Wet (Elemental 1) (9 page)

Blake drew the
focus from himself and asked, “Does anyone know if Angela’s told Eric?” He
watched as his siblings exchanged equally uncertain looks before he finally
sighed and said, “I take it that’s a ‘no’.”

With a grin, Nate
replied, “Hey, you’re the oldest—
you
ask her.”

“Yeah,” Dean jumped
in, “you know how much she hates talking about that punk.”

Blake gave his
brother a pointed look and said, “Gee, that couldn’t be because
some
of you always put him down or
threaten to massacre him?”

Before Dean could
retort to Blake’s comment, Logan said, “Well, one of us should talk to her.
Whether or not we like him, he’s just a teenager. He could’ve told the wrong
person.”

“I agree,” Blake
declared with a nod.

“Great,” Dean
began, “then you can do it. Probably, if I tried, I’d end up accusing him, and
she’d just get all
pissy
.”

Logan reached over
and smacked Dean upside the head. “She’s our sister,” he said. “Don’t talk
about her like that.”

Rubbing the back of
his head, Dean said, “Oh, come on, she’s
seventeen
.
She gets
pissy
. And I can say it
‘
cause
I’m her older brother. It’s expected.”

“At the risk of
having my head knocked clean off my shoulders,” Nate interrupted, “he has a
point. She
does
get kind of touchy
whenever one of us talks about him.”

Blake shook his
head. “Do I really need to reiterate myself?”

Dean gave him a
pointed look. “Don’t tell me you like the kid.”

“I don’t,” Blake
assured his brother. “But the more we blatantly dislike him, the harder she’s
going to cling to him. Or don’t you remember the rebellious stage?”

Logan smirked. “He
can’t remember it, Blake. He’s still stuck there.”

Nate laughed, and
Dean rolled his eyes at them.

Taking a deep
breath, Nate pushed down his lingering amusement and said, “Okay, so Blake’s
gonna
talk to Angie about what’s-his-name, but we still
need to figure out our other options. Does anyone have any other ideas?”

****

Blake was leaning
patiently against the driver’s side of his Mustang when the high school let out
the next day. He’d called ahead and convinced his mother to let him pick Angela
up from school, though it hadn’t taken much effort once he’d explained his
reasons. So now all he had to do was wait for his only sister to come into
view. And as he waited, he watched the other teenagers run around, celebrating
their temporary freedom. He could still easily recall his high school days, and
watching the largely unfamiliar teenagers had him remembering why he was glad
those years were behind him.

But none of that
mattered, as his eyes locked on to the dark-haired girl he’d been waiting for.
She was walking in synch with her now-eighteen-year-old boyfriend and laughing
faintly. Neither appeared to have noticed him, parked as he was at the curb off
to the side of entrance. When they were close enough that he wouldn’t have to
bellow, Blake called out, “Angela!”

Several heads
turned in startled curiosity, but Blake paid them no attention. When his sister
and her boyfriend looked over, he lifted a hand in a lazy wave. He watched
silently as they exchanged looks before altering their course and heading over
to him.

“Hey, Blake,”
Angela said hesitantly. “What’re you doing here?”

Cocking an eyebrow
and keeping his tone light, Blake replied, “What’s it look like? I’m giving you
a ride.”

“It’s a nice day,”
Angela argued, “we were going to walk.”

“I was
gonna
walk her straight home,” Eric offered helpfully.

“No need,” Blake
said, pulling his keys from his pocket. “I’ll drive you home, and then take her
home.”

Angela frowned at
her brother. “That’s not necessary,” she insisted.

Holding her gaze
pointedly, Blake said, “Humor me.” He clicked the button as he spoke and
unlocked his car. When he had the door open, he smiled and said, “Hop in.”

Heaving a martyred
sigh, Angela looked over to her boyfriend and said, “I’m sorry. Apparently my
brother’s in a strange mood.” Then she turned and ducked into the car.

Eric hesitated, his
eyes flicking to Blake, and Blake inclined his head. “Go ahead, I won’t bite.”

“Uh, thanks.” Eric
moved around him and ducked into the car.

Once the teenagers
were settled in the backseat, backpacks at their feet, Blake re-positioned his
seat and angled himself into the car. He had it in motion in no time, and as he
eased into the after school traffic, he called over his shoulder, “Your sister
hasn’t moved, right?”

