Tempest (#1 Destroyers Series)

By

Holly A. Hook

SMASHWORDS EDITION

PUBLISHED BY:

Holly A. Hook

Tempest

Copyright 2010 Holly A. Hook

All rights reserved. Without limiting the
rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the
prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author
acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various
products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used
without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not
authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark
owners.

Also by Holly Hook

*Destroyers Series*

Inferno (Destroyers, Book Two)

Outbreak (Destroyers, Book Three)

*Rita Morse Series*

Rita Morse and the Sinister Shadow (Rita
Morse, Book One)

Rita Morse and the Treacherous Traitor (Rita
Morse, Book Two)

After These Messages (A Parody)

* * * * *

TEMPEST

* * * * *

This was almost certainly the end.

Janelle's breath caught in her throat.
Outside the bay window of their new home, mountains of black clouds
lumbered through the sky. The wind screamed, threatening to blast
out the glass at any second or send a piece of debris shooting
straight at them. And all through it, her father stood and watched,
hands folded behind his back.

“Dad, get away from the window. I'm begging
you. We’ve got to get out of here. Didn't you hear what the cops
were blasting when the drove through earlier?"

Her father turned, and he was
smiling
of all things. It was the opposite of what she felt, and it made
zero amount of sense. No one should be smiling in a situation like
this, except for people with a death wish, and her father didn't
strike her as the type. “Isn’t this exciting? I want you to see
this.”

Rain beat against the house, adding to the
roar that filled the world. The roof creaked like it wanted to peel
off and fly away. Every single bush and tree in their yard bent
over as if pointing them back to Michigan, to the sanity they'd
left behind. To her best friend, Leslie, who was no doubt thinking
she'd come to a sunny paradise, gawking at shirtless guys at the
beach instead of trying to huddle away from a full-blown
hurricane.

Janelle bit her lip, hugging herself. It was
all a dream. It had to be. It was one of those nightmares where
only she could see the danger, and her father wouldn't listen to
her, like the one she'd had about him setting up camp above
quicksand back in junior high. She’d wake up soon in her real life,
go to school, and attend her Math Whiz meeting at her normal
school. Any minute now she’d—

Snap.
A tree fell across the street
with a sound like gunfire.

Her heart thudded as she moved behind the
couch, closer to the glow of the television. At least it could
protect her a little if the window blew out. “Please. I want to go
to the shelter.” It was getting harder and harder to keep her cool.
And her sanity, for that matter. How was any normal person supposed
to endure this?

Footsteps approached. Eyes shining, her dad
spoke in an even voice, the one he reserved for work conversations
on the phone and lectures about working hard in school. “We’re
completely safe, Janelle. I’ve been through this before. Just enjoy
it. You’d never have this experience back up north. This is
nature’s most powerful storm.”

Behind him, a piece of sheet metal cut
through the rain and somersaulted its way down the street. Did he
really expect her to enjoy this? Sure, he'd grown up in Florida,
but that should only make him understand how dangerous this whole
situation was. Their new neighbors seemed to. The rest of the
houses on the street were vacated, lights off and driveways
empty.

“Exactly. Dad, why won't you explain this to
me? If you've been through this before, you should know what can
happen.” Something was way, way wrong here. Her dad was always Mr.
Careful. He'd even made her wear knee pads when she rode her bike
up until middle school.

She fell silent, waiting for his response.
Her father ground his shoe into the floor, watching it with great
interest as if he'd been caught doing something illegal. The storm
continued to roar outside, sending a fresh wave of creaks across
the roof. There was one last option. Sucking in a breath, she
dodged through a canyon of moving boxes to the TV, fighting down
panic. “Look. We’re running out of time.”

A weatherman pointed to a green and yellow
radar mess behind him, rambling on about storm surges and wind
speeds. The eye of Hurricane Gary twisted closer to shore, and
their new home, Palm Grove, stood right in its path.

“See?” A dry lump formed in her throat as
Hurricane Gary vanished and an angry red border appeared on the
coast. Something about where the surge would be at its worst, and
Palm Grove was right in the middle of it. Every horrible image of
storm damage and flooding she'd seen on TV flashed through her
head. Water rising inside buildings. Roofs flying off houses. “What
if this ends up like Hurricane Andrina where like, nine hundred
people drowned? We could die if we stay here!”

Click
. Her dad had turned off the TV.
“Honey, you need to control your emotions. Don't let them scare
you. They’ll only tell you the bad stuff on TV. Hurricanes are
actually really cool. They play an important role in—”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Someone must have
slipped something into her dad's coffee this morning. Janelle ran
into the kitchen and swept an avalanche of papers off the table in
search of the car keys. It wasn't time for a science lesson. She
could read up about hurricanes later if she wanted. If she had to
drive to the shelter with her learner’s permit, so be it. “Where’re
the keys?”

“I’ve got them.” Her dad fiddled with his
shirt sleeve, not looking at her. In fact, he wasn't even looking
at the storm outside anymore.

A car alarm went off somewhere across the
street. So much for the tantrum. So much for the TV. Janelle sucked
in a breath and kept her voice level, holding down the scream
rising inside her. “Please. Why are you acting so weird?”

