Tempest (#1 Destroyers Series) (9 page)

Janelle nodded, glancing behind to her make
sure no one was following them. “Did you know your guardian was
here yesterday? One of my teachers told her I wasn’t here, though.”
Now came the fun stuff. “She knows my birthday, but not my last
name. That strikes me as a little weird.”

“You’re right. That is. Don’t know where she
could’ve gotten that. And I swear, I didn't give her your first
name. You didn't leave something behind with your name on it?”

"No." The bear she'd given him hadn't even
come with a card. "She didn't say she was looking for me?"

Gary kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk,
which tumbled down the gutter and into a storm drain with a splash.
“I didn't know anything until you found me out by the discharge
doors. That's when I figured it out."

"How'd you survive this past week, anyway?"
Other questions wanted to burst out of her, but something had
locked in her throat. The unease she'd been trying to hold down for
the past week bubbled up to the surface, turning her stomach. There
was no hiding it. She was too scared to ask about the other stuff.
Heat rose to her cheeks with the embarrassment of not getting it
together.

"Me? I’ve been mowing lawns around here so I
could buy something to eat. Got this at the dollar store.” He
pulled at his shirt. “You know how hard it is, having to sneak into
people’s back yards to take showers with garden hoses?”

Wow. Gary had it bad. She wanted to hug him.
A tingle swept through her at the thought, only to blow away in the
next breeze and wave of nervous prickling under her skin. Then, she
had an idea. “That sucks. Why didn’t you just go down to the beach
and take a dip? It would’ve been easier.”

“Do you realize what you’re
saying
?”
Gary stopped in the shade of a tree, eyes widening. “Our kind can’t
just go down to the beach and take a dip, unless it’s a freshwater
beach. If we dive into ocean water…something happens.”

Our kind.
A nervous triumph rose
inside of her, but she swallowed it down, hoping that he couldn't
see it. “I kind of found that out yesterday in class.”

Gary's hazel eyes matched hers, ready to take
whatever she had to say. They told her that he wouldn't turn around
and walk away from her questions, that he wasn't going to feed her
flimsy lies or treat her like she was two years old. Next to Gary,
she was an equal: sane, intelligent, and deserving of the
truth.

And then, Janelle couldn't hold it back
anymore. The incident in Chemistry came pouring out of her as they
walked, and each word she said felt like a rock rolling off her
shoulders. Gary faced her as they made their way down a side
street, not once laughing or even smirking, and not once
interrupting her to give her some scientific explanation that
didn't really exist. In fact, surprise didn't even register on his
face. Gary just nodded as she finished, as if he'd expected her
story for days.

"It sucks that you had that in class," he
said at last.

“I’m getting the idea that I’m not like
everyone else. And that you and that woman aren’t, either. Does she
have one of these, too?” Janelle held back tears of relief as she
rolled up her sleeve to show the gray spiral on her arm. It felt so
good to just be able to talk to someone about all of this, and
someone who understood. Even the coming answers to her questions
couldn't stop that.

Gary seemed to stop and think, choosing his
words carefully. “Well, yeah. All Tempests have one of those.”

Janelle narrowed her eyes at him, wrapping
her mind around the word. “Tempests?”

Gary’s jaw fell open. “That’s what we’ve
always called ourselves. Wow, your dad really has kept you in the
dark. He even came up to my hospital room and told me not to tell
you anything before you visited. I think I mentioned that. When it
comes to this, some parents are like that.”

“He what?” She let her mouth fall open. Gary
had
mentioned that, but she'd forgotten with that woman
chasing her out of the hospital parking lot. So that was why he her
father made her wait in the lobby--so he could go up and make sure
Gary didn't reveal anything to her. A flare of anger rose up as she
thought about her dad, disappearing into his study with his coffee
and mysterious phone calls. “What exactly is a Tempest?” she asked
at last.

Gary motioned her down the street, in the
direction of the ocean sparkling between a row of houses. “Follow
me, and I’ll show you.”