“No,” Eric replied
easily.

Blake nodded to
himself and started the easy drive to Emma’s home. He said nothing, keeping his
music low and pretending to ignore the hushed conversation going on behind him.
It took him only a few minutes to reach the suburban neighborhood that Emma and
Eric Matthews called home.

As he pulled into
the slightly slanted driveway, Blake couldn’t help but reflect on what he knew
of the siblings’ history. Emma was a couple of years older than him, and so
he’d only seen her in passing during his first two years of high school. From
what he’d heard through Angela, Mrs. Matthews had died only a couple of years
earlier, and when she had, she’d left her two children alone.

“Here you go,”
Blake declared as he put the car in park and set the brake. Then he eased out
and pulled his seat forward so that Eric could actually exit the car, stepping
back to try to keep the situation from being more awkward.

Eric unbuckled and grabbed
his backpack in one hand. Turning to Angela, he said, “Uh, I guess I’ll see you
tomorrow, then.”

“Yeah,” Angela
replied, cutting a pointed look at her brother before returning her attention
to Eric and quickly leaning forward to cover his lips with hers. She pulled
away a heartbeat later, blushing, and murmured, “See you tomorrow.”

Eric swallowed and
nodded but said nothing as he scrambled from the car. He deliberately kept his
gaze on the ground as he stepped wide of Blake, and it wasn’t until he was
several feet from the car that he turned back to call, “Thanks for the ride.”

Blake nodded
silently and remained standing until Eric had disappeared inside the house.
Once the front door had shut, he turned to look into his backseat. “You want
shotgun?”

Angela crossed her
arms. “I’m fine here.”

Oh, good,
Blake thought with an internal sigh as he reclaimed his seat and
pulled the door shut.
Her being angry
will make this so much easier.

Chapter Nine

Awkward silence
settled over the car after Blake switched off his radio and eased out of the
driveway. When he was back on the main road, he heaved another sigh and finally
said, “Angie, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be rude, but I need to talk to you
about something.”

Keeping her eyes
pointed out the small back window, Angela replied, “That’s what they invented
phones for, Blake.”

Blake tightened his
grip on the steering wheel. “I need to talk to you about what Mom learned from
Uncle Nicholas.”

In the rearview
mirror, Blake watched as Angela’s eyes widened marginally and her posture
relaxed. After another moment, she turned her gaze forward and let her arms
fall to her sides.

“Did you figure
something out?” she asked, her frustration almost gone from her voice.

Blake shook his head.
“No, we’re still pretty much clueless. But the four of us got together
yesterday, and Logan suggested we run over a list of everyone we know of who
knows about us.”

Her frown returned,
but her voice was much the same when she asked, “And you want to know if I’ve
blabbed to my boyfriend, right? Like Dean and Nate with their girlfriends? Like
you
?”

Fearing where she
was going to take the conversation, Blake replied, “Well, I wasn’t going to
word it that way, but … yeah.”

Pursing her lips
for a moment, Angela finally said, “I haven’t. I certainly could have, and
we’ve been together long enough none of you would have the right to give me a
hard time about it, but I haven’t.”

Genuinely
surprised, Blake asked, “Why not?”

Angela shrugged,
her gaze returning to the side window. “I don’t know, it just … hasn’t felt
right. Besides, I don’t know for sure what he’s doing for college yet; if we
end up breaking up, or doing the long-distance thing, then it’ll be better if I
don’t.”

Curiosity mounting
with each word she said, Blake found himself asking, “Are you two having
trouble?”

“No!” Angela
asserted quickly, turning forward again and meeting his gaze fearlessly through
the rearview mirror. She took a breath and calmly explained, “I’m just being
cautious. I know that most high school relationships don’t work out, so I’m not
going to assume it will until I have a little more to go on. But we’re
fine
, so don’t go celebrating or
something.”

Blake couldn’t help
the grin that curved his lips as he said, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

They fell into
silence until Blake pulled to a stop in front of their parents’ garage. He was
reaching for the handle on his door when his sister’s quiet voice carried to
his ears.

“Blake,” she said
softly, her eyes faded and distant with thought. “You’ll let me know when we
figure this out,
right?
”

Frowning at the
strange tone in her voice, Blake shifted so that he could turn slightly to face
her. “Of course.”

