by Holly Hook
* * * * *
My mother died fourteen years ago.
All Janelle could do was lie on the bed and repeat the thought to herself. It was the only thing that kept her from screaming and pounding the mattress. She had sunk into a pit so deep she might never get out again.
My mother died fourteen years ago she died she died…
Did she know what I am?
Gary got up—he hadn’t moved from her side in an hour—and came back with an ice pack smashed against his bruise. “Good thing she didn’t catch me getting in the freezer. She would’ve given me another black eye to match this one. You want to share this? You’ve got to have a headache by now.”
“Okay.” Yes, she had a headache, though she'd hardly noticed until now. Janelle sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees.
Dad only lied to keep me safe from this.
Gary pressed the ice pack up against her temple. The cold seeped in through her skin, taking the headache away.
“Thanks,” she said, swallowing the hurt inside. She wanted to let Gary take away the rest of her pain for a while. The photo of her mother was still lying on the floor. Janelle wanted to get up and grab it, but…she couldn’t.
Would she have loved her and her father if she’d known the truth?
Somewhere up front, Andrina yelled at whoever was steering the yacht to pick up speed. Whoever had to take her wrath didn’t argue.
Was Andrina really her mother? That might be why she'd come to her school claiming she was a relative.
“Where’s Alara?” she asked Gary to distract herself.
“Not sure.” Gary put the ice pack to his own head and settled next to her, making the mattress sag. He was so close…“I know it’s far away from other islands, maybe south of the Bahamas. When I stole one of Andrina’s boats one time, I couldn’t find any land anywhere. Her cronies caught me in less than a day. Now she keeps all the keys and nobody can take a boat without her permission.” The bed creaked as he shifted weight. “Ahhh. That feels good.”
The weight of her situation crashed down on her, tightening her chest. “So when we get there, we’re screwed. She'll be free to do whatever she does to make me kill more people."
“Exactly.” He stared at her with his good eye. “Well, you can always jump in the ocean and change before she gets a chance to brainwash you. Sorry.”
The weight became a cinder block, then a mountain, as she mulled the words. Out on this yacht, there might not be any other choices. Andrina must be counting on her to be too scared to attempt it. “I'm not sure if I can, Gary. And you need to get out of here more than I do. What if she kills you when we get there?” Janelle winced at her words.
He stared at the ceiling. “There’s nothing I can do about that.”
Janelle struggled to find the right thing to say, and found it floating in her sea of panic. “Bull. You can get away. If you change again, there’s no way they can catch you. And you won’t turn back until you find land. All you have to do is jump off the boat.”
He sat up with huge eyes—well, one huge eye—and dropped the ice pack to the bed. “No. I won’t do it again. It was bad enough last time. I only did what I had to do. It's against the Natural Law to change when it’s not your turn. That rule, I actually agree with.”
“But you can control yourself. You did it before. Just go somewhere that’s not too inhabited.” Her throat started to hurt. She couldn’t bear the thought of Andrina hurting Gary. He was so…vulnerable.
He sank lower, towards the bedspread. “Like where? I’m not doing it again if it means killing anyone else.” His head listed back. "I don't need to make my 'dad' any more right about leaving. I’m sure he’s really proud of me."
His words flew into her gut like a knife. She'd said the wrong thing, but couldn't stop now.
“But you’ll die if you don’t. And you can go somewhere like Canada, where you’ll get weak before you reach land. You could get out of killing people.”
He leaned closer. “And what about you, Janelle? You’ll be stuck with Andrina. I won't settle for that after all this.”
Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. For her, there was no way out. None. “She won’t kill me. I’m too valuable to her. And I am not letting her brainwash me.”
“She’s got ways. Andrina just tried to indoctrinate me, but she saves the real potent stuff for Tempests with loads of power. You remember Hurricane Joey from a few years back?”
Janelle nodded. It had been on the news for two weeks straight.
“I know Joey. He’s my friend who lives on Alara with me. He's from a family of powerful Tempests, kind of like you are. Me, I'm a bit more average, so I flew under the radar more. Joey swore he’d never hurt anyone when he changed, but when his time got close Andrina made him listen to some recordings in his sleep without realizing it. He wound up killing over ninety people.”
“Recordings? That's it?"
Gary’s voice dropped as he forced his bruised eye open. “It sounds stupid, but they work, all right. Well, on Tempests, anyway, on the part of us that…isn’t human. The part of us that can’t reason.”
Bile rose in Janelle’s throat. She wasn’t hearing this. “I’ll find some ear plugs, okay? You should go.”
He took her arm. His grip sent little tingles up her spine. “The only way I'm jumping off the boat is if you're coming with me.”
A chill swept through her, chasing the tingles away. No. She couldn’t. “Mr. Deville said that if I don’t change, all this Tempest stuff will stop. There might still be a way.”
Gary’s hazel eyes widened, even his swollen one. “You’re on a boat and headed to an island, Janelle. You’ll be outnumbered. I know this is the last thing either of us want to do, but it’s better than letting Andrina deal with you. Look, we can dive in and change at the same time. It’s been done before, so I know it’ll work. I don’t care how mad the Elder Council gets.”
“No.” She grasped the pillow, squeezing it tight. He made perfect sense, but she couldn’t give in. She couldn’t become…become…“I can’t do this.”
Andrina broke out into yelling somewhere near the front of the yacht. “Put away that magazine. I want us at Alara by noon tomorrow. I have limited time to prepare my daughter for the Operation. Full speed, now.”
