Wet (Elemental 1) by Rose Wulf

for Kirk.”
    “I think we all
trust Kirk,” Blake assured him. Kirk was Nate’s long-standing best friend, the
kind that was as much family as a person could get without being blood-related.
    Dean looked over to
Blake and declared, “That leaves you, bro. So who’ve you told besides Jason and
Brooke?”
    Jason was Blake’s
own best friend. The two of them had been partners in crime since the eighth
grade. It had been their third year of high school when Jason found out about
Blake’s secret, but the choice to tell Jason had been taken from him. Jason had
only grinned after he found out and, voice weak from the water he’d
half-drowned in, he’d said, “I’m one lucky son of a bitch, aren’t I?”
    None of them
doubted Jason—not any more than they doubted Kirk.
    And Blake just
assumed they were all giving Brooke the benefit of the doubt.
    “Okay,” Dean
finally said. “I’ll ask the hard questions.”
    Blake lifted his
gaze to Dean but said nothing.
    “You obviously
trust Brooke,” Dean began, sitting forward again. “We don’t really have any
reason not to, either. But what about her family? Is she from around here? Did
she come here to see where her parents or aunts or uncles grew up?”
    Remembering what
Brooke had told him about her past, Blake shook his head. “She’s not from here,
and even if her family were I doubt she’d know. She lost her biological family
when she was young. She didn’t say anything about her adoptive family, really,
but I think she’d have mentioned it if they’d suggested the area.”
    Silence held for a
moment as the brothers processed his point. At length, Logan said, “I’m
comfortable with that, then.”
    Nate and Dean
nodded, and Dean resettled into his preferred position.
    Blake drew the
focus from himself and asked, “Does anyone know if Angela’s told Eric?” He
watched as his siblings exchanged equally uncertain looks before he finally
sighed and said, “I take it that’s a ‘no’.”
    With a grin, Nate
replied, “Hey, you’re the oldest— you ask her.”
    “Yeah,” Dean jumped
in, “you know how much she hates talking about that punk.”
    Blake gave his
brother a pointed look and said, “Gee, that couldn’t be because some of you always put him down or
threaten to massacre him?”
    Before Dean could
retort to Blake’s comment, Logan said, “Well, one of us should talk to her.
Whether or not we like him, he’s just a teenager. He could’ve told the wrong
person.”
    “I agree,” Blake
declared with a nod.
    “Great,” Dean
began, “then you can do it. Probably, if I tried, I’d end up accusing him, and
she’d just get all pissy .”
    Logan reached over
and smacked Dean upside the head. “She’s our sister,” he said. “Don’t talk
about her like that.”
    Rubbing the back of
his head, Dean said, “Oh, come on, she’s seventeen .
She gets pissy . And I can say it ‘ cause I’m her older brother. It’s expected.”
    “At the risk of
having my head knocked clean off my shoulders,” Nate interrupted, “he has a
point. She does get kind of touchy
whenever one of us talks about him.”
    Blake shook his
head. “Do I really need to reiterate myself?”
    Dean gave him a
pointed look. “Don’t tell me you like the kid.”
    “I don’t,” Blake
assured his brother. “But the more we blatantly dislike him, the harder she’s
going to cling to him. Or don’t you remember the rebellious stage?”
    Logan smirked. “He
can’t remember it, Blake. He’s still stuck there.”
    Nate laughed, and
Dean rolled his eyes at them.
    Taking a deep
breath, Nate pushed down his lingering amusement and said, “Okay, so Blake’s gonna talk to Angie about what’s-his-name, but we still
need to figure out our other options. Does anyone have any other ideas?”
    ****
    Blake was leaning
patiently against the driver’s side of his Mustang when the high school let out
the next day. He’d called ahead and convinced his mother to let him pick