His brothers were safer inside the house, asleep and oblivious.
But the Merrick house wasn’t actively burning. Good? Or very bad?
Michael swept his eyes along the tree line behind the houses, looking for any sign of his brothers.
“Gabriel!” he yelled, sending power into the ground, seeking . . . anything. “Nick!”
Nothing.
He tried again, louder, spinning in a circle, as if his brothers would come sprinting out of the woods with a crazy story about what had happened.
Nothing.
Michael only spotted two people: the Hensons. They stood in the backyard next door, silhouetted by the flames. The woman clutched at her husband—whether in panic or from injury, Michael couldn’t tell. They were an older couple with a yellow lab and too many grandkids to keep track of. Mrs. Henson had dropped off dinners almost every night for a month after Michael’s parents had died. Michael mowed their lawn every week through the summer and plowed their driveway in the winter.
Flames poured through their upstairs windows. Their siding was buckling from the heat. Mrs. Henson was clutching at her husband in the backyard and screaming for Charlie.
Their dog. Trapped.
“Our house is smoking,” said Hunter. His voice was shaking. “I can’t sense anyone inside.”
Michael looked at him. That statement could mean two things.
“Where are they?” said Chris. At some point he’d grabbed Michael’s arm. His breath was shaking, his eyes a little too wide. The earlier indignant fury was gone from his expression, and now he just looked young. And frightened.
In a flash, Michael remembered Chris five years ago, flames reflected in his eyes exactly like this. Then, Michael had dragged his youngest brother out of a burning house much like this one. Chris had been choking, gasping for air.
Then, he’d been punching Michael, crying, yelling, his voice breaking. “Go get them! Get them!”
Their parents.
Red and white lights strobed between the houses, underscored by the sound of hydraulic brakes and sirens cutting out. The sound should have been reassuring, but it wasn’t.
Michael didn’t want to believe Calla was behind this—but five houses. Five points on a pentagram—a symbol typically used to call the Guides. She wanted a war. This couldn’t be a coincidence.
Or it might not be Calla at all. It might be an attack.
He immediately regretted yelling for his brothers. “Hide in the woods,” Michael said. “Now.”
“No!” said Chris. “Michael—we have to get—we have to get them—”
“I’m going to. I’m telling you to hide.”
“But—”
“Goddamn it, Chris!” His own voice broke. “I’m not losing all of you! Go!”
Chris’s face went whiter, if that was possible.
So did Hunter’s, but he took hold of Chris’s arm and started dragging. “Come on. We can hide.”
Chris jerked free—but he followed.
For a moment, Michael wanted to call them back. He wanted to form a human chain and drag them all into the house behind him.
But he didn’t know what he’d find inside.
He realized he was standing in the open, lit up by roaring flames.
A rookie sniper could take you out without a scope.
Everything suddenly sounded like a premonition. Michael sprinted onto the porch and grabbed hold of the door handle without thinking, throwing the French door wide and rushing into the kitchen.
Smoke hit him in the face, and Michael jerked back, coughing. The smoke detectors were screaming, three times as loud now that the door was open. He dropped to his knees and spent a minute relearning how to breathe. The air in here was hot and dry and tasted like ash. Pulling his damp shirt up over his mouth and nose helped, but not a lot.
He crawled forward. Darkness cloaked him immediately. He lost track of the door in less than five seconds. Every inhale tasted of smoke, along with something acrid and sour as he got farther into the kitchen. He put his hand down on something unfamiliar that crumbled under his fingers and wished the flashlight weren’t in the garage.
Michael stopped. The garage. Full of landscaping equipment—including fertilizer and chemicals.
Was the house still on fire? Was he crawling through a ticking bomb?
He inhaled to yell for his brothers again, but his lungs didn’t want to inflate all the way. Michael coughed and pushed forward, trying to rush now.
His shoulder hit the cooking island hard, and Michael swore—but at least it helped orient him. The doorway to the front hall should be straight ahead.
Gabriel could survive in an inferno, but Michael knew smoke made it hard for him to breathe. Nick could handle a loss of oxygen—but he couldn’t take a fire’s heat for long.
Please be together, he thought.
Then he amended that.
And alive. Please be together and alive.
Michael wished he had Hunter’s gun, so he could shoot these screeching smoke detectors. With their persistent beeping, he couldn’t hear anything in the house. No movement, no voices.
Everything seemed very still in the darkness.
His hands found the slate flooring of the foyer. Every forward movement brought another handful of grit, both a blessing and a curse. He hadn’t found his brothers collapsed in here, and that could be a good thing or a bad thing.
Maybe he should have used his cell phone to try to call them.
He choked on the thought, unsure whether he was laughing or crying. He put his forehead on his hands and inhaled again. When had he gotten so tired?
Glass shattered somewhere up ahead.
Michael jumped and felt as if he were waking up. Somehow, he’d ended up on the floor. He fought to get to his hands and his knees, but his limbs felt too heavy. His shirt had come off his face.
More glass shattering. Then a loud crack.
Someone was in the house.
Michael got his hands beneath his shoulders, and he managed to push back, toward the kitchen. He needed to hide.
Left hand. Right hand. This was more difficult than he remembered.
The house was so dark.
He needed to find his brothers. He needed to warn them. He hit the cooking island with his hip, and it almost stole his balance. His head slammed into something, and flickering starbursts filled his vision.
He couldn’t tell which way was up. He couldn’t find his hands.
More starbursts. This felt like drowning again.
A hand grabbed his shoulder, and Michael flung himself back. Was this a Guide? Had they come after him? The smoky house, the lack of fire—all of a sudden this felt like a trap. Michael couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but his attacker wouldn’t be able to either. If they couldn’t see him, they couldn’t shoot him.
Every motion still felt slow, as if it took too long for messages to make it from his brain to his limbs. He barely had an opportunity to move before someone else grabbed him. Or was it the same person? He had no idea.
Something metal clicked, and Michael tried to swing a fist.
But then he inhaled, and his entire