Because he’d had nothing else to do all weekend. He’d ridden the knife’s edge of tension since getting home, waiting for something to happen. For the police to arrest him again. For the Guides to show up. For more information on the pentagrams.

Nothing.

Nick gave him a look. “You’re not going to kill anyone in the hallways, are you?”

He meant Hunter. Gabriel hadn’t heard from him, either—not like he was waiting around for a call.

Gabriel shook his head.

“Really?”

“Jesus, Nick!” Gabriel gave him a shove. “Go.”

All the students nearby went absolutely still. He could almost hear the collective gasp, like he was going to whip out a weapon. He wished he knew what stories were floating around. He could imagine, especially with the weekend to let people get really creative.

Gabriel slung the backpack on his shoulder and turned away from his brother. “Fine, then I’ll go. I’ll see you at lunch.”

People cleared a path.

In first period, the teacher looked surprised to see him—and maybe a little afraid, too. Students left the seats surrounding him empty. No one spoke to him, but the focus of their attention fed his nerves like a shot of caffeine. It almost drove him to act, to live up to this violent criminal reputation he’d earned for himself. But he kept hearing Becca’s father’s voice in the kitchen.

People will die. Everyone in this room.

He slouched in his seat and pretended to be invisible.

People already had died—or come close. The pentagrams pointed to Elementals, but he couldn’t reason it out in his head. Layne’s barn had burned down—then Quinn’s house. Were they being targeted somehow? But that didn’t make sense, either. The Elementals in town knew where the Merricks lived—they’d marked the house with paint when Becca’s dad first came to town. If they wanted to attack the Merrick brothers, they could just burn their house down.

And what about all the innocent people whose houses had been destroyed?

He watched the clock tick toward second period. Then third.

When he’d see Layne.

He still had her note in his backpack, a little damp from his walk in the rain, but still legible.

Are you afraid of me?

A little.

She wasn’t in the math classroom when he got there, but he yanked his homework from his binder and flung it into the basket on his way past Ms. Anderson’s desk.

The teacher glanced up when he passed, and she was the first one who didn’t look like she expected him to douse her desk in kerosene and flick a match.

“Mr. Merrick?”

He stopped, his fingers tight on the strap of his book bag. He didn’t want to look at her, didn’t want anything to interfere with the cord of tension holding him together.

“Yeah,” he said.