Angela dragged her
eyes to his. “And … we’ll be okay, won’t we? All of us?”

“What are you
worried about, Angie?” Blake returned, concern welling up inside of him.

She swallowed and
her eyes flicked to the house through the windshield before she looked back at
him. “Mom … lost two of her brothers, remember? And she barely hears from the
others now that Grandma and Grandpa are gone. I … don’t want that to be us,
that’s all.”

Blake offered his
sister a soft, reassuring smile and reached over to pull one of her smaller
hands into his. Giving it a light squeeze, he said, “That won’t be us, Angie. I
promise.”

Releasing a heavy
breath, Angela returned his smile and squeezed his hand briefly before pulling
away and saying, “So are you letting me out of this car or not?”

****

Brooke was relaxed
on her couch later that night, enjoying the couple of hours she had to herself
before the guilt would send her to bed. It had been a fairly slow night at the
diner, and so Paula had sent her home over an hour before the end of her shift.
With a contented sigh, Brooke shifted, tucking her feet closer to her body as
she curled up in the corner of her couch beside the window wall.

For once,
she reflected as the next set of commercials finally ended and she
quickly hit the ‘play’ button on her remote,
I might actually get to watch my Tuesday-night shows on Tuesday night.
It was a strange concept, considering that she was usually too tired from work
or too swamped with homework.

As the show
resumed, Brooke registered the faint howl of wind on the other side of her
window, but she thought nothing of it. Soon enough she was once more wrapped up
in the mystery of the episode.

A sudden flash of
light on the other side of her closed blinds pulled Brooke’s attention back to
reality, and she turned her head reflexively toward the window at the same time
as an echoing crash sounded from somewhere outside.
What the—
The
thought had barely formed
when, without warning, her living room window exploded inward.

Brooke leapt to her
feet in shock, stumbling to get away as glass sprayed everywhere. She cried out
and threw her arms up over her face, even as she tried to see what was
happening. And then pain was radiating through her, so immediately intense that
it took her a long moment to realize what had happened.

She had backed
nearly into her kitchen table, and the glass had stopped flying. Her blinds
were hanging in a mangled mess from one still-fraying cord on the far side. And
a rather large, rather thick, still-crackling tree limb was now resting in the
hole where her window was supposed to be. It protruded at least two feet into her
living room, and the end that had once been attached to the tree (which was the
end on the outside of her apartment) was literally smoking.

Lightning …
some part of her mind whispered.

“Oh my … God …”
Brooke breathed as her eyes swept over the mess that had once been her living
room. For a moment, the shock overrode the pain, and she forgot she was hurt.
But it was a fleeting moment, and then she dragged in a deep breath and looked
down at herself.

Blood droplets littered
the dark carpeting from somewhere in the center of her living room to where she
was still standing. And blood was still trickling at a fairly steady pace down
her arm. Her arm was definitely where she hurt the most, though she realized
her feet were stinging as well.

Lifting her arm,
Brooke turned it slightly and sucked in a sharp breath when her eyes landed on
the gash taking up a sizable portion of her forearm. There was still a piece of
glass embedded in her flesh. It looked like the glass had been torn down her
arm, and as she looked at it she realized that the pain had flared up while
she’d been lifting her arms to protect her face.

The momentum must have dragged it down my
arm,
she thought, her mind
strangely numb. She could still feel the pain, but it was fading, as if it had
been a bad nightmare. Even the stinging in her feet—where she assumed she’d
stepped on pieces of glass—was going away.
That
can’t be good,
she told herself as she tore her eyes away from her bleeding
arm.

Beyond the tree branch,
Brooke could see that it was hailing outside, and the wind was still blowing.
Hail was coming in through the whole in her wall and soaking into her carpet.
The sky erupted overhead, and she finally realized that there was a
thunderstorm raging. Another thunderstorm. Only, this time, she found herself
wondering just how natural it was.

I should call someone,
she realized after another minute. She was
somewhat surprised no one had come out to investigate the noise, but she was
also glad for it. She didn’t want her neighbors to know her as the girl with
the broken-off tree branch in her window.

Shaking her head,
Brooke wrapped her right hand around her still-bleeding left arm and turned to
walk carefully around her table toward the kitchen counter where her cell phone
was charging. As she began walking again, the stinging in her feet resumed with
a force, and she bit back another cry of pain.
Oh, I’m so going to need stitches.

