand these files over to Kate, thinking it would be so easy to solve this problem, to redeem himself in his father’s memory.
But they were kids.
He thought about Calla in the middle of the fairgrounds. She’d been too young to die, for sure, but she’d known what she was doing.
Had she organized the next group of Elementals into something they weren’t ready for?
He needed to talk to these middle schoolers, to figure out which side they were on.
And he needed to do it without the Merricks.
“Let’s not be stupid about this,” said Michael. “There’s a Guide in town. If we