Hurricane Kiss (4 page)

Chapter 6

JILLIAN

River can't sit still. He shifts in his seat every which way, eyes fixed on two guys tossing a football, a muscle in his jaw twitching.

I keep replaying the past.

Once you met River, you couldn't not think about him. It was like he had you under his spell, which sounds cheesy and ridiculous, only it wasn't. It was true. The mop of dirty blond curls against the sharp planes of his tanned face, the disarming stare, his lean strength. I remember talking to Sari and Kelly about how hard the team worked out to stay in shape.

“Imagine running six miles and then showering before an eight o'clock class, and then after class going to practice for three hours,” Sari said.

“If things are going well,” Kelly added. “The other day Briggs made Ryan run another five after practice.”

“They call those ‘suicide runs,'” Sari said.

That didn't leave much time for studying or a life. But River must have kept his grades up because you had to, to stay on the team.

The poster on Briggs's office door summed it up best. Beneath his picture it said: “I hate losing more than I love winning.”

Everyone thought it was funny.

RIVER

My dad is losing it now. The control freak can't stand feeling helpless.

“It's got to start moving,” he says, surfing for traffic updates or anything to explain why in five hours we could have walked farther. Finally, we hear something. A few miles up, there's an intersection with traffic lights. The number of cars alone is slowing things to a crawl.

“Can't they just turn off the lights and let traffic pass through?” Jillian asks.

“That would make too much sense,” my dad says.

I drop half a pill down my throat. He sees it and turns back to the road clenching his jaw. Some days I think about downing the whole goddamn bottle. At least the craziness would go away. Forever.

Jillian's texting again. Must be killing her dick boyfriend to know she's in the car with the big, bad wolf. That's something to smile about anyway.

Chapter 7

14 HOURS TO LANDFALL

JILLIAN

Text from Aidan.
How's it going?


Boring. U?


Better if you were here. Xo.


Aidan opens doors for me, takes me to dinner and the movies, and even does sweet things like buy me ladybug earrings for my birthday and perfume from Victoria's Secret.

“It's sweet, and so are you,” said his card to me on my birthday. Kind of Hallmark-y, but cute.

And it was cool to go to the basketball games and sit in a reserved front-row seat to watch him play, seeing him glance out at me as if he were playing for me alone. Sometimes he'd wink at me before a free throw, as if to say, “Watch me ace this,” and then look back at me and smile after he made the basket.

What I don't tell anyone is that when we kiss and he says, “I love you,” I don't always say it back.

“Don't you love Aidan?” Kelly once asked me.

“I totally like him. If you love someone at first sight, it usually goes downhill from there.” I'd read that somewhere. It sounded reasonable.

Kelly rolled her eyes. “Who came up with that theory?”

Right or wrong, I was the only one of my friends who hadn't seriously hooked up with anyone. So when Aidan came along, he seemed perfect. He liked me, he wanted to be with me, and he had a brain—aside from math, that is—and a great body. What more could I want?

Most of the girls and all the gay guys in school have crushed on Aidan, but he doesn't seem to be aware of it, or he pretends he isn't. I'm the only one he's interested in.

When he found out my mom was staying in Houston to cover the storm, but I was leaving with River and Harlan, he freaked.

“River?”

“And his dad.”

Aidan hates River, despises even hearing his name ever since the picnic—almost six months ago. If I just mention him in passing, Aidan's face will turn cold.

“Don't go with them … come with us,” he said, insistently. “We have an Expedition, there's so much room.”

“You're acting like I'm running away with him. His dad is driving. They'll be dropping me off. I'll be fine.”

“It doesn't bother you?”

“What?”

“Being with River,” he said, like I was a moron.

“You're making it into this whole big thing. I'll be in the backseat by myself, texting you and playing games on my phone.”

“He's got this dark history,” he said. “You don't know the things they say about him and why he was thrown out … they—”

“—If my mom's not worried, why are you?”

“Jillian …” his voice trailed off and he went silent the way he always does when he gets mad.

I sit in the backseat—sweat dripping down my face, watching people outside eating sandwiches out of a picnic basket—and I replay that night. Last April, less than six months ago. The school's annual full-moon picnic.

