Secret (Elemental) Read online

  Nick could always see right through her. Quinn shrugged. “It’s fine. I’m glad she’s happy.”

  “And you sound so sincere about it.”

  Quinn hit him on the arm. “No. I am. I just . . . miss her, you know? And I’m . . .”

  Jealous. She was jealous.

  But she couldn’t say that.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I shouldn’t have brought up Becca. She’s just spending all this time with Chris, and I get it, but she doesn’t talk to me anymore. I don’t think she’s hiding something, but it’s almost like she’s got this new life that I’m not a part of. If that makes any sense.”

  Nick sighed. “Yeah, Quinn, it actually makes a lot of sense.” He hit the turn signal for their street. “Did you tell Becca about me?”

  “Of course not! God, what kind of friend do you think I am?”

  He held up a hand. “I’m just saying—maybe you both have secrets.”

  “Maybe.”

  He dropped his arm to give her half a hug—totally platonic, and nothing she really wanted. But she took the comfort all the same.

  “You’re a good friend,” he said. “That’s the kind I think you are.”

  Quinn straightened and studied him. Nick really was a looker—all dark hair and blue eyes and broad shoulders. Muscled arms from all the landscaping. Just enough freckles sprinkled across those high cheekbones to make him look boyish and charming.

  Then again, his twin brother had those same freckles, and there was nothing boyish and charming about him.

  “Actually,” Nick said slowly, “it’s probably time I should tell you another secret—” He broke off, his voice hardening to steel. “Damn it.”

  Quinn followed his gaze. They were turning up his driveway, and a blond guy was making his way down the walk from their house. The guy looked pissed.

  “Who’s that?” she said.

  “Tyler Morgan. He’s an asshole.” Nick threw the truck into park and hesitated there, glaring at the guy as he walked toward them.

  Tyler’s expression was full of fury. He said something, but Quinn couldn’t hear him over the diesel engine with the windows closed.

  Then Nick killed the engine just as Tyler turned his gaze on Quinn.

  “—with your stupid, white trash girlfriend,” he finished.

  Quinn froze. Oh no, he did not.

  “Wait here,” said Nick.

  No way was she waiting here. Quinn threw herself out of the truck. This Tyler guy was a lot bigger than he’d looked when she was sitting in the cab of the pickup, but he could be fifty feet tall and she wouldn’t give a crap.

  “What did you just call me?” she demanded.

  Nick appeared at her side. “Quinn, go in the house.”

  Tyler sneered down at her—a shame, because he might be kind of attractive if he weren’t trying so hard to look like a prick. “You heard me. I called you a stupid—”

  Quinn punched him.

  She shocked the hell out of him, too. He was probably one of those jerks who thought girls roamed the earth for nothing more than his pleasure. But she’d been holding her own for years, and the punch knocked him back. She knew how to swing, and she sure as hell wasn’t holding back with this tool.

  “At least trashy girls know how to hit.” She drew back a fist to hit him again.

  Nick got hold of her. “Jesus, Quinn. Stop it.”

  “That’s right,” said Tyler, his voice a little nasal. “I forgot you Merrick douche bags like to let your girls fight for you.”

  “Get the hell out of here,” said Nick. He had a death grip on her arms, his hands full of tension. The air was suddenly ice cold.

  “Let me go,” she said. “I want to make sure he can’t pass on his genes.”

  “No worries, blondie. Seeing you is enough to turn me off forever.”

  “Right back atcha, dickhead,” Quinn snapped.

  Then Tyler stepped toward her, drawing back a fist. She sucked back into Nick.

  But Tyler stopped there. He smirked. “Yeah, all you girls think you’re so tough, but then you can’t take—”

  His words cut short like he ran out of breath. No puffs of steam escaped from his mouth, though hers and Nick’s were going a mile a minute. Tyler shook his head fiercely, and then put a hand to his throat.

  His eyes started to bug out, and he dropped to a knee.

  Had he inhaled a fly? Was he choking? What was happening?

