Nick flinched. “She won’t tell me all the details. I don’t know what’s going on at home half the time.”

“If she’s hiding in the woods, it can’t be good.”

Right now, after what she’d done, Nick didn’t really give a shit if Quinn was sleeping in the woods.

No. That wasn’t true. He did care. A lot.

She sure didn’t make it easy. “She says she’s waiting for her brother to go back to school. Her family is under a lot of stress since the fire.”

Michael sighed and ran a hand down his face. “Will she talk to anyone? What about Becca?”

“She won’t speak to her because Becca never told her about the Elemental stuff. Then she got all pissed at me because I told her Tyler was a dickhead who’d just hurt her. Now she’s avoiding everyone except Tyler.” Nick’s voice turned thick with disgust. “I think he was at school to pick her up. She said she has a new ride to school.”

“What about Adam? Will she talk to him?”

Nick looked down at the table. “Maybe, but she hasn’t been showing up to dance.”

“Could you ask him to reach out to her?”

Nick picked at the edge of his place mat and didn’t say anything.

“Come on,” said Michael. “Don’t leave out part of the story.”

So Nick told him about the previous night. About Adam. And Hunter. His cheeks were on fire, and he didn’t go to any great detail, but he talked.

“Wow,” said Michael, dragging the word into three syllables. “No wonder you’re so keyed up.”

Nick shrugged. His mood darkened as his brain replayed shoving Adam again. “Guess I’m aggressive sometimes, huh?”

Michael hesitated. “I didn’t mean that as an insult, Nick.”

He didn’t need to. Nick got it. He couldn’t help Quinn, he couldn’t fix things with Adam, and hell, he couldn’t even stand up to frigging Tyler.

“I’m going to talk to Becca’s mom,” Michael said finally. “She knows Quinn’s family.”

“You don’t need to get involved,” Nick said.

“Wrong. I think I should have gotten involved a long time ago.” He paused and drained the last of his coffee. “I also have a few thoughts about Tyler.”

Nick looked at him in surprise. “You’re going to confront him?”