Gabriel jerked back. He’d been so close to her.
Hunter stood there, a navy backpack slung over his shoulder. That white streak interrupted his sandy blond hair and hung across one eye, leaving the other wide and full of scrutiny.
Hunter’s father had been a Guide, too, until he’d been killed by a rock slide. Hunter had come to town to kill the Merricks, in retaliation. He’d thought they were responsible for his father’s death—until Becca had convinced him otherwise. For the last few days, they’d shared a kind of awkward truce.
“Yeah,” said Gabriel. “I’m all right.”
Hunter glanced at Layne. “Are you all—”
“Fine,” she said. Then she turned and dashed into the crowd of students.
Hunter stared after her. “What just happened?”
Gabriel didn’t hate this dude the way Chris did, but some sense of brotherly loyalty insisted he feel irritation at his presence. “None of your business, Mom.” He started walking.
Hunter followed him. “All right, then what happened in second period?”
“I slept through English. You?”
“I don’t think that was sleeping.” Hunter gave a pointed look up, at the lights embedded in the ceiling.
Gabriel sighed and kept walking. Could everyone see through him today?
“You know I’m a Fifth,” Hunter pressed. “I can sense all the elements. The others might not have noticed, but I did.”
“Good for you.”
“Does this have something to do with why Becca wants to meet at lunch?”
Gabriel stopped. “She talked to you?”
“She dropped a note on my desk in History. What’s going on?”
“We have a dinner date.”
“We do?”
“Yeah.” Gabriel started walking again. “And you might want to bring your gun.”
CHAPTER 3
Layne sat on her bedspread and watched her best friend paint her nails an unflattering shade of purple. Sunset had come and gone, and darkness cloaked her bedroom window.
She couldn’t stop thinking of that quiz, the way she’d changed Gabriel Merrick’s answers.
God, she could have been caught. What had she been thinking?
As if her life weren’t already held together by a fraying thread.
“Your hands look like they belong on a corpse,” she said.
Kara frowned and waved her hand in the air. “I like it. Are you sure your mom won’t care that I’m using it?”
Layne shrugged and looked out the window. Her dad would be home soon, so she should start dinner before too long. Otherwise, her little brother would be raiding the kitchen for Pop-Tarts and potato chips.
“She won’t even know,” she said.
“You know, this is like, the good stuff. They don’t even carry this at the salon where my mom goes. It’s probably twenty bucks a bottle.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Kara rolled her eyes. “Of course you wouldn’t. I can’t believe you’re related to that woman.”
Layne picked at her own nails, which were short and unpolished. Sometim-es she couldn’t believe it, either. Her mom lived in labels, the kind splashed all over fashion magazines. More than once, Layne had seen her with the same bag some celebrity was carrying on the cover of Us Weekly.