Tempest (#1 Destroyers Series) (10 page)

The gentle hazel had gone. Instead, storm
clouds spun and raged around his black pupils. She was staring into
the eye of a hurricane.

“See?” Gary’s voice took on a growl. “See
what I am, and what you are, too!”

Janelle screamed at herself to run, to get
the hell out of there, but her feet refused to peel themselves off
the sand. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the pair of eyes that
were locked on her. Eyes that weren't Gary's. Eyes that were
something as far from human as they could get.

Gary stepped back and groaned, putting a hand
over his eyes. The world froze. Reality fell away. All of her
thoughts seemed to freeze in time. Only Janelle’s own breathing
filled her head.

An eternity later, Gary lowered his hand from
his face. His wide eyes had gone back to their normal, solid hazel,
pleading and terrified. He had returned, shoving the monster inside
him back into a vault somewhere. “Don’t run. Please.”

“You’re…you’re--” Janelle backed away until
she bumped into the hill behind her. No. It couldn’t be true. But
it was. Gary and Hurricane Gary were the same thing. Somehow, he
was
that storm packed into a human body—a
killer
. No
lousy explanation in her head could account for anything else.

Gary raised his palms as if Janelle were
pointing a gun at him, glancing at the row of ruined houses.
“Please hear me out. There was no way I wanted to do…that…but when
my name came up, they forced me. That tropical storm naming list
isn’t just to keep track of hurricanes, like people think. Tempests
invented it. When a Tempest is born, their name gets down on that
list. It’s our law. I'll explain it to you later. And when your
name comes up, you have to become a storm, whether you want to or
not. And then—”

“Get away from me.” She turned to climb the
hill. “Don’t come near me again!”

“Janelle! Wait!” Gary’s footfalls fell on the
sand below. “I’m not going to do anything. Tempests aren’t supposed
to hurt each other. I kept that telephone pole from falling on
you.”

She froze, fingernails digging into the sand.
She’d never said a word to him about that. The only way he’d know
would be if—

“Please don’t run.” Gary appeared beside her,
crouching in the sand. “We can’t let anyone know about this. It has
to stay a secret. We’re in
Florida.
If they find out what we
are, they’ll probably lynch us.”

A moan of horror escaped Janelle’s lips. Her
feet sunk into sand as she climbed up the hill. She had to get back
to town. She had to find normal people. She—

“Janelle, please.” Gary’s hand brushed
against the back of her shirt. "I know this is scary. Just--"

“Get away!” A chain-link fence waited at the
top of the hill, blocking her escape. A warehouse was beyond it.
Janelle grabbed the fence and shook it against the poles. A squeal
of panic filled her head, chasing away all thoughts of controlling
herself. “Anybody! Help!”

Silence. A seagull took off into flight.

“Quiet.” Gary seized Janelle’s ankle, staring
up at her with his mouth hanging open.

She kicked and his grip loosened. “Let
go!”

Gary tumbled downhill in an avalanche of
sand.
Thud
. He landed on the beach, sprawled out and
facedown as the ocean lapped for him. It missed by a few feet and
drew back.

Janelle let out a breath. She’d knocked him
out. She turned to climb the fence again, but her gut clenched the
second she put her hand on it. Gary might be injured. He’d lay
there for days, and she’d be at fault. Or it could be a trick to
make her go back down there. What to do?

With a groan, Gary lifted an arm and started
to push himself up.

Okay. That settled it.

Janelle hoisted herself over the fence,
catching her jeans on the top for one terrifying second. After
tugging them free, she swung her feet over and hit the pavement
running. Her footfalls thudded in her ears as she dashed past a
rusty gate and onto a side street.

“Janelle!” Gary shouted from somewhere back.
“Don’t go home!”

Another
thud
. He’d jumped the
fence.

Lose him
. If he caught her, he might
toss her into the ocean. He'd been talking about some law about
that. Maybe he'd come to force her to--

Janelle turned and cut through a yard,
dodging around a stack of plywood. A side street, a drive…it all
blurred together as she ran.

Gary called for her again, fainter this
time.

