Tempest (#1 Destroyers Series) (17 page)

Papers in hand, they jogged for the gates and
went through the security checkpoint. Andrina seemed to have
disappeared, much to her relief. They stopped at the mouth of a
huge room filled with rows of chairs and hanging television sets.
Some groups of people had gathered over by the Vegas gate and an
attendant stood near the door, ready to pull it open.

“Janelle!” someone called from behind
them.

She froze, Gary with her, and whirled
around.

Mr. Deville ran towards them, stomach
bouncing up and down. But that wasn’t the bad part. Alongside him
came a man with glasses and wavy brown hair.

Her father had also come for her at the
airport.

She'd wanted her father several times earlier
that night, but with her escape so close now, things had changed.
He would never let her through that door to the plane.

“Janelle!” Her father cut in front of Mr.
Deville, eyes huge and relieved.

She dropped the paper, which rustled to the
floor. It was useless now.

Her father pulled her into a hug, and Janelle
returned it. His warmth enveloped her. It was safe, secure, a break
from the nightmare that had closed in around her since Gary had
revealed the truth hours ago. But it didn't stop the heavy despair
weighing her down, like an anchor chained to her feet. She might be
safer from Andrina and whatever Operation Reckoning was, but not
from the rest. Her chances of avoiding the transformation and
saving countless lives were growing slimmer, and she didn't know
what to do other than run through the terminal, away from her
father. Without another ticket and a flight leaving immediately,
she would never escape.

Gary appeared to her side, staring at her
with those hazel eyes.
Don't give up,
they said.

“Oh, honey. I didn’t mean to scare you
earlier.” He hugged her tighter as his hair tickled her cheek. He
wanted the best for her--didn't he? Then why had he threatened to
take her to the ocean earlier? “I knew you’d probably come here,
since this is the closest major airport. Ed drove me. I was so
worried that you got on that 1 a.m. flight to Flint. I saw Kevin
running to that one. At least, I think it was him. I haven't seen
him in years.”

Janelle pulled herself out of the hug and
caught her breath. Flint? Kevin? "He must have thought we were
going to be on that plane." At least they hadn't boarded that
flight. She very nearly had.

“Andrina might have sent him there to
intercept you in case you go that way. She might be here
somewhere,” her father continued. His look gave away his confusion.
"Though I don't see how--"

“She is,” Gary said.

"How did she know we were going to be heading
for Flint?" she asked. There was no point in hiding her intentions
anymore. “I mean, the airport's one thing. Our destination's
another, so she must be onto us." An idea struck her, one that
might stall the coming horror for a little while. "We’ve got to go
home or get away from here as soon as we can. And I left all my
stuff at the house.” Shifting leg to leg, she shot her dad a
pleading glance, one that she hoped communicated everything she
felt. “I’m tired and hungry and I’ve got a headache. I’m sorry
about running away. Really, I am." In a way, that was true. "I just
want to get home.”

Her father ran his hand through his hair and
faced her teacher. “We’ve all got to get to the Bahamas. There’s a
flight there soon, right?”

“Not that I’m aware.” Gary stuffed his hands
in his pockets, trying to look casual, but the lie wouldn't work.
It fell to the floor, flopping and dying.

Mr. Deville glared at him, the realization
coming over his features. “There’s one at quarter to five, if I
remember correctly.”

Behind her, the Las Vegas flight had started
boarding, ready to leave her behind She could run over there and
scream all she wanted, and her dad would still catch her before the
plane took off. That, and today's airlines would never let on an
emotional passenger.

Her dad looked up and down the room, brushing
his hand through his hair as he faced her teacher. “Hank, you can’t
stay here after crossing her. Gary, I’m having a talk with you
later. Now we stay together. Come on.”

“Um…don’t we outnumber Andrina?” Icy panic
raced through Janelle’s veins as her father pulled her down the
hall. She struggled to keep her voice level as she spoke. “And I
don’t have my bag. Can we go back for it? I can’t go without
it.”