After the drama club put on the play, we swarmed the picnic tables like locusts, eating the six-foot hero sandwiches and then playing Frisbee. The Frisbee got tossed out into the field, and I went searching for it in the dark. Only River got there before me. He found me hunting for it and wouldn't give it back until I kissed him. That was the crazy tradition—at the full-moon picnic, everyone had to kiss someone.

“Initiate me,” he said with his flirty smile.

I started to object, not sure how to explain, and then decided that was silly. He'd just give me a quick kiss on the cheek. Why make a big deal of it?

But River saw it differently.

He eased toward me, his face so close I could feel the heat of his skin. I thought he'd kiss me right away, but he didn't, not at first. He took his thumb and rubbed it across my bottom lip, back and forth, back and forth, and then slowly and softly, his lips met mine. Out of nowhere the heat flared up between us. An attraction that I didn't know existed left me nearly powerless. Chemistry. I'd heard the word a thousand times before, but until then, I'd never understood what it meant.

River knew how to kiss, really kiss. Not like Aidan. Not like anyone I had ever kissed before. For just a few seconds, I let myself kiss him back, meeting his soft, slow, intoxicating rhythm. Neither of us wanted to stop, but then I did. I told him I had a boyfriend.

And out of nowhere, Aidan's face appeared—and everything exploded.

The thrum of a text jars me from my thoughts.

Kelly.
How's it going?


Standing still. You?


Stuck in sucky traffic. Stopping next gas station. How's R?


Not talking to me much.
I bite at my lip.

Better.


River zones when he's not making snarky comments. Part of me just wants someone to talk to, to connect with to pass the time, but I'm not about to start a lame conversation. Do you miss football? How's your job at Whole Foods? You into quinoa now?

He's closed off. Not that it matters. After today, who knew if we'd even be alive. If only my mom were here, or Kelly or Sari. We'd be singing with our music, talking about kids in our grade, or playing dumb games instead of sitting in stony silence. We should all be mocking Danielle, showing her what we think of her. I should have gone with Aidan.

I text,
Wish I were with you.


Me too. Luv you.


“Anyone want snacks or water?” Harlan reaches into a food bag and takes out a gallon-size Ziploc bag of granola bars.

“Thanks, I'm good,” I say.

He unwraps one and bites into it, filling the air with a gross peanut smell.

“I feel sick,” River says, staring out the window.

“Open the door, get some air,” Harlan says. “It's not like we're going anywhere.”

River doesn't move.

I open the window far enough to slide my arm out and then draw it back, running my fingers over my skin. Sweat? Moisture in the air? Or my imagination? But it isn't. The windshield is clouding over with a misting of rain.

This so sucks
, I text Sari.

My blood is standing still
, she says.
So packed in, impossible to move.


“The jerk meteorologists are wrong as usual,” River says, punching the sunroof. A moment later he opens his seat belt and reaches up to turn a knob that slides opens the sunroof.

What is he doing?

RIVER

I can't sit in this goddamn car anymore and wait to die. I feel like my hands are tied behind me in a straitjacket and I can't move. I flash back to the center and want to heave. I thought those things were used centuries ago, that even hellholes like the one I was in had abandoned them. I was wrong.

I watch my dad. He sits there without moving, his face showing nothing. I wonder sometimes if he has feelings anymore or whether everything inside him has dried up and all that's left is a hard shell—the focused badass marine who has a job to do and does it without questioning anything or listening to anybody else.

Retreat, hell!

Ready for all, yielding to none.

He's so brainwashed by their mottos he closes himself off to the truth.

I stare around me at the scene, and it's like watching a horror movie about life on earth about to end. I want to get away from this goddamn car and these people. I want to run. It's the only way I feel alive. It's the only way I know I still have a beating heart inside me. Running stops the pain. It stops the panic. It stops the memories. Christ, I need to get out of this car.
Now!
I slam my fist into the roof and enjoy the pain.

JILLIAN

“Danielle,” River yells out, making a megaphone with his hands as he stands up on the seat, his head outside the car. “You stupid bitch.”

“River,” his dad says, in a low, controlled voice, “get back inside.”

“You bitch,” River yells even louder. “B-i-t-c-h. B-i-t-c-h, b-i-t-c-h, b-i-t-c-h, b-i-t-c-h. Eight hours away, huh? You're right above our heads, aren't you?”

