Tempest (#1 Destroyers Series) (25 page)

“She must have taken them with her,” she
said, sinking down the floor of the hallway and wrapping her arms
around her legs. “I should’ve known. Where else would she have them
but her pocket?"

Gary sat beside her, bangs hanging in his
face. “Hey, it was worth a try.”

He was out of ideas. It was all up to her
now. “No,” she said, pulling herself up against the despair trying
to push her back down. “If I don’t get out of here, thousands of
people are going to die. And we have to get Leslie back to the
mainland.”

“She’s right,” Joey said, pushing his glasses
up on his nose. “But we have to get the keys first. There’s no
point in breaking her friend Leslie out if we can’t get out of
here.”

He was right. “What if she put the keys
somewhere else on Alara?” Janelle asked, running for the double
doors and jumping over an avalanche of books. “There’s got to be a
break room or a garage or something.”

Gary stepped over a toppled table. “Yeah
right, Janelle. She knew me and Joey would get out of our rooms
when she called Alec and Ivanna to the meeting. That means she's
convinced we can't get out of here."

Janelle froze, her hand on one of the doors.
“Then we’ll have to overpower her. There’s three of us now. We need
to get Leslie first. I won’t risk Andrina telling Kevin to kill
her.”

Would Leslie even accept her help now? She
would have to.

“Go after
Andrina?”
Joey exploded,
eyes widening behind his glasses. “Oh, no. I wasn’t asking for
this.”

“Yes, go after Andrina. I’m supposed to be
stronger than her. You guys are going to help me." She winced at
the low blow she was about to make, but it was necessary. "Did you
like it when she made you kill a hundred people, Joey?”

Joey gripped the back of the couch, face
growing red and jowls wobbling. She’d hit him where it hurt, but
they didn’t have time to worry about that.

“All right,” he said, shoving the couch so
hard that it toppled onto the glass coffee table. A shattering
sound filled the room and died. “This Leslie. If Andrina knew me
and Gary would get out, she could’ve moved her to another location
so we can’t find her. Andrina’s got brains. Where’d she say they’d
be keeping her?”

“Basement, I think,” Janelle said, opening
the doors on the empty stairwell. She’d been too stung by Leslie’s
rejection to hear Kevin and Andrina clearly. But it made sense.
Where else did you keep prisoners?

“Must be the storage areas. We can check.”
Joey led the way down the stairs.

Janelle followed him into the dome with the
fish tanks. The fish swam in circles inside their tubes, oblivious
to the nightmare going on outside their little world. The lights
had dimmed in the hall and their footfalls echoed off the walls. No
light filtered down through the spiral in the dome ceiling. Night
had fallen. She had been asleep for a long time, listening to that
recording.

If they threw her in the ocean now, Operation
Reckoning would become a reality.

“Are they all in the meeting?” Janelle
asked.

“Most of them,” Gary said, taking her arm. “I
didn’t see Kevin going that way, though.”

Janelle shuddered. Kevin must still be
guarding Leslie.

The hallway curved ahead and opened up into
the main chamber. Circles of light shined around the plants and
reflected off the now-black windows. The gray spiral on the floor
seemed to twist for a second, but Janelle blinked. An illusion.
Only the air conditioning blew against her skin, raising an army of
goosebumps along her arms.

“Which way to storage?” she asked. Two other
hallways branched off from this one.

“He dragged Leslie down that one, remember?”
Gary pointed to the middle one and gulped, realization stealing
over his features. “We’ll have to pass the meeting hall.”

Janelle swore, but they couldn't turn back
now. “Come on. If we wait for the meeting to end they’ll all be out
here. Let’s take off our shoes until we’re past it or we’ll make
too much noise.” Her voice echoed off the walls and the polished
floors. It was something Leslie would have thought of. She could
piece anything together.

“Good thinking.” Gary took off his shoes and
wiggled his toes inside his gray socks.

She tucked her shoes behind a potted plant
and watched as Gary and Joey did the same. Pulse roaring in her
ears, she followed them, shuffling her feet to keep them from
slapping on the floor. Only quiet surrounded them on all sides.
She'd finally made a good decision.