Downtown Palm Grove stretched out in front of
her with its shops and hangouts. Hide. She needed to hide. Where
would he not think to hunt for her? Serena's car was parked in
front of the ice cream shop, but that was too obvious a place to
go. Serena couldn't hold off Gary, or even come out and start her
car before he got here.

Janelle bolted down the closest alley. She
ducked down on the other side of a dumpster, took off her backpack,
and pressed herself against the brick wall.

She held her breath against the stench and
waited for footfalls to grow closer and closer. Nothing. It seemed
like she’d eluded Gary. Only the sound of passing cars and laughing
students floated down the alleyway.

Janelle let out a huge breath and covered her
eyes with her hands. She’d come face to face with a monster she had
never dreamed existed—a hurricane in human form. It was
unbelievable.

It made sense.

Gary shared his name with the storm. He’d
appeared right when it died. He couldn’t bear to look at the storm
damage—the damage he had done. And his eyes would haunt her
nightmares forever. Had her own eyes looked like that when the bowl
of seawater had splashed on her? She squeezed them shut and hugged
her knees. She wasn’t a Tempest! She
wasn’t!

A truck rumbled past. Minutes passed as
Janelle rocked back and forth as it all sunk in. Maybe, just maybe,
it hadn't really been Gary she'd been running from, despite his
swirling eyes and his horrible words. It had been everything else.
Her father's lie. Herself.

Images of the destroyed Chemistry classroom
and the gift shop door hanging in her hand reared up again.

No. She hadn't been running from him at
all.

Gary was still out there, searching for her,
maybe even thinking that she hated him. He'd given her the truth
she had asked for, probably walking miles and miles and eating out
of Dumpsters in order to do it. He hadn't even wanted to turn into
a giant storm. That, she believed after all that had happened. He
deserved an apology, and there was more he wanted to tell her.
Perhaps he was going to tell her the identity of that scary woman
next. Janelle's stomach turned at the thought of her. She didn't
know her name, but she did have an idea that she shoved away as she
stood.

She picked herself up, grabbed her backpack,
and left the alley, resolved to take whatever Gary had to tell her
next without running away. How was she going to apologize? Would he
even accept it after she'd pushed him down that hill?

Serena's car was gone from the ice cream
shop, but Janelle didn't mind. If her new friend found her now,
there would be no explaining anything or putting up the mask she'd
worn to hide her emotions all her life. She glanced up and down the
street, but Gary was nowhere in sight. She'd lost him all over
again.

* * * * *

Her dad’s truck wasn’t in the driveway. Good.
She didn’t want to face him or his betrayal right now. Janelle took
another look behind her as she unlocked the door, went inside, and
bolted it behind her. There was no sign of Gary on the street
behind her. He'd likely decided she wasn't worth it and moved on.
It wasn't like she could blame him, but that didn't stop the pain
in her chest. Gary was the only solid land she had in a sea of
lies.

Janelle was on her own all over again,
flailing.

Your dad’s a Tempest, too.
Gary’s
words rang through her head as a fresh wave of nausea swept through
her. Her father? The man who volunteered at soup kitchens and
helped Ed with the cleanup? No. It couldn’t be.

She dropped her backpack at her bedroom door
and faced her computer. If her dad was a Tempest, that would have
to mean--

“Oh, hell no!”

She raced over to the monitor and loaded up
the Internet browser. She typed two words, two words she didn’t
want to put together. Her heart hammered in her throat. One of
those screens that said she had no results would pop up. It had
to.

Search results filled the screen from top to
bottom. Janelle’s gaze landed on the first article on the list.

Hurricane Lucas.
In bold blue
letters.

Janelle felt as if someone had punched her in
the stomach. A choking sound escaped her throat as she clicked on
the link, unable to look away. Lucas. Her father’s name.

HURRICANE LUCAS. Article by Freepedia.
Below that, a hurricane bore down on the East Coast, staring out at
her with its black eye. If this was…if this was…she scrolled down
to hide the picture.

