Tempest (#1 Destroyers Series) (7 page)

“She’s getting pissed. Over that!” Gary
pointed to the traffic island blocking their way. “Or back over her
and do the world a favor!”

“You can’t run people over,” Janelle said.
The last thing she needed was to get involved in a hit and run, no
matter how scary this woman was.

A roar washed over the car along with the
strange wind, forming itself into words. “Janelle! Gary! Step out
of the car! That’s an order!”

Janelle seized the armrest. That
couldn’t
have been her voice. “Go!”

Serena plowed over the traffic island and its
heart-shaped patch of flowers. The car lurched over the curb and
broke free onto even pavement. Tires screeched as she made a sharp
right out of the hospital, leaving the black van and the woman in
gray behind. Cars honked their horns as they weaved through traffic
and barely made it through a yellow light in time.

Gary stared up at the ceiling with his arms
spread across the backseat. “Man, I’m so dead.”

Janelle sighed, struggling to hold back the
shudders taking over her whole body. The roar of the woman's voice
still echoed in her head. "Serena, did you hear that back
there?"

"Yes. I'm just as lost as you," she said. Her
tan skin had paled a few shades under her sunglasses.

Calm down.
She had to calm down and
think. Janelle begged her heart to slow as they passed a cluster of
fast food places, but it kept racing as fast as the car’s engine.
That woman knew who she was. Her name. Even the fact that she was
looking for answers. And
your time has almost come?
Whatever
that was, it sounded ominous.

Janelle stole a glance back, but the black
van hadn’t followed, or more like they’d lost it at a slow traffic
light somewhere. Serena ought to try out for NASCAR. “We shook them
off. Good.”

Though her heart rate was slowing at last,
some part of her wished she could go back and find out more. She
twisted around, putting on her seat belt. "Gary, did you tell your
guardian anything about me after I left?" That could explain some
of the scene back there.

But Gary's hazel eyes were big. "No. I
didn't. I swear. Believe me, she's the last person I'd talk to
about anything. I didn't even tell her your name when she asked me.
I just said that I didn't catch it." His words and tone were the
opposite of her father's. They carried honesty, unless Gary was one
of those habitual liars.

But they didn't bring comfort. Janelle
crossed her legs and picked at her jeans. The hole she had fallen
into since moving here was getting deeper by the minute.

Serena slowed down, taking a deep breath as
some color came back to her cheeks. “What was that about? And why
did I just pick up a complete stranger?”

Janelle faced Gary again, who stiffened in
the backseat. She tried not to sound too withering. Anyone who had
a guardian like
that
deserved some sympathy. “Very good
question. I’d like to know why people I’ve never met are after
me.”

Hair toppled into his face as his eyes
widened. He pointed up to Serena and shook his head.

Janelle knew what it meant. He was going to
disobey her father and open up to her now, but it couldn't be in
front of anyone else. She nodded her understanding, relief gushing
through her like a cool stream. “Now where do we go?”

“Take me anywhere,” Gary said. “A park or a
campground will work.”

“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Serena turned
up the air conditioning. “That crazy woman—”

“Won’t be stopped by the police. Trust me on
this. Just drop me off somewhere so I can hide out from her for a
while.” Gary nodded to Janelle. “We’ll talk another time.
Sorry.”

She whirled around as far as the seat belt
would allow. She was so close to finding out what was going on, and
now the chance was being ripped out from under her. “Gary, it can’t
wait. A woman who roars and controls wind is after me." Serena
already knew about that, so there was no point in hiding that from
her. She almost mentioned their markings, but stopped herself in
time. "I think that’s a good reason for you to tell me what the
deal is here.”

He sat upright like someone had stuck a pin
in his back. “Stop! Right here will work.”

Serena slowed the car to a stop next to a
large tangle of trees. “This is the woods, Gary. You can’t stay
here. Tell us what’s going on.”

A sigh. “I can’t. You wouldn’t
understand.”

“Are you involved in…something illegal?”
Serena glanced into the rearview mirror at him. “Were those people
like the Mob or something?”