  “Get out of here, Tyler.” Nick’s voice was quiet, low and full of intensity. “No deal, nothing to stop me. Understand?”

  Quinn had no idea what that meant, but Tyler was on his knees, suffocating on nothing. Nick’s hands were gripping her arms so tightly she could feel faint tremors, belying the strength in his voice.

  Was Nick afraid of this guy?

  She kicked Tyler. “Yeah, asshole. Get out of here.”

  He nodded hard, his hand pulling at his throat now.

  And then he was gasping, coughing, his hands on the pavement.

  “Come on,” said Nick, letting her go but taking her hand to drag her with him. Probably making sure she didn’t lay into Tyler again.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Tyler choked from behind them. “I only came here to talk.”

  “Sure you did.” Nick dragged her up the steps to the front door, then jammed his key in the lock.

  “What really happened at the carnival last week?” Tyler yelled. “I heard the news about pentagrams. Another Guide came here, didn’t he?”

  Nick ignored him and hauled her through the door, then slammed it, throwing the deadbolt for good measure.

  Then he put his head against the door and unclenched his fists.

  Quinn stared at him. Their breath still fogged in the air as if the heat in the house wasn’t working. Gooseflesh had sprung up along her forearms, and she shivered. “You want to tell me what just happened there?”

  “Yeah.” Nick turned his head to look at her. “That’s the rest of my secret.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Quinn sat backward on Nick’s desk chair and watched him fidget. He was sitting on the end of his bed, twisting his ball cap between his hands. A sudden noise would probably send him sky high.

  No one else saw this side of Nicholas Merrick. She’d always thought he had his life perfectly in order, with a college plan and a handle on everything. When they’d first started dating, she’d thought she’d finally found the perfect boy to latch on to.

  Then she’d caught him kissing Adam, and there went that.

  “I’m still waiting for your secret,” she whispered mockingly.

  His eyes flicked up to meet hers. “I know.” He paused, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve never told anyone, and I’m not sure where to start.”

  “Wait. Don’t tell me. You’re gay.”

  He flung the hat at her. Quinn uncurled it and pulled it on her head backward. “Why don’t you tell me about the idiot in your driveway. His name is Tyler?”

  “Tyler Morgan.” He hesitated. “His parents hated my parents. So much that Tyler grew up hating us. He used to go to school with Michael, but he’s a few years younger.” Another pause. “Tyler used to have a sister named Emily. She was in Michael’s class. She died in the old rock quarry south of Severna Park. There was a rock slide and she drowned.”

  “When?”

  “Five years ago. I don’t know a lot of the details, but Tyler thinks Michael had something to do with it.”

  Quinn sat up straight. “Holy shit. Like . . . how? Like he built a bomb or something?”

  Nick shook his head quickly. “No—nothing like that. Michael has . . . he has . . . we have this affinity for the—” He cut himself off and rolled his eyes. “Jesus, this is impossible. Everything sounds ridiculous, and I want you to believe me.”

  She studied him, trying to puzzle this out for herself.

  She was coming up with nothing.

  Abruptly Nick stood and seized her by the hand. “Come on. We need
to go outside. This will work better with show-and-tell.”

  He trudged through the woods, dragging her behind him. She could feel the tension in his grip. Whatever his secret was, it had him keyed up. The sun had already begun to dip behind the horizon, letting a chill seep into the air.

  “Keep walking,” he said. “I need some distance from the neighborhood.”

  “Your secret is in the woods?” said Quinn, shivering. “Dude, if you turn into a werewolf, I am outta here.”

  He smiled, then stopped and turned to face her. “I’m not a werewolf.”

  “Vampire? Alien?” She snapped her fingers. “Harry Potter. Or wait, you’d be one of the Weasley twins . . .”

  “If you could shut up a second, I’d tell you.”

  “Should I hold your hands? Are we going to phase out and appear in Narnia?”

  “No.” He glanced around. “If any trees fall, I don’t want them to hit a house.”

  Trees falling? What? “So you’re secretly Paul Bunyan?”

