Fearless (3 page)

Authors: Brigid Kemmerer

BOOK: Fearless

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But at least he couldn't run fast. It was probably a lucky miracle he'd missed Hunter's first swing.

Hunter was about to remedy that when a teacher appeared in the hallway. Miss Janney, the first-year Spanish teacher. She had guts getting between them. “Boys. Take a walk. In opposite directions.”

Hunter didn't move. Clare had shrunk back against the lockers. Garrett looked like he was ready to come around the teacherâor through her. If Hunter turned around and started walking, Garrett wouldn't follow his lead. He'd strike again.

Hunter could feel the promise of violence in the air. He wondered what he'd done to draw Garrett's attention today.

Once he had the attention of Jeremy's crowd, it was insanely hard to lose it.

He started planning how he could minimize the damage.

“Walk,”
Miss Janney said. “There are two more days of school. I'm sure you don't want to spend them on suspension.”

Garrett didn't move. “He started it.”

Hunter opened his mouth, but Miss Janney held up a hand. “I don't care who started it. Walk or I'm calling security.”

“Whatever.” Garrett shrugged his backpack higher on his arm as he turned to walk. “I know where to find him later.”

New way home. Check.

Once Garrett was walking, Miss Janney disappeared back into her classroom, muttering something about forty-eight more hours until peace.

Clare left the safety of the lockers and touched Hunter's arm. Her eyes were full of concern. “Are you okay?”

He would let Garrett punch him again if this was the result.

“Yeah,” he said, and his voice sounded slightly thick. His cheek had taken the brunt of the hit, but his nose felt sore, too.

“I think you're bleeding,” she said. “Do you want to go to the nurse?”

Bleeding? He touched a hand to his nose and felt wetness. Crimson drops clung to his fingers.

Clare was fishing through her backpack. “Here.”

Tissues. He held one to his face. This was just
great
. Maybe he could pee his pants next.

“You were going to fight him,” said Clare, her voice soft.

“I wasn't going to let him kill me.”

“Aren't you afraid of him?”

“I used to be,” he said honestly.

“Did your dad teach you to fight, too?”

“Yeah.” He checked the tissues. Ugh. “God, I look like a total wuss.”

“No way,” said Clare with a smile. “I think you look totally fearless.”

C
HAPTER
3

The early summer air was soft on Hunter's face as he trudged through the woods to the edge of the cornfield. He'd shoved some apples and two cans of soda in his backpack, along with a box of ammunition and two unloaded handguns.

Clare was walking by his side.

He was going to teach her to shoot.

His father's lack of anger left him feeling more worried instead of less. The warning still rang in his ears, and he told his brain to knock it off. What could she be using him for? Shooting lessons?

Stupid.

She'd been mostly quiet on the walk to his house, and he'd been walking a cord of tension himself, ready for Jeremy or Garrett or one of those morons to come flying out of the trees.

But nothing had happened.

“You could take them, couldn't you?” she said out of the blue.

He didn't have to ask who she was talking about. After that display in the hallway, he wasn't surprised those thugs were on her mind, too. He smiled.
“Take them,”
he mimicked. “I don't really want to fight them.”

“Why not? Don't you think they'd leave you alone?”

Hunter stopped at the edge of the tree line. There was a long stretch of grass here before the cornfield started, and his dad had set steel targets of varying heights into the ground. He set his backpack gently on the ground.

“That's not how it works,” he said, dropping to sit in the grass. He unzipped the nylon. “If it were that easy, I'd have done it at the beginning of the year.”

She hesitated, then dropped to sit beside him, pulling her skirt over her knees. The grass was warm here, the sun beating down. “I don't understand.”

“People don't really leave me alone,” he said. “Kind of an occupational hazard.”

She frowned. “I still don't understand.”

Hunter smiled and shook his head. “Sorry. I just mean, when I fight them, it seems to inspire them to fight more. You know how sometimes when you put up resistance, it just makes people push harder?”

She was staring at him, and he couldn't figure out the tension in her expression.

“What?” he said.