Gary sighed, flicking a lock of hair from his
face. “No, they’re not the Mob.”

Time to put her foot down. “Don’t even think
of leaving,” Janelle said. “There’s things I need explained,
now.”

He reached for the door handle. “I’ll see you
around, Janelle. I promise.”

Before Janelle could move, he shot out of the
car and into the woods, taking all of the answers she sought with
him.

* * * * *

“I’m not telling my dad anything. I’ll get
busted,” she told Serena, leaning back onto her soft bedcovers.
“I’m sorry about all this.”

Janelle imagined telling her father about the
woman, but each time she did, she felt as if something hadn’t
agreed with her. This was all her fault. Hers. She’d even put her
new friend in danger, and it was all to chase down some answers she
should’ve known she wouldn’t get.

“Your fault? Yeah, you knew that was going to
happen. Maybe you should tell him. He can call the cops.”

“No.” The upset stomach feeling returned as
she twirled her feet in circles. “I just can’t, Serena. He’s been
weird lately. And he’ll cancel the vacation if he finds out what I
did.”

Serena undid her ponytail and ran her hands
through her hair. “Good point. Still, what if that woman comes back
for us?”

“I’m the one she was after. I didn’t hear her
yelling your name.” Janelle pulled her sleeve down, stretching it
to her elbow. This had to do with her birthmark. She knew it.
Serena was very lucky not to have one.

* * * * *

Students brushed past Janelle as she sat in
Accelerated Geography on the first day of school, and she paid
attention to every bare arm she came across. If her father wouldn't
open up about anything and Gary had just disappeared, she had
better find someone else with a gray spiral like hers. So far, that
prospect wasn’t looking too good. About eight million students were
wearing tank tops today, and the most interesting thing she’d seen
had been a snake tattoo.

The bell rang through the halls, and a
chubby, balding man strode into the class. He cleared his throat to
silence the chatter as he wrote his name on the board: Mr. Hank
Deville. “So…how was your summer?”

A sea of groans rose up. Not that Janelle
could blame them. She felt like groaning herself, but held
back.

“My house flooded and we’re still mucking it
out,” the girl next to her said.

A guy with dreadlocks waved his hands in the
air. “My new car’s got a huge crack across the windshield now.”

Mr. Deville bowed his head until the class
quieted. “Sorry to hear about all this. Hopefully your school year
will go a lot smoother than the last week. Now I’m going to—you
there in the front?”

Janelle had stuck her hand in the air without
even thinking about it. Her cheeks heated as twenty-eight other
sets of eyes landed on her. It was bad enough being the new person
in class. Now she was embarrassing herself on top of it.

At last, a question popped out of her lips.
“Yeah. I moved to Florida right when the hurricane was happening,
and I was wondering if they can skip over some houses the way
tornadoes do. Because my house didn’t take any damage at all while
everyone else on my street did. Since you teach Geography, I was
thinking you might know.” The desperation of her situation had
wormed its way under her skin in the past few days of enduring her
father's distance and waiting for Gary to turn up somewhere, so
much that it was all she could think about. She was willing to seek
answers from anyone at this point.

Mr. Deville’s gaze stayed on Janelle for
several seconds before he answered. It was as if he was trying to
peer deeper at her motives, and wasn't sure what he was seeing.
“Hurricanes usually do their damage over a wide area, unlike a
tornado, so it’s more evened out. So I find that a little unusual.
What’s your name?”

“Janelle.”

The teacher leaned back onto his desk as he
studied her, but at least it wasn't the creepy type that rude woman
had subjected her to, just the friendly type of a teacher trying to
get to know his students. “Welcome to Florida. Now, if we’ll—”

A girl in the back spoke. “Why do they give
hurricanes names?”

Mr. Deville straightened up, showing no signs
of impatience. “Well, around sixty years ago, the World Weather
Assembly decided they needed a better way to keep track of storms.
So they invented a list of names that changes every single year.”
He eyed the entire class. “Any one of you could end up sharing your
name with one sometime in your lives. And did you know that they
originally wanted to use only women’s names on hurricanes?" He
smiled at the girl who had asked. "The plan fell through when one
of the Assembly members threw a fit over it and demanded that both
men and women’s names be used. So it’s been that way from day
one.”

