The Dysasters (The Dysasters #1)(86)

“It’s damn handy that old man has a stash of tie-’em-up crap,” Luke said.

“Just do it,” Eve said. “Come on, Mark.”

Beside Eve, Mark descended the front porch stairs.



“They’re wrong,” Mark told his sister.

“No, I was wrong. Letting you handle Bowen was my mistake. You’re too softhearted for this. I should have gone out there with him myself.” Eve was obviously annoyed, but she touched her brother’s shoulder reassuringly. “He won’t be hard to find, and then I’ll handle him from here on out.”

“You’re not understanding me,” Mark said as he led her around the side of the garage to the abandoned cane and the tracks. Mark pointed down at the sand as Luke and Matthew jogged up to them. “He’s not limping. He’s not a frail old man. These tracks don’t just say he walked away. They say he ran.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” Luke said, peeking around Mark at the tracks. “Like Matthew and I said—the old bastard’s a pain in the ass.”

Eve looked at Mark and in her eyes he saw a hardness that before had been liquid, flowing around the fringes of her expressions. This morning it solidified, choking out the gentle, broken, compassionate sister he’d loved for as long as he could remember.

“We’re going to get Bowen and bring him back here, and if we need to break his hip to get the old man to stay when we tell him to stay, then so be it. He brought this on himself.”

Mark heard his brothers high-five each other, but his gaze didn’t leave Eve’s.

“I won’t do that, Eve. He doesn’t deserve it. I won’t hurt that old man.”

“I’m aware of that, Mark. I don’t expect you to. That’s why Luke and Matthew are coming with us. All I expect you to do is handle water. Bowen thinks he can run away from us on the beach when we control water? Let’s show him how mistaken he is. You don’t need to hurt him. You only need to slow him down. Make it rain, Mark. Now.”

Mark bowed his head and reached for his element. It was a simple thing, especially right there on the beach. He was so close to the vastness of the ocean that he could feel it calling to him—feel it drawing him into it where he could finally lose himself—finally give in to the Frill that lurked just below the surface, circling, calling, anticipating …

“Mark! Snap out of it!” Eve’s voice shredded his concentration and he blinked several times before he refocused on her face. “I didn’t ask you to call a hurricane. Just some rain, that’s all. It’s really the least you can do.”

“Okay, yeah, fine.” Mark followed the connection with his element—not out to sea as he so longed to do—but up, up, into the atmosphere where he coaxed droplets to condense from vapor and then he made them become heavy enough to fall under the pull of gravity. Warm rain drifted lazily downward, caressing Mark’s skin and causing polka-dot patterns in the sand.

Eve barely acknowledged him with a nod. Instead she smiled warmly at Matthew. “Now, air, please take those sweet, soft little raindrops and make them troublesome, but if you start disappearing I’m going to be very angry with you.”

Matthew took a step back from Eve’s intensity. “Hey, no worries! Whipping up a little wind is no biggie.”

“Then stop talking about it and do it,” she said.

“Okay, okay. Sheesh, everyone’s a critic,” Matthew muttered. He lifted his face and his arms to the sky and shouted, “Blow, baby, blow!”

Wind responded instantly, blowing from the ocean in a growling rush of briny air—causing the otherwise tame droplets to slant, elongate, and pummel against them with enough force to be uncomfortable.

“Luke! Not now. Save it. We might need fire later and we don’t have time to haul a case of Gatorade with us so you don’t flame out,” Eve snapped at her brother.

Mark glanced at Luke. Heat waves had begun to lift from his skin, evaporating the rain before it touched him, but at Eve’s command he made an abrupt motion with his hand, and suddenly he was getting soaked like the rest of them.

“I fucking hate getting wet,” Luke said. “Well, what the hell are we waiting for? To be totally water-fucking-logged? Let’s go get the old man so we can dry out and eat our cold breakfast.”

Mark moved forward as if he would take the lead, but Eve’s sharp words halted him.

“No. All of you follow me. I’m not chancing any more screw-ups.”

Mark said nothing. He fell into line last as Luke and Matthew jostled past, making mean, childish faces at him.

Why is this happening? Why is my sister changing from my best friend into some who … someone who …

And then it struck Mark like a tidal wave, drowning him in despair.

Eve is turning into someone who reminds me of Father, and not the father who cared for us and seemed to love us so much when we were children. Eve is turning into Rick Stewart, the mad, cruel man who broke us and stole our lives away.

As if jealous of the rain that slicked his skin, Mark’s tears spilled down his cheeks while he ran behind his two brothers and the monster his sister was becoming.





28


EVE


Eve jogged, head down against the wind-whipped rain, and tried to get her temper under control. She didn’t know what to do about Mark. He’d almost screwed everything up. Again. Just like in Missouri when he let Tate and Foster get away. It caused her pain, but it was becoming more and more clear to Eve that for the first time in their lives, she and Mark weren’t on the same page.