Without thinking,
she braced herself against the counter as soon as she reached it—seeking to get
some weight off of her injured feet—and ended up smearing blood along the
light-gray surface. She hesitated for a moment, finding herself worrying about
getting blood on her phone, and then reminded herself this was an emergency. So
she picked up the phone and flipped it open in order to dial nine-one-one. But
her fingers paused over the first digit, an image of Blake diving into the sea
to save his sister flaring in her memory. If this
wasn’t
a natural storm, she didn’t need 911. She needed Blake.

****

Tiny balls of hail
bounced off the hood of Blake’s car as he swung in behind Brooke’s Civic. He
disregarded the quickly dissipating storm as he yanked his keys from the
ignition and rushed from his car to her door. All he’d been able to think about
on the drive over had been her voice as she’d told him—in broken, disorganized
pieces—what had happened. She’d started crying in the middle of her first
sentence, but around her tear-soaked voice he could hear the tightness caused
by obvious pain.

His concern left no
room for the manners his mother tried to teach him, and so he didn’t even pause
to tap on the door before he let himself in. But he did pause when his eyes
landed on her a moment later.

Brooke was sitting
on her counter, beside her sink. She had a kitchen towel wrapped around her
left forearm, held in place by her other hand. Her cell phone was plugged into
the wall on her other side, in easy reach. And between the phone and herself
was a large smear of blood. Several spots of blood dotted the otherwise white
kitchen linoleum, leading back to the living-room carpet.

“Brooke.” Blake
gathered himself and moved quickly towards her, sparing only a glance at the
devastation in her living room.

She lifted her head
and blinked her eyes several times before attempting to offer him a smile. “You
drove too fast,” she said, her voice devoid of any appropriate scolding tone.

“No, I didn’t,”
Blake argued, failing at his attempt at levity as much as she had. He was
standing before her in no time, and with his new angle he could easily see a
piece of bloody glass lying in the sink beside her. That piece of glass was
undoubtedly the reason the towel on her arm was slowly darkening.

Her tone curious
and forcibly light, Brooke asked, “Are you sure I shouldn’t have called 911?”

Frowning at her
wrapped arm and the fresh droplets of blood on the floor beneath her dangling
feet, Blake replied, “Absolutely. You get free medical. I’ll call Logan and
have him come over to board up your window and get rid of that branch, okay?”

“You don’t have to
do all that,” Brooke said, her right hand tightening over her injured arm. “I
have insurance … and my landlord will take care of my window as soon as he gets
home.”

Blake lifted his
frown to aim it at her properly. “I’m not taking no for an answer this time.
Now let’s get you in the car and we can talk on the road.”

Brooke hesitated,
her gaze darting toward the ground. “I’d really rather not walk, if it’s all
the same to you.”

Blake silently
reached out and pulled her phone from the charger before dropping it into his
pocket. Then he shifted and reached around her, ignoring her half-hearted
protests, and wrapped an arm around her torso. He slipped his other arm
carefully beneath her knees and slid her off the counter, against his chest.

“What are you
doing?” Brooke asked, a tiny bit of life beginning to return to her voice.

“Keeping you off
your feet,” Blake replied easily as he carried her toward the front door. It
was shut, indicating that he’d remembered to close it, but he didn’t hesitate.
As he walked, his eyes flicked back toward the living room, and the melted hail
pulled from the carpet and off the debris. It gathered together and then
smoothly slid through the air toward them.

The water expanded
as it neared them, and Brooke watched in silence as the water poured into the
space between her door and the doorframe. Blake slowed his pace just slightly
as the water gathered together and popped the latch. Then it curved, pushing out,
and the door slowly swung open.

“That was
impressive,” Brooke declared. Life had returned to her voice, but so had the
pain.

Blake moved them
outside, letting the water pull the door closed behind them. He wouldn’t be
able to use the same method to get into the car, but that was okay.

They were in front
of his car a moment later, and he carefully set her down on the hood. Holding
her gaze for a beat, Blake said, “Don’t move.” When she nodded, he stepped back
and quickly pulled open the door. With barely a flick of his wrist, he pushed
the seat forward, and then he moved back to her.

Brooke didn’t fight
as he once again scooped her into his arms, and she ducked helpfully as he
angled her into the backseat.