PROLOGUE
When I was seven years old, I watched my parents die.
I know it sounds terrible but believe me, the experience was way worse. I remember every single detail. The surprise in my mothers eyes, the pain on my fathers face. They collapsed in the act of crossing a busy four-way street in the middle of an even busier city. All it took was the absence of them, their feeling, for me to know that they were dead.
Most people would have felt shock, fear, sadness, anger. I felt them all. But as they melted together, they turned to rage. It boiled up inside me, the same feeling that I had been working so hard to suppress.
It was like a lid blowing off the top of a seven-up bottle after it had been shaken. Cars either exploded or melted into giant chunks of metal, rubber, and liquid glass. The buildings around me caught fire, windows exploded from the heat. I did all of this without moving; all I had to do was feel it and it happened.
Later the newspapers said it was like a small nuclear bomb had gone off. The effects were right, it was a major city. All of the pieces fit. Except for the little boy with singed hair who walked out of the ruin unharmed.
ONE
Matthew West was eighteen years old. The only possessions he could claim were the clothes on his back and the duffle bag he carried with him. Sweat poured down his neck and off his brow; his arm was sore from time spent walking with it sticking out, his thumb in the air. His belly growled, reminding him he hadn't eaten in almost twenty-four hours.
As he walked, a distant shape grew clearer. A car was pulled over on the side of the road, both and its trunk and its hood open. Someone was digging around in the trunk, someone with very nice ass.
"Do you need help?" Matt asked. The guy jumped. "Sorry. I was hitching and figured I could help. In exchange for a ride, of course."
The guy looked him up and down with eyes that looked like they had caught the sky. His hair was medium blond with shades of brown and he was all legs. It was shame he covered them up with jeans.
"You don't look dangerous," the guy commented. He motioned to the car. "If you can changed the tire, you can have a ride."
Matt laughed.
"You've never changed a tire before?"
"It's not exactly on my list of life experiences," the guy responded. As Matt dug through the various objects in the trunk, he finally pulled out the jack and got down on his knees beside the blown tire. It took him less than ten minutes to change it.
"I'm Matt," he said, tossing the jack in the trunk. The guy practically had a coronary.
"Watch my stuff!" He exclaimed. Matt watched, amused, as the guy began to examine the bars of metal and piping that lay in the trunk.
"Dude, its metal. Its not going to break that easily."
"You could have dented it," the guy said, walking around to the drivers side angrily.
"And you could have been stranded on the side of the road for the hour it would have taken you to figure out the tire," Matt shot back. What was this guy, a perfectionist? Judging by the state of his car, he was.
Not a single piece of trash lay in the vacuumed floor or on the dust-free dash. It looked as though not even bugs dared to mar his car by meeting their death on his windows.
"I'm Ian," the guy said after a few miles of silence. "Sorry I freaked out back there. It's been hell today."
"What are the pipes for?"
"I'm building a large positive displacement pump for Azteck. That's a software company based in Chicago."
"Is that where you're going now?"
"Yes."
"Sounds good."
"You're coming with me?" Ian asked. "Didn't you have a destination in mind when you were hitching?"
"I was thinking Vegas, but Chicago sounds cool. I've never been."
"It's a three day trip from here," Ian argued.
"I don't have anywhere else to be," Matt responded. "Why are you driving that far?"
"I need time to think."
"About what?"
"The laws of reality," Ian said sarcastically. Matt shrugged. If the guy was in a mood, he wouldn't talk.
"'Night," Matt said, turning over on his side, his eyes fluttering closed. He was asleep within five minutes.
Gwen walked down the hallway, a file in her hand and a purpose to her step. Her long chestnut hair swung into her face and she pushed it back absently as she entered the main office.
"David?" She asked, not seeing her boss at his usual spot behind the large oak desk.
"I'm right here, Gwen," David said, bending the light back toward his body so he was visible to his assistant. "I was just practicing. I got bored waiting for you. Must you be so slow?"
Gwen resisted the urge to make a rude retort. She handed the file to David, who took it eagerly.
"Which one have you found? Earth? Fire?" He asked excitedly.
"Air," she said.
"Air?" David commented, disappointed. "At least we found one. The others will follow. How soon until you can bring him in?"
"As soon as you tell me who to send."
David smiled.
How had he, Ian Azteck, ended up with a hot, although annoyingly talkative, guy sleeping in his car? He looked over at Matt, who was wearing shorts that, while they shoed off his toned, olive hued legs, were completely wrong for March.
Matt rolled over, facing Ian. Though his eyes were shut, Ian remembered how warm they were. They were like two pools of liquid amber smoldering in a fire. His hair was dark brown but was tinted with reddish gold, like rust.
"Are you going to stare at me all day or are we going to get some gas?" Matt asked without opening his eyes. Ian jumped. Matt opened his eyes and looked at him, sending a rush of excitement through his chest.
"You're awake!"
"I've got ten dollars. Do you want some nachos or something?" Ian shook his head, amazed that Matt wasn't as embarrassed as he was. It was a rare day he was embarrassed. That it was a total stranger making him feel that way annoyed him.
He caught his eyes following that tight little butt as Matt made his way into the gas station and forced himself to look away. The last thing he needed was a fling, especially now.