“I’ll help you stay out of prison. That doesn’t mean I’m going to help you lead Layne into danger.” He glanced over again. “You’ll forgive me if I’d rather she date someone who isn’t wanted by the police.”

Gabriel reached into the backseat and grabbed his backpack, yanking it into his lap. “Let me out.”

To his surprise, Mr. Forrest pulled over, right there on the side of Ritchie Highway. He hit the button to unlock the doors.

Gabriel stared at him. “I’d never hurt Layne.”

“I’d like to keep it that way.”

“So that’s it?”

Mr. Forrest looked over. “Were you bluffing about getting out?”

Gabriel grabbed the door handle. When he was standing in the grit and rubble of the shoulder, feeling rain trail down his collar, he hesitated before closing the door. “You know I don’t even have a phone.”

“Would now be a bad time for a joke about smoke signals?”

“Fuck you.” Gabriel slammed the door.

The BMW pulled back into traffic. Gabriel watched him drive, waiting for brake lights or some signal that this was just a bluff. Like his had been, really.

But then the car was cresting the hill, disappearing from sight.

Leaving Gabriel alone.

He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up and shivered. He was only about a mile from home, but exhaustion added weight to his back while hunger clawed at his insides. The rain and darkness made him want to curl up here, by the side of the road, to wait for sunrise.

He forced his legs to move.

Again, he wished for a lighter, for flame to roll between his fingertips.

His foot kicked at a pile of roadside debris, sending dead leaves and twigs and trash scattering across the dampening pavement.

He ducked and scooped a larger twig into his palm. The bark along the outside was dampened from the rain, but he snapped it in half easily. The inside was dry and jagged, a pale patch of exposed wood, barely identifiable in the darkness.

“Burn,” he whispered.

At first, nothing.

But then, with a spark and a flicker, it flared to life.

He crushed the flame in his palm almost immediately, his heart pounding against his rib cage.

Control. He’d done it.

Another couple hundred feet down the road, he did it again, cradling the flame in his hands to protect it from the rain, breathing power into the fire until headlights appeared over the hill and he killed it.

Only to do it again once he was alone with the darkness.

This time, he let the fuel burn away until he held nothing but a lick of flame suspended between his palms.

It died quickly when a drop of rain slipped between his fingers, but Gabriel was more sure now. Another twig, another spark, another flame.