  “Quinn.”

  She shivered again. “What? Seriously, Nick, what’s out here?”

  “Air.” As he said the word, the breeze kicked up, finding a true wind that ruffled his hair and swirled between them. Leaves shifted and rustled along the ground.

  Quinn frowned. “Air?”

  Nick nodded. His expression said that she was missing something important.

  But . . . air? Air was everywhere.

  Leaves lifted from the ground and began to spiral around their feet. She started to shiver again—but then the leaves swirled off the ground, forming a moving wall to enclose them. First two feet high, then three, then eye level.

  Quinn felt the first lick of fear. She moved closer to him—then wondered if that was worse than moving away. “You’re freaking me out a little, Nick. Is the mother ship landing?”

  “Relax.” He spoke gently, confidently. “It’s just wind.”

  She stepped away from him, but not too far. The swirling leaves remained out of her reach, and the wind caught her blond hair and tossed it across her face. “Are you doing this?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I’m feeding it energy.”

  She looked at him again. “I don’t understand.”

  “I can control air. Wind. Atmosphere. Whatever you want to call it.” He paused. “That’s how I choked Tyler.”

  Quinn put a hand out. Leaves caught against her palm immediately, crumbling before getting swept into the maelstrom again. It wasn’t enough to disturb this mini-tornado. A bare path appeared on the ground where the wind continued to whip in a circle.

  “You’re telling me you’re doing this all by yourself?” said Quinn. “No machine? No—”

  “All me,” he said. “But the wind is willing.”

  She turned to look at him again. “Okay. Make it stop.”

  He didn’t move, but she felt the change. The wind in the clearing died. Leaves spun wildly and fluttered to the ground.

  Quinn jammed her hands in her pockets and stood a few feet back from him. Her brain couldn’t wrap itself around this quickly enough. She wasn’t sure she wanted to believe him yet. This was a little too . . . weird. “So . . . what? Your brother blew that girl off a cliff?”

  Nick’s eyes widened. “What? No. He’s not—Michael’s not an Air. He’s an Earth.”

  Quinn licked her lips. “Do I need a twenty-sided die here, Nick?”

  “Would you stop making jokes? I’m trying to explain this to you, and you’re—”

  “Freaked out.” She took another step back from him, looking at the leaves that had fluttered to the ground. Nothing abnormal, no sign of any device that could have done . . . that.

  Nick studied her. “Do you have your iPod?”

  That was like asking if she’d brought her boobs along. Quinn fished it out of her pocket and held it out.

  Nick shook his head. “You listen. Dance. Do that one you were doing the night I picked you up at the Y.”

  When the hell had Nick Merrick gone insane? “You want me to dance right now?”

  He nodded, looking perfectly serious.

  “But you won’t hear the music.”

  “I want to show you something.”

  Quinn hesitated, figured she had nothing to lose, and plugged the buds into her ears. She had to close her eyes to shut out Nick’s searching face, but once the music caught her, he could have been an alien and she wouldn’t have cared.

  She didn’t remember all the details of this routine, but Nick wouldn’t know the difference, and she was good at improvisation. Her weeks of studying with Adam had made her stronger, more balanced, and she could feel the difference even in something unpracticed. Her legs carried her through spins and leaps more effortlessly. She spun and dropped and flung her body into the rhythm, every movement punctuated perfectly.

  Then she felt it. The air changed, as if the music could suddenly seep into her skin. Her movements had more energy, more control, and each time her feet left the ground, she felt vaguely like a marionette, suspended for just a fraction of a second too long—but effortlessly.

  The dance changed against her will, turning from something she was doing with the music into something she was doing because of the music, as if the very song animated her body. Her next leap left her in the air for a moment too long. She almost lost the beat, and spun to find it. One foot, pivot, step, leap.

  This time her height, her suspension in the air, was downright inhuman.

  She stumbled on the landing, from shock more than anything. Nick caught her, his hands warm and steadying on her elbows. Quinn braced her hands on his chest, unsure whether she should shove him away or not. Her breaths came quick.