Muffled voices floated down the walkway. A
pair of wooden double doors stood wide open ahead, a pair with the
Tempest swirl carved on them. A yellow glow spilled out and formed
a rectangle on the wall like a prison searchlight. A long,
human-shaped shadow moved across it.

“Now what?” Janelle mouthed to Gary. They had
left the doors open for a reason: to watch for them. It meant that
Leslie was definitely down this hall.

A pang shot through her at the thought of her
friend. If their situations were reversed, would Leslie do this for
her?

Gary crept up to the door and peeked in
through the crack in the corner. He waved them over and ducked down
to let Janelle peek into the meeting hall.

A long, polished table with a glass Tempest
swirl etched in it stretched down the room, shining in the light of
a chandelier. A group of ten suited older people sat in leather
rolling chairs around it while other Tempests—at least twenty of
them—occupied benches along the walls. Some had lines under their
eyes and an older man fidgeted like he wasn't pleased. Ivanna and
Alec shuffled their feet on the thick blue carpet. They looked
bored. Camellia was with them, too, dressed in a navy blue suit.
She glared up to the front of the room, where Andrina stood behind
a podium. It seemed like they had been deliberating for hours, and
judging from the thick tension in the room, possibly arguing.

Janelle's heart wrenched. Going in there to
steal the yacht keys would make as much sense as trying to swim off
the island.

“I'm glad that we're all settled now. Dim the
lights,” Andrina ordered someone near the door. “I want a nice,
ominous feel to this video. Got the camera pointing at me? Good.”
She smiled, letting the false sugar melt away. “I’ve been
rehearsing this for weeks.”

The lights dimmed, leaving only one shining
on Andrina’s face, which looked like a pale moon in the darkness.
The other Tempests seemed like magical shadows hunched around their
master, waiting for an order to go haunt children’s nightmares. It
was fitting.

“Rolling,” a man said.

“Greetings, humanity,” Andrina said as she
folded her arms. “You may not believe what I am about to say at
first, but you will discover it to be true in a few days' time. I
am Andrina L. Morgen, leader of the entire Tempest race. We have
met before, though not in the form that I am in now…”

Andrina trailed off as she spilled the truth
about Tempests and their abilities, swelling with pride. Confusion
washed over Gary's face, and then Joey's. Janelle felt the same.
She was making a video to send to the world’s news stations, but
why was she revealing everything if she was so scared of being
discovered?

“We are your gods, and it would be in your
best interest to follow any instructions we give you in the
future,” she went on, the growl creeping into her voice. “If you
don’t believe me, look into my eyes and see what I truly am.” A
pause as the camera no doubt zoomed in for the full horror. “I’m
sure this isn’t enough proof for you, so I have devised a little
plan called Operation Reckoning.”

A shudder raced down Janelle’s spine as she
stiffened. That was about to get spilled, too. She did not want to
hear this.

“Perhaps you will all believe me when my
prediction comes true to every detail. One of our numbers,
Hurricane Janelle, will strike New York City directly at high tide
in only a few days. A thirty foot storm surge will drown a good
portion of Manhattan and flood the subway system. Thousands of your
pathetic lives will be lost. Your economy will take a massive blow
and will be crippled for weeks.”

Janelle squeezed her eyes shut, putting her
hands over her ears and biting her tongue to keep the scream in.
She couldn’t sit here and listen any more.

Gary tapped her on the shoulder, as if
sensing her agony.

She uncovered her ears to be met with
silence. The meeting room lights were still dimmed, and they had to
get across the doorway before they turned back on. It was their
only chance.

“After this event has passed, I will send a
follow-up video with further instructions on how to keep us from
striking your other major cities,” Andrina said. “I suggest you
follow them.”

It was now or never. Janelle seized Gary’s
arm. “Now,” she mouthed.

Joey scooted past the doorway, socks slipping
across the floor. The light on Andrina’s face went off, casting her
in darkness.

Janelle vaulted across the floor and made it
to the other side of the door, Gary in tow. The yellow light
clicked back on, casting its rectangle across the hallway.

Her heart leapt, but there were no footfalls.
No yells. They’d made it.

