“I’m all right,” he said. “I’m okay.”
But no pulse. If the guy had checked, he would have thought Nick was dead.
Hell, looking at the pool of blood on the floor, Nick might not have checked himself.
Adam touched his face again, as if trying to reassure himself that Nick was really sitting here talking. His breathing was shaking, just the slightest bit, but his expression was full of resolve. “Why didn’t he kill us all?”
“He’s only after us. Me and my brothers.”
Damn it, he needed to call home.
“The office,” he said. “Is there a phone?”
“Dead,” said Quinn. “We already tried.”
Dead.
Chris and Michael were together, but Gabriel was home alone.
Did the Guide know that?
Had he gone there first?
Nick thought of his connection to his twin brother, the way he always seemed to know what Gabriel was thinking, almost before it happened. When Gabriel had rescued Layne from the barn fire, then run home with a broken hand, Nick had known. His twin brother’s panic had woken him from a sound sleep.
God, he needed his head to stop hurting.
Nick pressed his hands to his temples. One came away sticky and wet. He looked at his palm and found a hand covered in blood.
Was he still bleeding?
What had happened to the bullet?
“Help me up,” he said again. “I need—we need—”
“You still need an ambulance,” Adam said, his voice finding that quiet confidence. “Quinn, I’ll run up the road and see if I can find a place with a phone. Keep him still—”
“No,” said Nick. If there was any chance the Guide was out there, he didn’t want them to separate, too. “No.”
“Yes.” Adam put his hands on Nick’s shoulders. “I don’t care what you want this time. You were—you were—” Now his voice faltered, and he visibly struggled to keep it together. “You’re hurt. We’ll call the cops, and—”
“No.” Nick caught his wrists. “We need to get out of here. We need to warn my brothers. He’ll shoot them next and they won’t—they won’t—” Now Nick’s voice broke. Gabriel had been able to stop a gun from firing once. Nick had no idea whether he could do it again, especially without Hunter’s power helping him focus. Chris and Michael would be on a job, oblivious to a threat sneaking up on them.
Nick thought of Chris’s voice, the last thing his little brother had said to him.
I love you, brother.
It sounded so much like a good-bye.
Stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it. This wasn’t helping anything.
“Help me, Adam.” Nick squeezed his hands and heard his voice break again. “Please. Help me.”
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ll help you.”
“Me, too, Nick,” said Quinn. “Me, too.”
“Me, three,” said a voice, and a shoe crunched on broken glass.
They all jumped and scrambled, ready to face a new enemy.
But there in the frame of the broken window, looking shaken and frightened himself, stood Tyler.
CHAPTER 31
Nick swayed with the motion of Tyler’s truck. He leaned against Adam and wished his head would stop aching. At Quinn’s insistence that they couldn’t drive around town covered in blood, he’d washed his face in the studio bathroom—at least the water worked—but now he was damp and cold and shivering. Shock, probably.
Or maybe it had something to do with the agonizing pain he’d felt when he’d pried a bullet fragment out of his own forehead.
Adam had found him on the tile floor, and he’d been ready to drag Nick to a hospital again.
But now they were in the truck.
He didn’t trust Tyler. At all.
But what choice did he have?
Tyler’s cell phone didn’t work, either. The Guide’s car was still in front of the studio, windows blasted out. The trees along the road had been ripped out of the ground and lay across the parking lot, except for a few taller ones that lay across power lines.
The Guide was on foot, then. Good, in a way, because it would buy them some time.
Tyler had to veer around fallen trees, and every swerve made Nick clench his teeth and grip Adam’s hand. The smaller trees and branches, Tyler drove straight over. That was worse. A few cars had run off the road here and there, and sirens wailed in every direction, but they kept driving. Once they got a mile away, trees were standing and they encountered more vehicles, but traffic lights were still nonfunctional.
No one was talking.
In the silence, Nick could only think of his brothers, and he was going to freak the fuck out if he kept doing that.
“What made you come back?” Nick finally asked, making no effort to keep the distrust from his voice.
“Quinn,” said Tyler. He glanced over at her, sitting curled in the passenger seat. “I realized you were doing it again, pushing me away to see if I’d snap back.”
“No,” she said, “I was pushing you away because you were an asshole.”
“That, then.”
And they lapsed back into silence.
Gabriel, Nick thought. He wished his brother was with them now. He’d know what to do. He’d take charge and organize a plan. He’d figure out a way to find Michael and Chris, or at least a way to warn them.
“They’ll be okay,” Adam murmured. “We’ll find them.”
Nick looked up to find his eyes, warm and worried and intent on his. “You’re taking this well.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure my brain will explode with wtf any minute.”
“I’m sorry,” Nick said. “I should have—”
“Told me?” Adam gave a small laugh, but there wasn’t much humor behind it. “You can fill in the blanks later.” He paused. “Well, maybe you can fill in one now. How exactly did you do . . . whatever?”
“A pressure wave,” said Nick. “You ever see an explosion on television, where it blows people back?”
“Yeah?”
Nick nodded. “Like that. All air pressure. It didn’t stop the bullet, but it stopped it enough.”
Quinn twisted in her seat. “And that blew out the windows?”
Nick winced. “Honestly, we’re lucky it didn’t bring the building down on top of us.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t wreck my truck,” said Tyler, meeting Nick’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “The shock wave ran me off the road.”
“Yeah, too bad,” Nick snapped.
“Hey, dickhead, I’m helping you—”
“Shut up,” said Quinn. Nick shut up, but she was really glaring at Tyler. She was twisted on the seat and jabbing at him. “You don’t get to be nasty to him. You don’t get to say anything to him. Do you understand me? If you want to talk to Nick, if you want to talk to my friend, the first word out of your mouth better be I and the next words better be am sorry. Otherwise, shut the fuck up and drive.”
“Don’t waste your breath,” said Nick bitterly, though he appreciated the sentiment. “He’s not sorry.”
Tyler met his eyes in the rearview mirror again, and Nick expected him to snap back with something vicious, but he held the eye contact for a second, then looked away.
He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was rough. “Can you do that again?” he said. “The pressure wave?”
Nick hesitated, wondering if there was a trap in the question. “I don’t know.” He paused and glanced down at Adam’s fingers linked with his. “I didn’t know I could do it in the first place. It wasn’t on purpose—sometimes power takes over when we’re in danger, and we can’t fully control it.” His voice turned sharp and mocking. “Know anything about that, Tyler?”