Hurricane Lucas was one of the most powerful
storms to hit coastal North Carolina during the eighties. The
system began suddenly as a tropical depression just off the coast
of Bermuda in September of 1985 and strengthened into a tropical
storm the next day. On September 10 Lucas became a Category 1
hurricane 500 miles off the U.S. coast. After passing over warm
waters it evolved into a strong Category 3 storm with winds of up
to 120 miles per hour. Lucas made landfall on September 13 and left
about 5 billion dollars worth of damage, much of it to the fishing
industry. Though its rains ended a two-month drought in the area,
it killed 13 people who did not follow evacuation orders and left
another 28 injured.

Janelle fumbled with the mouse and closed the
window with a trembling hand.
Killed 13 people.
No! She
hadn’t read that. This was all a bizarre coincidence. Lucas was a
common name, and there was no way her father could be this
monster.

Janelle tossed herself down onto her cold
bedcovers as a sob racked her body. Her dad had also turned into a
hurricane and killed people. It explained everything. He’d spent
his life helping others in need—was it all to make up for what he’d
done?

Stomach lurching, she focused on the picture
of her mother instead. She smiled out from the dock, black curls
hanging around her ears. Had she been a Tempest, too, or a normal
human? She’d never heard of a Hurricane Tina, but she didn’t want
to look it up and blow the last of her hope away. She needed some
to cling to right now. With Gary gone and her father refusing to
open up, it was the best she could do.

Somebody tapped on her window. Janelle shot
up and sucked in a breath, making the bed creak underneath her.
Could it be--

Gary stood on the other side of the glass,
motioning down to the latch.

“Janelle, we need to talk,” he said. “Serena
brought me here when I checked the ice cream place in town, since I
didn't know how else to find you again. I've been hiding in your
backyard in case your dad comes back. I’ve got to warn you about
something.”

"You came back." She couldn't hide the relief
in her voice. "I'm sorry I had a panic attack like that. I
shouldn't have. You're not hurt, are you?"

"Sorry?" His eyes widened behind the glass.
"What you did was normal, Janelle. If I were you, I would've run,
too. I promise, I won’t do what I did at the beach, because I hated
that as much as you did. I only did that to make you believe me
about everything. Listen to me and you’ll stand a better chance at
escaping what’s coming. Can you let me in?”

"Yes. I don't know when my dad's going to be
back, though. I’ll let you in at the front. Then I have to ask you
something.” Gary wouldn't lie about what was on the screen.

A minute later, she and Gary stood in front
of the computer. “Now be honest.” With a click she pulled up the
Hurricane Lucas
article and stared down at the white carpet,
but not before she caught a glimpse of the storm’s twisting eye.
“Is this…is this…”
My dad,
she meant to finish. But the lump
in her throat grew too painful for speech.

Gary lowered his voice as if he were at a
funeral. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I couldn’t keep from warning you. My mom
told me about the whole Tempest deal when I was twelve, and man, I
took it pretty hard. I didn’t talk to her for days. I bet there’s
an article there on her too, if it’s any consolation.”

Janelle put her palms down on her desk. If
she didn’t, she’d collapse right there on the floor in front of
Gary. She pointed to the monitor, keeping her gaze glued to a
pencil mark in the wood. “Did the other Tempests force him to
become…that…or did he do this on his own?”

“Don’t know. I never actually knew your dad.
I only just met him at the hospital."

“I can’t live with this.” Janelle’s pulse
throbbed across her temples. Great. Another headache on top of all
this. “How can I even look at my dad again, knowing he’s killed
people?”

“I’ve killed people, too.”

“That’s different. You’re not my family. And
I don’t have to see you every day.” She covered her face in her
hands. A nightmare. That’s all this was. Her dinner wasn’t agreeing
with her.

Gary’s words came out like machine gun fire.
“He doesn’t strike me as the type who did it on purpose. Not like
some Tempests I know too well. He had no choice but to change no
matter what. When your name comes up, you have to become a storm
whether you like it or not. That’s what I came to warn you
about.”

“Warn me?” Janelle lowered her hands from her
face. The gurgling in her stomach was enough to tell her what was
next.