Janelle liked Mr. Deville--he seemed like one
of those nice, laid-back types--but he hadn’t told her anything she
hadn’t read online twelve thousand times. If she didn’t get any new
info by the end of the week, she’d have to give up on this search
and wait for the Bahamas trip, provided she'd even find anything
out there. That, and pray that scary woman didn’t come back.

She hoped for a break and some time to think
in Chemistry, but unfortunately the teacher, Mrs. Vanderson,
cracked out an experiment ten minutes into class. She pulled a
large plastic jug filled with water from the storage closet.

“Now, I’m going to give you a small
assignment to start off your year,” she said with a heavy twang.
“We’ll do a simple experiment so you can practice the steps and
methods you’ll be using for the real stuff. I went down to the
beach this morning and collected some ocean water. And what you’re
going to do is turn salt water into fresh water. Each table has a
bowl and a plastic cup, along with a roll of plastic wrap.”

Janelle wasn’t sure if she’d even be able to
concentrate on that. Her birthmark itched. Ever since getting here,
it was bothering her more and more. She tugged her sleeve down,
making sure it wasn't visible to any of her classmates.

“Work on the first day?” her pimply lab
partner asked. He ripped out a piece of notebook paper and put his
name, Donovan, on it. “That sucks.”

“This doesn’t look like that bad of an
assignment,” Janelle said, still lost in her own thoughts. Gary’s
birthmark popped up in her mind again. And that little mole on his
nose…why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? He was long gone,
probably eaten by an alligator with her luck.

She unrolled some plastic wrap and stretched
it out over and over to distract her thoughts. Was Gary still
trying to find her? What if he was out on the streets? Anything
could have happened to him in the past week.

Mrs. Vanderson appeared at her table and
poured the ocean water into the bowl. A funny tingle swept through
Janelle at the salty smell of it. The same thing had happened when
she’d caught a whiff of the salt water on Gary. Great. Now she was
thinking about him
again
.

“Let’s get this done,” Donovan said, lifting
the bowl off the table. “Uh…ah…” He let out a huge sneeze.

The bowl tilted to the side. Donovan tried to
steady it, but it wobbled right off his hand and towards her.
Janelle tried to scoot to the side, but water splashed against her
shirt and onto her lap.

Her birthmark tingled and burned. A roar
filled her head as Janelle wrapped her arms around herself and
gritted her teeth. The roar became a scream and a burst of wind
whipped against her clothes and whistled through the room. Students
cried out around her. Glass shattered and papers flew. Blinds
rattled and books slid across tables, crashing to the floor.
Janelle was tilting, swaying, spinning…she could no longer feel her
arms or legs. What the hell was this? A seizure. This must be a
seizure. She was going to die…

The roaring and tilting stopped.

Janelle opened her eyes. The world snapped
back into place as water dripped off her lap and onto the
floor.

Papers fluttered down while everyone turned
in their chairs to look around the room. Mrs. Vanderson stood
against a file cabinet, not that Janelle could blame her. And
Donovan’s face had turned red—really red. He looked down at his own
lap and muttered an apology. But Janelle had no time to feel sorry
for him. A panic rose inside her like floodwater, threatening to
pour out of her at any second.

The water soaking through her clothes had
been some kind of trigger. She had…she had…

“Where did that come from?” the teacher
asked, gripping the cabinet as if expecting another blast. “Did
someone open the window?”

“No. That was weird,” a girl said near the
front of the room, rubbing a red mark on her arm and wincing. “The
windows are all shut.”

“Well, is everyone all right?” Wide-eyed,
Mrs. Vanderson walked to the front of the room and stumbled over a
fallen chair. “What happened in here? A localized tornado?”

Janelle looked around the room, the flood of
terror rising through her chest and making her heart pound as if it
were trying to escape. She hadn’t had a seizure, that was for sure.
Seizures didn’t destroy everything around them.