She shook her head quickly. “Nothing. So they keep coming after you?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged and started snapping bullets into an empty magazine. “It's like they keep coming up with more creative ways to try to kick my ass. And if I fight them at school, it just gets me in trouble. Getting in trouble pisses off my dad. I mostly try to avoid them. Want an apple?”

“Sure.”

He snapped the last bullet, then slid the clip into a 9mm Beretta. He'd chosen this one because it was smaller and might not make her so uneasy.

Even so, she swallowed when the metal clicked.

“We don't have to do this,” he said.

“No. It's fine. It's good.”

Hunter made sure the safety was on, then stood. He showed her all the parts to the gun, going over the safety features, glad for his father's and uncle's thorough instruction, because he could talk about this stuff in his sleep. He paid close attention when she started to take the gun from him, and it was a good thing, because she almost pointed it directly at him.

“Downrange only,” he said, holding her wrist. “Always pay attention where you're pointing it.”

Her breath was shaking, just a tiny bit. “What are we shooting?”

“Just cardboard. The targets are backed with half-inch steel. The bullets won't go through.”

“What if I miss?”

“Shooting this way, we're almost a mile from the nearest house,” he said. “Besides, we're only twenty feet from the target. You'll hit it. Just hold on to the gun. There's a kick to it.”

“I'm scared I'm going to shoot myself.”

“Come on. I mean, if anyone should be scared here, it's me.”

She gave him a look, and he smiled. “Here. I'll shoot first.” He took the pistol and aimed. “Put your hand on my wrist. You'll feel it.”

As soon as her fingers closed around his wrist, Hunter almost couldn't focus. He was acutely aware of her closeness, of the scent of mangoes and cut grass and summer corn. He took a deep breath. It didn't help.

“What's with the bracelets?” she said, her thumb brushing one of the strands of twine wrapped around his wrist. Her touch was making him crazy.

“Just rocks,” he said.

“Very New Age.”

“My mom's into that stuff,” he said. It was a half-truth. His mother
was
into rocks and charms and talismans, but the difference between the crap she sold in town and the rocks on his wrist were that his rocks actually did help him focus power.

Really, it was a miracle he could even remember to keep it a secret.

Focus.
“Ready?”

She nodded. He pulled the trigger.

The sound was near deafening. She flinched hard, but didn't let go of his wrist. Her fingers were trembling against his skin.

“You all right?” he said. His ears felt thick. He probably should have thought to bring earmuffs.

“Yeah,” she said. Her breathing sounded too quick, but she glanced up at him. “I want to try.”

He showed her how to hold the weapon again, how to look down the sight to find the target. “Don't do it halfway,” he said. “My dad always says
commit to the target
.”

Her grip tightened, but she didn't pull the trigger.

“Whenever you're ready,” he said.

Her eyes were narrow, staring down the line on the barrel. “Do you ever wish you could just shoot them?”

“Sometimes,” he said. “When I'm in the moment.” He hesitated. “I don't think I could do it, though. We can talk about bullets and safeties and target practice all day, but the bottom line is that guns are made to kill people. It's stupid to forget that.”

“And you don't want to kill them.”

“Not for a bloody nose, no.” He paused again. “I don't know what it would take.”

“I do.” She pulled the trigger.

He wasn't ready for it, and it made him jump a mile.

“I did it!” She had a huge smile on her face, and he grabbed her wrist before she turned toward him again.

“Downrange,” he said, breathless. “Not at me.”

Her eyes were shining up at him. “Take the gun.”

He took it and flipped on the safety. “That's it?” he teased. “One shot?”

“I need my hands free.”

And before he could even ask why, she put her hands on both sides of his face and kissed him.

Hunter sat at dinner and pushed his food around the plate. His brain had turned to mush. Criminals could storm the house right now, and he'd probably just sit here and watch them do it.

He kept thinking about Clare. Her hands in his hair. Her lips against his. Her mouth. Her fingers. The thin fabric of her dress, the warmth of her skin, the way he'd traced the freckles on her shoulders with his fingertips first, and then his tongue.