* * * * *

The beach stretched out in front of Janelle
as she and Gary made their way downhill. Beyond it, the ocean
sparkled in the sun and gentle waves lapped against the shore.
Students chased each other around on the sand and lay on colorful
towels everywhere. A girl in a bikini laughed and shrieked as a guy
splashed her with two handfuls of water. It was a complete contrast
to the nervous grays and browns and blacks she felt inside.

"I'll never be able to do that," she
muttered, meaning it as a question.

Gary watched his feet sinking into the sand
as he stopped. "No. You won't."

It wasn't the answer she'd wanted, but it was
an answer, at least. What was she going to tell Leslie when she
invited her down here? Her friend would want to hit the beach. “Why
did my dad move me here if I can never touch salt water?” Janelle
asked. “He knew I’d have that reaction, didn’t he?”

Gary stopped and waved her into the shade of
the tree line, where nobody was hanging out at the moment. Once
there, he lowered his voice and leaned in close, so close she could
feel his hot breath on her ear. “I'll cut to the chase now, one
thing at a time. Your dad’s a Tempest, too. He probably moved you
here because he wants you to have company. Well, after you find out
what you are. I'm sure that's why he gave in and let you see me.
Most of us live near the coast or in the tropics.”

“My dad?” Janelle exploded. "If he's got this
same thing on his arm, why didn't he ever show me?"

Gary's brows rose. "You've never seen his
upper arm?"

"No. He always wears long sleeved shirts."
Why hadn't she realized? He must have wanted her to think she just
had a weird birthmark.

“Where else do you think you got it from?
It's always inherited from one or both of your parents. He showed
me his mark at the hospital, so I know your Tempest parent has to
be him. He wasn't up there long, just enough to tell me he doesn’t
want you to know anything yet, because you’ll learn about it when
you—” He didn’t finish, and that made her stomach lurch again. Gary
was the opposite of her dad when it came to openness, and if he
wasn't wanting to talk about something, it had to be bad.

“When I what?” she asked, but Gary didn’t
answer. She kicked a wave of sand into the air as she caught the
salty smell of the ocean. Another wave of tingling swept through
her at the smell, but it wasn't as intense as it had been in
Chemistry, and disappeared a second later. “How could he hide this
from me? And you haven’t answered my question about what Tempests
are.”

Gary sighed. “It’s not an easy thing to talk
about. We need a place where nobody’s around so I can tell you. I
found a spot yesterday under the docks.” He peeked at her from the
corner of his eye. “Sorry, but this is going to scare the crap out
of you.”

“Uh…I’ve already had the crap scared out of
me. Your guardian just calmed my nerves, you know.” Janelle tried
to lift her voice to lighten the mood, but it wasn't working.
Gary's gaze stayed as serious as ever.

“Not like this, you haven’t. You might be
better off not knowing the truth.”

Janelle swallowed a dry lump down her throat,
fighting an urge to walk back up the hill and back into the suburb
to leave the answer behind her. No. She’d waited
two weeks
for this. “I can take it.”

“This way.” Gary stared at the ground again
as he strode towards a chain-link fence that separated the public
beach from a rocky, off-limits one.

“But--” Janelle began, but the salty aroma of
the ocean hit her again and sent another tingle through her body.
That settled it. She followed Gary to the fence.

He’d already hoisted himself over. As Janelle
climbed the fence, one of the guys behind them shouted something
and laughed with his buddies. It was pretty obvious what they
thought she and Gary were planning to do. She ignored them.
Obnoxious guys were the least of their worries.

“Is this necessary?” she called out as she
landed on the other side.

“Yeah. You’ll see,” Gary said, trudging
forward.

The beach in front of them was littered with
boards and splintered plywood, which stuck up like the spikes on
the back of a buried dinosaur. Curtains, trash, and even something
that looked like a teddy bear lay half-buried in the sand. Whoever
owned this beach hadn't called in a cleanup crew yet.

They walked along the beach in silence. Every
rock and piece of debris on the coast tried to trip her up. But at
least the catcalls of the other kids grew fainter behind them. That
was a plus. At last, only the cackles of seagulls could be heard
along with Gary's strained breathing next to her. He kept his gaze
out to sea as if trying to avoid staring at the land around him and
at the destruction along the coast.