Her dad moved in between her and Gary and
squeezed her arm with the same grip he must have used on the truck
hours ago. He kept his glasses trained on the space ahead of him,
refusing to look at her. “You won’t need your luggage. Sorry,
Janelle, b…but this has to be done. Hank, watch Gary.”

The strength went from her legs and the hope
from her body. She couldn't help but feel angry with her teacher,
who had saved her just to betray her like her father. There
couldn’t be that many Tempests, so her teacher would’ve recognized
him. They might have even known each other if Mr. Deville had grown
up in the Palm Grove area. Whatever the case was, she was a
prisoner of the Tempest law, like Gary and the countless others
before her. The cycle would continue and people would keep dying in
hurricanes if she wasn't able to escape.

A huge weight settled on her shoulders like a
pair of bowling balls, refusing to roll off.

Her father wouldn’t let go of her arm even at
the ticket booth. He took a long time refunding Janelle’s and
Gary’s tickets and booking the flight to the Bahamas with one hand.
Meanwhile, Mr. Deville stood between her and Gary, blocking out her
view of him with his girth. Tempest or no, Gary couldn't overpower
someone of his size.

“I’ll pay you back when I start work. I
promise,” her dad said, leading them back through security. “There
was no other way I was going to buy four tickets.”

A knot grew tighter and tighter inside
Janelle. He had put the wants of some Elder Council above her
again. “Don’t talk to me right now.”

The world blurred and faded into the
background. Her dad went quiet. Gary walked alongside them with his
head down and Mr. Deville breathing down his back.

Janelle removed her shoes for the second time
at the checkpoint. She thought about screaming that her dad had a
weapon, but it wouldn't work. The metal detectors would prove her
wrong and she’d get busted for a false alarm, arrested, and taken
away. But maybe it was better than becoming a hurricane.
Had
to be better than killing people. She might get in a lot of trouble
for scaring the commuters around them, but her father couldn't
break her out of a jail cell to take her to the ocean anytime soon.
Could he?

Janelle opened her mouth, but her dad tugged
her away from the metal detector as if he’d read her mind. She
tugged against his grip, but he refused to budge. Judging from the
narrow line of people behind her, Gary couldn't jump in and stop
him until they were away from the checkpoint.

Her dad gripped her arm tighter and broke
into a run. The world tilted around her. Plants. A cleaning cart.
Mr. Deville, panting. Gary, struggling to keep up. He wouldn't
leave her, at least. He was the one force in the world that cared
about what she wanted.

Another room opened up in front of her, and
the gate in the middle read
Nassau, Bahamas. 4:45 a.m.
over
the door.

Janelle struggled to find something smart or
sarcastic to say, but nothing came out. Why did her dad go along
with this Natural Law when he knew that her escape would stop these
deadly forces of nature and save thousands of lives? In the end,
she could only manage a plea. “Please, Dad. Don’t make me do
this.”

He shushed her as if she’d woken from a
nightmare, speaking low enough so that the people seated nearby
couldn't hear. “It’s okay. Trust me. You only have to change once
and life goes back to normal. You’ll graduate high school, go to
college, and be a great doctor. This will
not
stop you from
that.”

The gate to the Bahamas loomed ahead of them.
Its closed door looked like a steel mouth ready to open up and
swallow her. This wasn't about how this would affect her future
career. If she did transform--and kill--the churning guilt inside
of her would never let her forget it, no matter how many life
events she put between it and her. The slump in Gary's shoulders
told her that he would carry that weight for the rest of his life.
Her father might be carrying that weight also, and he had skirted
around telling her that she would, too.

Janelle shot a look at Gary as she sat next
to her father, but he stared down at the floor as he took a seat.
He was giving up hope.

She tried prying her arm from her dad’s grip.
It didn’t budge. He only pressed it harder against the armrest. She
was going to the Bahamas whether she wanted to or not. And
then--

Think, Janelle
. She wasn’t doomed yet,
and wouldn't be until she got on the boat. That was hours from now.
Why couldn't her mother still be here today? If her mother was in
fact human, she might have helped her out of the situation. Her
phone, at least, would give her a chance to call Leslie, but it was
gone. Leslie was great at thinking things out under pressure,
probably better than her by a long shot.

