Tempest (#1 Destroyers Series)

by Holly Hook

TEMPEST

  Book 1 of the Destroyers Series

  By

  Holly A. Hook

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Holly A. Hook

  Tempest

  Copyright 2014 Holly A. Hook

  Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc., https://www.gobookcoverdesign.com

  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.

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  TEMPEST

  * * * * *

  Chapter One

  Janelle shuddered. This storm was going to kill her.

  Mountains of black clouds lumbered through the sky. The wind screamed and the window trembled. Legions of raindrops battered the glass. It was the only shield between her and death.

  Janelle’s heart threatened to beat its way out of her throat. She’d sat through a few bad thunderstorms back in Michigan. Once, their old storage shed blew over. Another time, they lost a tree. But this was too much. Florida officially sucked. She'd been here a few days and was already sitting through her first hurricane.

  “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 out of that megaphone when they drove through earlier?"

  Her father turned. He had his hands behind his back, almost like he wanted to tell her something. He was calm. Relaxed. How many hurricanes had he been through? He’d grown up here in Palm Grove. “Janelle, you’re overreacting. Keep your emotions under control.”

  She turned away and sighed. That’s what he always said when she dared show she had feelings. Don’t get mad, Janelle. Don’t get frustrated. Keep a level head. Get straight A’s all the time. Get a job and join every after school club you can. What was he training her to do—become the President?

  It didn’t matter now. If that was going to happen, she had to live through today.

  The rain got louder, adding to the roar. The roof creaked. Every single bush and tree in their yard bent over as if pointing them back to Michigan. To her best friend, Leslie, who probably thought she'd come to a sunny paradise, gawking at shirtless guys at the beach.

  Snap. A blur moved across the street. A tree had fallen. Her father stood there, watching.

  Janelle dodged behind the couch, closer to the glow of the television. It might protect her a little if the window blew out. “Please. I want to go to the shelter.”

  Footsteps approached. Eyes shining, her dad spoke in an even voice. “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.”

  “How do you know we're safe for sure?”

  Behind him, a piece of sheet metal cut through the rain and somersaulted down the street.

  He bit his lip and spoke. “I…I just do. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Something was way, way wrong here. This wasn’t like him at all. Her dad was always Mr. Knee Pads, Mr. Bike Helmet and Mr. Burglar Alarm. “Aren’t you watching the weather?” She broke away, stepped over a moving box and turned up 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.

  “What if this ends up like Hurricane Andrina where like, eight hundred people drowned? We could die if we stay here!”

  Her father flinched, breathed out, and looked away. Maybe she was getting through to him after all. But then he picked up the remote off the bookshelf and turned off the TV.

  The storm sounded so much worse now without any noise to drown it out.

  “Honey, 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.” She had to escape. The house felt as safe as a cardboard box. 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. Her dad expected her to do everything herself, anyway. “Where are the keys?”

  “I’ve got them.” Her dad fiddled with his shirt sleeve, messing with the button at his wrist. He looked lost.

  A car alarm went off somewhere across the street. “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.”

  A loud rap on the door made her jump back against the fridge. “Open up! Police!”

  “Thank you!” Janelle ran 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 kitchen tile. 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. A man in a dripping yellow rain slicker stood on the porch, bracing himself against the wind and a black police car waited 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.

  “No, we’re not.”

  “Mister,” the cop spoke with the voice that could have stopped a rhinoceros in its tracks. “Do you care about your daughter’s safety? We’re taking her whether or not you want to stay.”

  Her father withered. Janelle was glad to see it. This was more like her father, who was horrified to get a parking ticket. “All right. Let’s go.”

  The officer waved them out into the curtains of rain. Her father pulled her close and they ran. A gust almost knocked her skinny legs out from under her.

  Her dad’s truck blinked its headlights as he hit the remote to unlock it. He 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. Dripp
ing, she spat out blond strands of 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. The officer climbed into his own vehicle and waited.

  “You okay?” Janelle asked. She was so relieved to be going to the shelter that she couldn’t feel mad at him anymore.

  He wiped off his glasses and started the truck. “Of course. Just got a little wet.”

  You could’ve gotten killed, she wanted to say. A piece of debris could have hit them both. A tree could have crushed them.

  She didn't want to think about that now.

  The police car backed out of the driveway, and he followed. 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. A metal piece of something blew across the street ahead. Her father tapped the steering wheel with one hand. He didn’t even seem nervous.

  Maybe he was just too fatigued from the move to think straight. Yeah, that had to be it.

  Janelle 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. He wasn’t going to lecture her about hurricanes now.

  “Doing okay?” he asked.

  “Now I am.”

  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 opened their glove compartment. Her dad was also Mr. First Aid Kit. The plastic box toppled onto Janelle’s lap. “Use a bandage. 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 looked down at her birthmark. The gray spiral had been on her upper arm her whole life like some kind of tattoo. It had to be the weirdest birthmark in the history of the world, but Janelle had gotten used to it. It started conversations. People thought it was cool.

  But right now it sent a little shudder over her skin. It looked kind of like 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 her dad had a point. She dug through the kit for a large bandage and slapped it over the spiral.

  “The high school should be coming up.” Her father turned down a side street. “I’m sure they’re still using the same building since I went there.”

  “Good,” she breathed. It was hard to believe she'd be attending her father's old school in days. Why had he even moved here, anyway? His parents had died a long time ago and none of his old friends had talked to him much since he'd moved up to Michigan to marry her mother.

  A curtain of rain moved aside. One of the telephone poles ahead leaned towards the street.

  A fist of panic squeezed Janelle's insides. The pole looked like it might--

  The cruiser passed it safely, but her father hummed and drove closer to the falling pole and wires. He hadn’t noticed it.

  Janelle grabbed the sides of her seat. “Um…” It was all she could manage.

  With a great roar of wind, the pole lurched down, wires whipping overhead like hungry snakes. Her father slammed the brakes, but the truck screeched and went into a skid.

  “Dad!” Janelle broke her paralysis and raised her hands as the pole descended. It was all over. Done. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the impact.

  It never came.

  She lowered her hands. "What the--"

  The telephone pole had stopped falling right above them and now trembled against a burst of wind…a burst going in the opposite direction as it had before.

  “Go!” Janelle slapped the dashboard so hard her palms stung.

  With the squealing of tires, the truck lurched forward. Janelle twisted around in time to see the pole fall to the street as if released by a tired giant, dragging its wires with it. Sparks shot up from the ground and died.

  “That was way too close.” She folded her arms to keep them from shuddering, but it did no good.

  Her father turned up the air conditioning and stayed silent. He’d gone somewhere into his own world.

  “What’s wrong with you, Dad? This isn’t making any sense. That telephone pole almost crushed us.”

  He said nothing to this.

  The cruiser led them down a third street, one free of telephone poles. A yellow sign emerged from the rain. Palm Grove High School. They’d made it.