Janelle squeezed her eyes shut as her skin crawled. She wished she could melt into the bed and vanish.
“Janelle, it’ll be okay. We’ll find a way to ditch her,” Gary said, sliding his hand over hers. His fingers nestled in between hers.
Warmth spread through her whole body. He was holding her hand. Really, really holding her hand this time. Fresh tingles washed over and through her. She faced him. What if—
Gary’s face slowly drifted towards hers.
And footsteps thudded closer and stopped at the doorway.
Janelle lifted her head as Gary jerked back. Andrina stood there, beckoning her with that fake smile. She looked more like a shark than ever in her gray suit.
If she'd seen their near-kiss, she gave no sign of it. “Come above decks with me, Janelle, and get some fresh air. You’ve been in here all day,” she spoke with a voice like satin. “I won’t push you into the water. Unlike your father, I’m truthful.”
“Leave me alone.” Every good tingle she’d just had vanished.
The high heels came closer, making muffled taps on the carpet. Andrina wrapped her bony hand around her forearm. Her skin tightened at her touch. “I insist.”
Janelle rose, eyes downcast, trying to hide her racing pulse and her breathing that was about to go out of control. This was it. Once above decks, she and Gary would have to find a way to jump at the same time. She glanced at Gary, who nodded. It was a go, then.
“I’d like to come up, too.” Gary said, standing. “I need some fresh air.”
“You s
tay here,” Andrina snarled. “This has nothing to do with you. I suggest you sit here and think about your failure as a Tempest instead, and how you’re going to make up for that.”
Janelle opened her mouth to say something to Andrina, but an invisible hand of terror had seized her vocal cords.
The honey coating returned to her captor’s voice as she tugged on her arm. “Come on, Janelle.”
Janelle stared down at the floor as they walked into the hallway, pretending that Andrina wasn't there. She ran her free hand along the polished cabinets, focusing on the patterns in the wood.
The hallway opened up into an oval-shaped living room, where two leather couches faced each other. A glass coffee table was littered with playing cards. Ivanna and another woman took up one of the couches with the two black-haired men opposite them that she'd never seen before. Andrina's crew or attendants, she decided.
This was worse than she’d expected. Any hope Janelle had that she and Gary could take control of the yacht evaporated like a puddle in a desert.
“When am I getting paid?” Ivanna chirped.
Andrina stuck her nose up, pulling Janelle towards a sliding door. It had gone completely dark outside, revealing all the stars overhead. The aroma of the ocean invaded Janelle’s nostrils the second they stepped out. A breeze tousled her hair as she stepped up onto the deck and towards the railing that she and Gary would go over in a minute.
After closing the door, Andrina released her arm. She was counting on her being too afraid to jump, after all.
All the muscles in her body tensed as she resisted the urge to move away from Andrina. Gary would come out any second, if he could fight past the crew inside.
Andrina stared down at the undulating water below. The light from the windows illuminated her gray business suit. “You hate what you are. I was afraid this would happen.”
Foam and bubbles floated and whispered past the boat. The Tempest High Leader gripped the railing so hard that her knuckles stuck out.
The words poured from Janelle’s mouth and she couldn’t stop them. “You’re not my mother. Even if you gave birth to me. All you care about is killing people.”
The ocean continued to whisper below. When she jumped, would she kill hundreds even without being forced to listen to those recordings or whatever was waiting for her at Alara? But she'd have a better chance of not doing so if she went now. Her father and uncle hadn't been that bad when they'd transformed, despite being the sons of Camellia.
"I care about the safety of my people.” Andrina raised her head to stare into the expanse of darkness. “I know firsthand what can happen if we're discovered. My human mother stabbed my Tempest father to death while he was taking a nap. And then, she tried to kill me. She learned what we were and she hated us.” Andrina faced her, the grays of her eyes deepening in the yellow light. The railing started to warp—actually warp—in her grip. “To this day, I remember the blood dripping from the knife she was holding. I was seven years old. Seven.”
Janelle squirmed in discomfort under her gaze. Was she telling the truth? When was Gary going to get out here?
Andrina turned to Janelle with a swishing sound. Her eyes blazed. “I’ll never forget what she said. ‘You’re a monster and I can’t let you live.’” A pause. "Even at that age, I knew I had to defend myself. I had to hurl my dresser at my mother as she raised the knife.”
“Most people aren’t like that. That was one human out of billions.”
Andrina shot her a look of doubt that made the pain squeeze tighter inside her. “After that, my Tempest grandfather took me and raised me. I took over as Tempest High Leader when he died twenty years ago. I’ve made it my mission to do something about the threat to our existence. To protect you.”
“Then let me go.”
Thumps and shouting erupted from inside the yacht.
Her heart leapt into her throat. That meant one thing. Gary was fighting his way through the other Tempests and coming outside.
It was time.
The door slid open with a bang. Gary plowed through the exit with Ivanna and the two men thudding up the stairs behind him. “Now, Janelle!” He reached for her arm and seized it.
An explosion of panic filled her chest, but she ran, trying not to think about what was about to happen.
The railing drew closer and the dark ocean lapped up and down, expecting them. Andrina’s heels clicked somewhere. The salty breeze blew right into Janelle’s face, sending the strongest tingle yet through her body.
Gary leapt over the railing.
She started to go down too, but another hand seized her shoulder from behind. She stopped. Gary's grip broke, pulled down by gravity. Janelle yanked her arm back just in time to watch Gary plummet to the water with a splash.
Chapter Fourteen