Mr. Deville elbowed her father, grinning.
“It’s a shame you had to cut off contact with us for so long,
Lucas. I would have liked to know I had a niece before today.”

Janelle stared right into her teacher’s
smiling face, a jolt running through her. “Huh?”

Her father pointed to him with his free hand.
“This is my little brother.”

“Only I’m not so little,” Mr. Deville said,
patting his stomach.

Janelle struggled to process the words. Her
father had no family left here, unless--

"You never told me you had a brother." The
shock wouldn't let the anger creep in. "Dad, you said you had no
siblings. Why--"

Her father was barely audible as he spoke.
“When you were born, I knew Andrina would want to indoctrinate you
with her hatred for the rest of the world, along with other Tempest
children. We had to go into hiding, and to keep you safe, I needed
to cut off all ties. I even changed our last names from Deville to
Duvall." A smile crept back onto his face. "Thanks to you, I've
found my brother after fourteen years."

Thunderstruck, Janelle looked between the two
men. Her teacher…her dad’s little brother? They didn't look much
alike, except for their thin eyebrows, maybe. And their eyes, which
had the exact same gray shade. “How come you didn’t tell me you had
a brother until now?”

Her dad leaned closer, glancing side to side
to make sure no one was close. “Right about the time you were born,
Andrina started talking about taking…violent steps…to protect
Tempests from the rest of the world. She's always been paranoid
that we'll be discovered and hunted, Janelle. She made plans to
indoctrinate Tempest children with her philosophy. You would have
been ideal. That's the real reason we moved to Michigan a long time
ago.”

"It didn't work on me," Gary said
defensively.

“But you always told me it was so Mom could
take care of her parents.” What else hadn't he told her yet? "Why
is Andrina so…you know?"

Her father sighed as his gaze sunk to the
carpet. An invisible mountain had come down on top of him. Had she
asked the wrong question? “She wasn’t always like that, Janelle. At
least, not on the outside. Maybe she hid her anger and fear until
she took the role as Tempest High Leader. We were fooled. I was,
and it cost me.”

A long, heavy silence followed. Her dad put
his face in his free hand. She forgot about the fact that he still
had her arm pinned with the other. Now wasn't the time to ask her
other pressing question, but she found herself blurting it out:

“Was Mom a Tempest?”

“Tina was human,” he said without hesitation.
“I miss her so much.”

Her teacher—or uncle—spoke up. “I didn’t know
you got married ag—”

“Yes. It’s a shame I never got to introduce
her to the family.”

Janelle clutched her dolphin necklace with
her free hand. Her mom wasn't a killer. She hadn't deserved to die
that winter night. She squeezed the armrest tighter as the
injustice of the world pulsed through her. Her mother was dead way
before her time, while Andrina and Kevin and Camellia--

No!

Mr. Deville was Camellia’s son, and her dad
was his brother.

She had to ask before someone came along, and
they couldn't talk anymore. "Is Camellia my grandmother? Please say
no.”

Gary lifted his head, eyes almost popping out
of his face. Mr. Deville blanched, gripping the armrests of his
chair. That pretty much answered her question.

Her father swallowed. “Yes.”

Sorry
, Gary mouthed to her.

“Hank told me about what happened at the
school, but I’m sure she had no idea who you are. She mentioned
that she didn’t know who your parents were, right?” her dad asked,
apologetic.

Janelle nodded. All the horrible things her
teacher had said about her swirled in her head, finally gathering
in her stomach and threatening to bring up her dinner. “That
doesn’t make me feel any better."

“I haven’t had contact with her in years,
either. But when you get back home, I’ll have her give you a big
apology.”

“Who said I wanted anything to do with her?"
Janelle buried her face in the crook of her arm. She couldn't take
any more news like this.

“Janelle, she’s nowhere near what Andrina
is,” Gary said, his tone uncertain.

“She’s not all bad, Janelle.” Her father
patted her on the back. “She might not be the nicest of us, but
she’s not the worst, either. Your grandmother did a decent job
raising us. And she will feel bad once she finds out who you really
are.”