  Frightened. She was frightened. She’d felt his power in the air.

  Exactly how high had she gotten?

  She yanked the earbuds free. “Did you do that?” she demanded.

  His expression was guarded, but he nodded. “Yes.”

  She didn’t say anything for the longest moment, letting her breathing settle.

  She could still hear the song, tinny and distant from the headphones. Music was in the air, drawing at her limbs. Not frightening. Exhilarating.

  Quinn grinned. “Can you do it again?”

  An hour later, Quinn was sprawled on his bed, watching Nick rifle through a dresser drawer. She’d learned about his brothers, how they were marked for death because of their abilities. She’d learned about their deal with Tyler’s family to keep the Merricks hidden from discovery—a deal that created a rift in the Elemental community, putting the Merricks on one side, and the Morgans on the other. She’d learned about the rockslide that had killed Tyler Morgan’s sister, right in front of Michael Merrick.

  She knew about the Guides who’d tried to kill him and his brothers more than once—and who would try again, when they had the chance.

  The front door slammed downstairs, and Quinn sat up on the bed. One or more of his brothers were home. She slid her phone out of her pocket and wanted to tell Nick to get the lead out.

  But he was so adorably anxious about seeing Adam that she didn’t want to rush him. “I think I always knew there was something about you,” she said.

  He didn’t glance up. “Yeah?”

  “That suffocation thing—you did that to Gabriel once, didn’t you? That day I made you dinner and he came home acting like a real shit?”

  Nick’s hands went still. “Yeah.”

  He sounded ashamed. Quinn snorted. “Too bad you didn’t follow through.”

  He turned to look at her. “It’s not a game, Quinn. I could have lost control.”

  “Well, you sure didn’t seem to mind using it on Tyler.”

  Nick turned away and shoved the drawer closed with a bang, moving on to the next one.

  Quinn came and crouched next to him. His hair was still slightly damp from a shower—which he’d taken alone, despite her offer to keep up appearances—and he smelled slightly s
weet and musky at the same time, like one of those guy-brand body washes.

  “What’s up?” she said. “You okay?”

  He turned his head to look at her. “I hate that guy.”

  “Really? I didn’t get that from the warm welcome you gave him in the driveway.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Tyler.” He slammed another drawer and moved on to the bottom one.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked quietly.

  “Something that doesn’t make me look like I spent twenty minutes doing exactly this.”

  “Are you sure you don’t have a spandex suit under those clothes?”

  “I do, in fact. Little surprise for later.”

  Quinn snorted. “What you’re wearing is fine.” And it was: a soft blue T-shirt that clung to his body and made his eyes almost vibrant.

  “Are you nervous about what you told me? You said you were in danger.”

  He gave up on rummaging through the drawer. “We are. We’re always at risk of someone coming to town to kill us all.”

  “The Guides, right?”

  “Yeah. But we try to keep our heads down and not reveal our talents. That’s one of the rules: we have to demonstrate our abilities to earn a death sentence. When we were younger, Tyler and Seth used to beat the shit out of us to try to force us to use our powers, but we’re stronger now and they mostly stay away.”

  Until this afternoon, she thought. But then she picked up on what Nick had said, that Tyler and Seth used to beat the shit out of them. Like his twin brother, Nick was tall, and landscaping gave his body some solid definition. She couldn’t imagine anyone beating the shit out of him—but then again, if everything he’d told her was true, maybe he’d been afraid to fight back.

  “I just don’t understand why,” said Quinn. “What do they care?”

  Nick glanced over. “We scare them.”

  “They’re scared of a little breeze?”

  “Remember Homecoming? Remember the tornado that formed over the soccer field? Ripped out a few trees?”

  “Yeah?”

  Nick gave her a significant look.

  “No way,” she said.

  “Way.” He grimaced. “I lost control of it. Ended up breaking my leg in three places.”

  More events were clicking into place. “You said you threw out your knee playing soccer.”