Her father’s gaze slowly dropped to the
floor. He sunk to the couch like an old man, patting the cushion
next to him. “O…okay. Come sit down, Janelle. We’re not in danger,
and I’ll tell you why.”

A loud rap on the door made her jump back
against the fridge. Now what—had a branch hit it? Or a tree? But
the banging came again, louder than before. “Open up! Police!”

“Thank god,” Janelle said, running for the
door. Someone with some sanity was going to get them out of
here.

She tripped over a box and sent her
collection of stuffed sea animals sprawling across the floor. The
sea star she'd had since she was eight. The beanie crab. The killer
whale Leslie had won out of the claw machine for her on her
sixteenth birthday. The sight of it sent a brief pang through her
gut--they might not see any of this again--but she forced her way
past with her dad on her heels, yanking open the door.

The storm blasted in, tossing the papers off
the table and swirling them in the air. A man in a dripping yellow
rain slicker stood on the porch, bracing himself against the wind,
and a black police car had parked next to her father’s truck. It
looked like a chariot sent from the heavens.

“What are you still doing here?” he asked her
father, eyes dark and narrow. “You’re under a mandatory order to
evacuate. This could all flood when the surge comes in. We can’t
come out and help you once it gets too bad. There’s a shelter five
miles inland at the high school. You need to follow me there.”

“I’m in. Thanks,” Janelle said.

“We’re fine, sir—” her dad started.

Janelle reached out and took his arm. Now
wasn't the time to let him be in charge. “No, we’re not.”

“Mister,” the cop spoke with the voice that
could have stopped a rhinoceros in its tracks. At the same time,
his pupils opened with the same confusion she felt. “Do you care
about your daughter’s safety? We’re taking her whether or not you
decide to come.”

Her father bit his lip, staring at the wall
beside the door for a second. “All right. Let’s go.”

The officer waved them out into the curtains
of rain. Janelle let the relief flood through her limbs, until her
father urged her out into it. Immediately, a stray gust nearly
knocked her skinny legs out from under her.

Her dad’s truck blinked its headlights as he
jabbed the remote to unlock it. “Now!” he said.

Freedom. Safety. She'd live to make friends
at this new school after all, and maybe even invite Leslie down
when spring break came along. Head down against the stinging rain,
she charged for the silver truck. Wind whipped her hair into her
face and mouth as if trying to push her back into that nightmare.
There was no way she was going to let it.

Her dad yanked the door open, staring hard at
her through the watery beads on his glasses. “In!”

It was the first thing he'd said today she
agreed with. Janelle seized the door and pulled herself into the
truck. Dripping, she spat out strands of blond hair.

A blur in the rain, her father struggled
against the wind as he made his way to the driver’s side door. He
climbed in, bringing half a lake with him. Maybe now he’d realize
what a bad idea staying home would have been.

“You okay?” Janelle asked, fighting back a
sarcastic comment and soaking the cool rain off her arms with her
shirt. But getting drenched running to the truck beat the
alternative.

He wiped off his glasses and put the key in
the ignition. “Of course. Just got a little wet.”

You could’ve gotten
killed, she wanted
to say. But she bit in the comment. They were getting out of here.
That was all that was important. She didn't even care what happened
to the house she'd spent only one night in. Tomorrow, her dad would
apologize for acting so strange today.

The police car backed out of the driveway.
Her father revved the truck up as a palm frond flew off a thrashing
tree and plastered itself to the windshield. Streetlights blinked
out, casting the street in an even more darkness. They’d finally
lost power.

Janelle let out a slow breath. “We should’ve
left hours ago.”

The police car led the way past a row of
houses and the fallen tree. The truck swayed against the wind as it
followed. A metal piece of
something
blew across the street
ahead. Meanwhile, her father tapped the steering wheel with one
hand, driving as if they were still on the road trip down here.

Maybe he was just too fatigued from the move
to think straight. There had to be an explanation for this.

She swallowed, studying the streams of rain
marching across her window and the slogans on plywood-covered
windows.
Get lost, Gary. Gary was here. Get out of town,
Gary
. She couldn’t agree with them more.

The rain managed to beat down harder, until
Janelle could only make out red and blue lights ahead. Her father
braked twice to avoid trash cans in the street, clicking his tongue
in annoyance the second time.

Janelle glanced at him, but not so much as
one stress wrinkle had appeared at the corner of his mouth. “How
can you not be scared right now?”

His gaze flickered down to her bare arm. “You
shouldn’t have worn a tank top. Here. Cover up your birthmark.” He
reached over and took their cheap first aid kit out of the glove
compartment. “People might think you’ve got a rotten sense of humor
if you don’t.”

“We’re driving in a hurricane, and you’re
worried about this?” Janelle held up her arm to show her birthmark,
realizing he was dodging her question. The two-inch-wide spiral had
been there since the day she was born. Her father had always told
her it was special for some reason. To her, it looked weird and
gave people something to stare at. And now the sight of it sent a
little shudder over her skin. It didn’t look that different from
the hurricane diagrams she’d seen on TV earlier, and it even had a
dark spot in the middle that someone could mistake for an eye.
Okay. Maybe he did have a point. She dug through the kit for the
biggest bandage she could find and slapped it over the mark as if
it were a badge of shame.
Yeah, this’ll go over great in
Florida.