Then she shut up. Oxygen whistled into her chest, and she told her lungs to knock it off so she could hear.

Silence.

Darkness swelled around her, and she couldn’t see anything.

Quinn yanked her phone out of her pocket and dialed. Third wheel or not, she didn’t know if Tyler would come after her out here.

“Come on,” she muttered, bouncing from one foot to another while it rang.

“Hello?”

“Nick,” she said as quietly as she could muster. “I need you.”

At first Nick saw nothing along the stretch of Ritchie Highway. He peered into the darkness, looking for Quinn, finding only trees. Down the road a bit, the Jiffy Lube sign threw light into space, but here it was pitch-black. He rolled down the window to listen, but the diesel engine made that impossible.

Worry danced with exasperation in his head. It had taken him only ten minutes to get here from Adam’s apartment, but that felt like a long time when you were hiding from Tyler Morgan. He knew from experience.

What had she been doing with Tyler, anyway? He’d just seen her two hours ago! Safe at home!

Just when he was about to turn off the truck to go looking, Quinn burst through the trees into the path of his headlights, lit up like a beacon.

Her legs were scratched to hell, long stripes of red crisscrossing her thighs. But more concerning was the bruise on her jaw, cut through by one long scratch that was still bleeding. Her eyes were red and tear-filled.

Then she was out of the light and climbing into the truck.

Fury stole Nick’s exasperation. “Jesus, Quinn, are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?”

“No! Did Tyler hit you? I’m taking you to the cops—”

“I’m not going to the cops.” Quinn flung her tangled blond hair back from her face. “Drive, Nick, all right? Drive the f**king truck.”

He took a long breath and blew it out through his teeth.

She punched him in the arm. Hard. “Drive!”

He shifted into gear. “You want to tell me what happened?”

“No.”

Nick listened to the air threading through the cab, cataloging her injuries as his element fed information to him. Mostly cuts and bruises, nothing more serious than that.

As he thought it, his senses picked up on something else, an unnatural heat making the air jitter around her.

She was cradling her arm.

“He burned you?” Nick asked.

“How did you know that?”

“It’s his MO. He’s a Fire Elemental. I’ve felt the effects before.” More than once, too. Tyler and his best friend Seth used to wait to trap Nick alone. They’d pin him down and threaten to burn his skin off, knowing Nick wouldn’t use his abilities to stop them.

Only they didn’t always stop at threats.

Nick should have let him suffocate in the driveway.

“Fire, like Gabriel?” Quinn snorted. “Why is that not surprising? They should just burn the crap out of each other.”

“Not like Gabriel. Nowhere near as strong. Give me your hand.”

“He seemed plenty strong to me.” But she held out her hand, snatching it back at the last moment when he went to take it.

“Don’t touch it, okay? It hurts like a bitch.”

He glanced away from the road for a sec. Lights from the roadway reflected off the drying tears on her cheeks. He caught sight of that bruise again and wanted to kill Tyler.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said. “Come closer.”

She unsnapped her seat belt and scooted to the middle of the bench, until her shoulder was against his side and their thighs were touching.

Her face pressed into his shoulder. She smelled like the woods, pine and dirt and nighttime.

Nick sighed and put an arm around her, stroking her hair back from her face. “Quinn. Do you want me to take you home?”

“To your house?” her muffled voice asked hopefully.

He hadn’t meant his house, but he felt the pain and fear in every breath she took.

“Please?” she whispered.

“Okay,” he said, hitting the turn signal to make a U-turn at the next intersection. “You have to be absolutely quiet. Mike will kill me if he finds you there.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to be loud?” she said suggestively.

Nick made a disgusted noise. “You can’t be too hurt if you’re making jokes.”

She raised her head and sniffled. “You smell like Adam.”

Nick couldn’t figure out the note in her voice, but warmth snuck across his cheeks as he remembered the exotic scent of oranges and cloves. Of course she’d know what Adam smelled like—she’d spent an hour with her hands all over him during rehearsal.

“Your bag is still here, too,” Quinn continued, kicking at his messenger bag on the floor of the truck. “Nick Merrick, you dirty dog. It’s after midnight.”

“We just talked.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“Quinn. Shut up and give me your arm.”

When she did, he glanced between her wrist and the road. He could feel the heat coming off her skin from here. No wonder he’d found her crying.

He definitely should’ve killed Tyler in the driveway.

Nick blew air along the burn, feeding power into it.

Quinn sucked in a breath. “What are you doing?”

“Healing it.” He had to be careful, though. Too much power could hurt. He knew that from experience, too.