He'd almost missed dinner.

He wouldn't have minded.

Clare had been the one to bring him back to reality, telling him she'd have to sprint for the house just to make it back before her mom got home from work. He'd barely made it home in time himself. The guns were still in the bottom of his backpack, waiting to be put back when his dad wouldn't notice him going downstairs.

“Hunter?”

He dropped his fork. It clanked against the plate. His dad was staring at him intently. Hunter had to clear his throat. “Yeah?”

“I asked what happened to your face.”

Hunter stabbed a piece of grilled chicken for an excuse to look away. He'd checked the mirror when he got home, and there was a pretty decent bruise along his left cheek.

“Accident at school.”

“Those boys still hassling you?”

Hunter never knew how to answer that question. Did his dad want him to admit it? Or did he want to know Hunter could take care of himself? “Just guys being stupid. School's almost out anyway, so . . .” He shrugged.

His mother tsked and reached out to put a hand over his.

Hunter pulled his hand away. No matter what his father meant, Hunter hated taking her sympathy in front of him.

“And the girl?” said his dad. “How are things there?”

Hunter almost choked on the piece of grilled chicken. “She's great. Good. She's good.”

“Girl?” said his mother. “There's a girl?”

“It's nothing,” said Hunter. He shoved another piece of chicken into his mouth.

“Learn anything yet?” said his father.

Yes. He'd learned that the world could narrow to a single breathless moment when he was kissing Clare.

He met his father's gaze head-on. “Not yet.”

“Make sure you're paying attention.” His father stood to take his plate to the sink and dropped a kiss on his wife's head. “Thank you for dinner, darling.”

Hunter watched this and wondered about Uncle Jay's warning last night. It seemed like a direct contradiction to the whole
use them before they use you
.

Then again, he kept thinking about Clare's question in front of the gun locker, about the fact that his mom's birth date wasn't part of the combination. It was such a minor, inconsequential thingâbut it felt like such a
big
thing when combined with that harsh warning.

His father doted on his mother. Hunter watched it every day. They really were the most unlikely pairâhis mom even commented on it to strangers with a laugh. How the die-hard military man had fallen for the New Age neo-Wiccan.

But for the first time, Hunter started to wonder if what looked like doting was really . . . tolerance. Indulgence.

As soon as he had the thought, Hunter shoved it out of his head. They'd been together for seventeen years. They never fought. He'd never questioned their love for each other, because their love for him was an unwavering constant.

But now that he'd considered it, he couldn't
stop
thinking it.

A hand rapped at the back door, and Uncle Jay stuck his head in. “Am I late for dinner?”

“There's plenty left,” said Hunter's mom.

Jay opened the door fully, and Casper burst into the room, jogging immediately to Hunter, who rubbed the scruff of his neck and slid him chicken from his plate.

“That dog loves you,” said Jay.

Hunter gave Casper another piece. “I love him back.”

Casper sat by his side and put his head in Hunter's lap.

Jay pulled out a chair and dropped into it. He glanced at his brother. “Did you get more info?”

Hunter's dad cast a glance at him. “Yeah. We'll talk upstairs. Later.”

Hunter pretended he didn't notice. But after dinner was done, he lingered in the kitchen, washing dishes, playing with Casper, giving his dad and uncle time to finish shooting the shit and get down to real business.

Then he crept up the stairs, easing around the step that creaked, holding his breath as he edged as close as he could to his father's office door.

Their voices were low, and he could only make out a few words, none of which made too much sense.

He eased out a breath, then took another one in. He slid a bit closer.

“Hunter.”

Damn it.

His father's voice. Hunter didn't move. Maybe this was a bluff.

Then the door opened. Uncle Jay stood there. “Really, kid?”

Hunter sighed and looked up at him from where he crouched on the floor. “I don't get what the big deal is. You said it was just surveillance.”

“Come in here,” his father called. He didn't sound happy.

Hunter shoved to his feet and went to the doorway.

His father was sitting at his desk, two files on the surface in front of him. Both were closed.

“First,” he said, “I'm not happy about the spying.”