Joey’s eyes bulged as he waved them forward
down the hallway. Sliding her feet across the floor to avoid making
noise, Janelle released Gary’s arm and followed, shaking her head
to cast Andrina’s words from her mind. But they stayed, and
probably would forever.

Ahead, the hallway branched into two. A pair
of double doors on the right led into a room where computer screens
glowed in neat rows. The other led downstairs into the dark.

Joey turned, nodded, and started to descend
the steps with a firm grip on the handrail. They must have placed
Leslie had to be in the darkest, creepiest place in the whole
complex.

If she was even still alive.

A faint musty smell invaded her nostrils as
she descended deeper into the island. The humming of water heaters
echoed through the walls. Below, the stairs ended in a dimly lit
basement where orange lights hung on huge concrete poles. It looked
about as inviting as an underground parking ramp.

Janelle stopped halfway down the stairs,
studying the basement for any signs of Kevin. None. He might still
be guarding Leslie. “What’s down here?” she asked, careful not to
raise her voice too much.

“Just supplies and food. Nothing dangerous,”
Joey said. “There’s three of us. We should be able to take down
Kevin if he’s here.”

He didn't seem to be. Flies hovered in clouds
around a garbage bin on one side of the room. Boxes were stacked up
on either side of a steel door that probably led to a freezer. Gray
doors lined the end of the basement. Rumbling noises came out from
those, but no voices.

“She might be behind one of those,” Janelle
said, pointing. Of course they’d put her somewhere crappy. She
raced for the first door, feet slapping against the floor. Hot air
rushed out as she yanked it open. “Leslie?”

Only the hum of the water heater and the
surrounding pipes answered. Janelle stepped into the room, holding
her breath as much as she could. “Help me look,” she said, waving
Gary into the room.

Janelle peeked behind a group of pipes only
to find more cobwebs and a puddle of water on the floor.

“I don’t think she’s in here,” Gary said,
looking behind a huge cylinder. “Joey’s right. Andrina probably
moved her. Or--” He didn’t finish but let the meaning sink in.

Janelle left the room, slamming the door and
feeling a brief flash of anger at him. “Leslie can’t be dead.
Andrina didn’t have time to do that.”

But Kevin did
, that mean little voice
said.

Joey emerged from a dark room, bringing a
swirl of dust out with him. He coughed and shook his head. “Nope.
She’s not in there.”

Janelle pointed, her heart racing with one
last hope. “There.” The steel door. It was the last one.

Boxes of lettuce, cheese, orange juice
cartons, and eggs lined the metal shelves inside. A chill swept
through the air. Food storage. Another steel door at the rear of
the room waited for them.

“That’s the meat freezer,” Gary said. “I hope
she’s not in there.”

It was worth a check. Her heart pounded as
she closed the door behind her to stifle the sound of her voice.
“Leslie?”

“Janelle? I’m in here. Get me out. I’m
freezing!”

A huge sigh of relief escaped her. Leslie was
alive, and not screaming at her to go away. “Is anyone in there
with you?”

“No. Just come in and untie me. My feet are
numb.”

Janelle gripped the cold metal of the freezer
door handle and tugged it open with a faint cracking sound. A cold
like a January morning wrapped around her as she raced into the
room.

Leslie sat against a box of meat with a thick
gray blanket wrapped around her. Her foggy breath spiraled towards
the ceiling.

“You’re okay,” Janelle breathed, removing the
blanket and wrapping her in a hug. “Are you injured?” She shook her
head, teeth chattering, and nodded down towards her arms. They were
tied behind her back, but there was no blood on her clothes. “Why’d
they put you in here? I’m going to kill Kevin.”

Leslie looked up at her and spoke through her
bluish lips. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say those things to you
earlier. Kevin f…forced me to or he was going to break my
f…fingers. Oh my god, Janelle. How did we end up in this mess?”

Kevin had forced her to say those things. The
look on Leslie's face was sincere. How could she have not thought
of that possibility? Leslie must have felt awful, sitting in here
by herself with that to reflect on. “Don't worry. I didn't believe
it,” she lied, helping Leslie to her feet as Gary undid the ropes
around her wrists.