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me.”
    Blake inclined his head, moving to lean against an adjacent counter. “I understand,” he assured him, “but you can’t take responsibility for their actions.” Nate turned his worried, angry gaze to his brother, but Blake cut him off. “I felt just as responsible—just as guilty—when they went after Brooke. And you all told me not to blame myself, remember?”
    Nate cringed, dropping Blake’s gaze, and clenched his fists over the edge of the counter. “Yeah,” he admitted after a long moment.
    “Think of it this way,” Blake offered, “Kirk’s not going to blame you for this, either.”
    Sighing now, Nate said, “I know. But it still pisses me off.”
    “That’s something we can all understand,” Logan assured him as he and Dean stepped into the kitchen. He planted his feet flat on the floor across from Nate and crossed his arms, frustration evident on his face. “We’ll have to use this as a reminder that we still need to find them and stop them.”
    Dean continued past Logan, angling into the corner between Blake and Nate and leaned back, palms splayed over the countertop. “Do you think Jacob and his father are the only ones? Or do you think there’s a third?”
    “We’ve only seen evidence of the two so far,” Blake reminded as a dark, distant look crossed his eyes.
    “But there’s no guarantee that someone else couldn’t have been behind one of the attacks,” Dean argued. “We still don’t know who to blame for that attack on Angie a few months ago.”
    Logan inclined his head. “That’s true.”
    “The guy on the phone earlier sounded like he’d fit Jacob’s age group,” Nate declared, recalling the non-conversation he’d had with the enemy.
    “It’s always possible that Jacob could have a brother, though,” Dean pointed out. “I mean, they’re elementals, too, and there are four of us. Not counting Angie.”
    Turning slightly horrified eyes to Dean, Nate asked, “You think there could be four of them?”
    Dean shrugged, only slightly lifting his palms from the counter before they landed on the smooth surface again and he replied, “Who’s to say? They’re different than us, but they’re similar, so there’s no telling what rules do and don’t apply.”
    Nate released a long-suffering sigh, his head falling back to stare at the ceiling, and he exclaimed, “I hate this! What the hell’s wrong with these people that we can’t even have a life without worrying about feeling guilty?”
    Around him, his siblings echoed his frustration.
    Lillian stepped into the kitchen then, silently calling their attention before she said, “I made up a room for Kirk for the night. Did you two lock up behind yourselves?”
    “Wasn’t exactly high on our priority list,” Dean replied. “I’ll swing back by and secure his apartment.”
    Nate tugged his keys out of his jeans pocket, silently removed the spare house key Kirk had given him, and handed it to his brother. “Here.”
    Eric moved into the room quietly, looking around at the brothers before settling his gaze on Lillian and asking, “Uh, would it be easier if I just called Emma to have her pick me up? I know things are kind of … bad right now.”
    Before his mother could respond, Dean said, “Nah. I’ll give you a ride home while I’m out. Come on.” He pushed off of the counter as he spoke, nodding at his siblings and his mother, and made his way to the hall.
    Eric turned and quickly followed him, calling out polite goodbyes as he moved.

Chapter Four
     
    It was late before Nate finally went home, begrudgingly acknowledging that—with those wounds—Kirk wouldn’t wake up until at least midmorning. And though he supposed he could have stayed at his parents’ place, a part of him was worried Kirk wouldn’t be his only warning of the night. As he parked in his garage, beside Madison’s now-familiar blue RX-8, Nate was even tempted to knock on her door just to see if she was all right. And how would I