Janelle glanced up at clusters of battered
trees and houses. No one came out to yell at them for trespassing.
It wasn’t like they could, anyway. Most of the homes sported blue
tarps and missing walls, and a few had been reduced to
half-standing piles of rubble. It looked as if no one would dare
live here again.

“That’s where we’re going.” Gary pointed to a
huge dock ahead that stretched over the beach. “The tide’s out
right now, so we can go under and no one will notice us.”

“Is this that bad?” If he had to drag her way
out here, it couldn’t be good.

Gary didn’t answer.

After five long minutes, the dock blocked out
the sun. Janelle’s sneakers sunk into the wet sand as a chill swept
through her. Whatever Gary had to say couldn’t be minor if he’d
gone to this length to do it. “Okay. Get it over with. The more you
wait, the more nervous I get.”

Gary backed slowly towards the water. “The
ocean’s what gives us our power, Janelle. If we’re too far away
from it, we don’t get the whole increased strength and the ability
to control wind. That’s why you seemed normal until you moved
here.”

“That makes sense, I guess. I was living a
thousand miles from the ocean all my life.” The tingle coursed
through her body in waves. Water lurched at the sand as if it were
trying to reach for them.

“It’s more, though.” Gary’s voice cracked as
he turned away and stared into the water. “It’s also
a…catalyst…that can make us release our full power, whether we want
to or not. Don’t you get why I share my name with that storm? Why I
appeared right there when it died? I know you saw that. I can
remember your face.”

A fantastic and terrifying thought crept into
her mind, paralyzing her. Gary…Hurricane Gary…Gary. “Uh…”

“That’s what happens when Tempests touch the
ocean,” he said, leaning against a wooden pole and burying his face
in the crook of his arm. His words seemed to race and fall apart as
he spoke. “You just had a small reaction since it was a bowl of
water that fell on you, but diving into that is a different story.
You…change. And you can’t stop it. The other Tempests forced me to
go because my name came up on that storm naming list. That meant it
was my time. I tried to escape, but my guardian had me thrown in
the water. I tried to calm down before I got to shore. That’s why
my guardian’s pissed at me. She wanted more destruction, more
deaths. As if the five people I killed aren’t enough to make me
feel like crap for the rest of my life.”

“What?” Janelle’s pulse roared in her ears.
She couldn't stop what she blurted next. “So you’re telling me that
because your name came up on that list they use to name tropical
storms, you were tossed into the ocean against your will, which
made you turn into a hurricane and slam into the coast. And then
when you were over land, you changed back and passed out right in
front of me.” It was a joke. It had to be. This wasn't a concept
most people could even be capable of thinking of.

Gary let his arm slap down to his side, but
still he didn't face her. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m
saying.”

She took a step back, stumbling over a slimy
rock. The bottom of the dock seemed to be coming down on her,
closing in. “No. I don’t believe you. I refuse. Do you think I'm
going to take your word on that? Just tell me the real truth,
Gary."

Gary faced her, trembling. His pupils had
dilated. “Then how come I can do this?” He raised a hand in the air
as if to say
stop
, and a wind whipped underneath the dock,
pushing Janelle’s hair into her face. Before she had a chance to
flinch, he continued. “And this?” He dropped his hand and the wind
died. “And what about this?” Whirling around, he faced the water
and focused on it. The ocean started to tumble up and down, defying
the calm day. Whitecaps grew taller and grabbed for the sand,
hugging Gary’s feet and racing for Janelle.

She leapt out of the way and watched the
water retreat. The world seemed to tilt around her. She'd taken his
bait and fallen into a trap. “Gary, stop this! I don’t want to see
any more.”

Another burst of wind whistled past as water
swirled around Gary’s feet and retracted into the ocean. He
trembled as if he’d just put his hands on an electric fence. Now
was he having a seizure on top of all this?

Janelle ran for him, searching for her phone
with one hand and slapping her hand down on his shoulder with the
other, prepared to call an ambulance. “Gary!”

He turned to face her and she had to choke
down a scream.