He's yelling at the top of his lungs, like he's trying to connect with a sound system in heaven that will carry him on its frequency so he has a direct line to Danielle.

“B-i-t-c-h, b-i-t-c-h, b-i-t-c-h,” he goes on, probably ripping his vocal cords out.

Fury, rage, all pouring out of him. Do I laugh or cry? He starts pounding, pounding, pounding his fists on the roof of the car.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM BOOM BOOM.

“Stupid fucking gas guzzler, traffic victim,” he yells. “I could have gone to Austin and back on my bike by now.” He pounds and keeps pounding.

“River!” Harlan yells again. “You're going to smash the goddamned roof in.”

People in the cars around us are staring now, convinced they're watching an insane person. But then their faces start to change, and they're laughing with him because he's giving voice to what everyone is thinking and feeling. They're all as angry and frustrated as he is, ready to shriek their heads off too because of how this freakish storm has disrupted their lives, not knowing what, if anything, they'll have when they return, and it scares the hell out of them.

Only they're also probably thinking why bother, what good would it do? They're hot, thirsty, and tired enough, so let him be the show.

River doesn't have to worry about getting busted for disturbing the peace. The cops couldn't get to him if they tried.

Harlan stares out his side window, a vein in his jaw throbbing.

“Danielle,” River yells out again, just when I thought he would stop. “Are you going to kill us all, huh? Drown us, or what? Tell me, I want to hear the plan. Are you going to blow our heads off, or drown us after you destroy our lives and everything around us while we're jailed in our cars trying to escape you? You're a sadistic bitch, Danielle.”

He goes on like that.

“You lowlife bbbbbbbiiiiiiiiiitttttttccccccch.”

“River,” Harlan says in a low, measured voice. River still ignores him, and Harlan's face reddens. “River!” he says, punching the steering wheel.

When is he going to stop? Is he completely out of his mind? I grab my water. A tiny sip and then I press my head into the back of the seat. An inkblot of sweat darkens River's red T-shirt at the small of his back, like some mutant butterfly from a Rorschach test. When he lifts his arms, I see a swath of skin with a tattoo across the small of his back. It reads:
Never. Give. In.

Standing and yelling his head off eventually wears him out. He reaches for water and downs half a bottle. I focus on something in one of his back pockets as he ducks back down into his seat.

A knife.

Take only what's essential.

River turns to his dad. “We're never going to make it to Austin,” he says in a whisper, like someone bipolar who has slid back to calm.

“What are you talking about?”

He wipes his sweating face with the back of his hand. “Open your eyes, look at the sky.”

Harlan looks up and then back at River. He doesn't answer.

RIVER

I don't want to start this, but I'm out of options. I turn to face her for the first time since we left. Our eyes lock. Her face is flushed, hot, sweat dots the curve of her full upper lip. She looks away first.

“We have to get inside somewhere.”

She looks back to me, narrowing her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“If we stay in this car we're dead; we'll be caught in the middle of it.”

“You don't know that for sure.”

“No? Look at the sky. We might have a few hours, maybe less. Traffic isn't moving, more and more cars are going to get on the highway as the weather gets worse. You don't have to be Einstein to know if we stay here we'll be buried. This is a death trap.”

My dad scratches the back of his head. “River, it's not going to hit so soon. We'll move. We'll get to Austin, OK? Stop freaking out.”

“Stop freaking out?” I turn to him, furious. “Reality check. You're the one who should be freaking out.” His jaw tightens.

Jillian's face darkens as the truth hits her. My dad's impassive stare says I'm right, only he can't admit it, he won't, because he doesn't know what to do, and he's in charge here, or he thinks he should be.

But since when does being older make you right?
Sorry, dude, you're blowing this mission. Your troops are dead in the water if they follow you.

Jillian looks at the sky. Is her psycho neighbor right or not? Should she trust me? Tough call. I doubt I'd trust me.

I wish my grandmother were here. When bad weather was coming, she used to say, “I feel it in my bones.” She was always right, like she had a direct line to the universe. It blew me away. What would my dad say to her now if she were here and could predict how much time we had? Knowing him, he'd blow her off.

The sky's already changing, the wind building.

“We'll get off at the next exit, gas up, and take stock,” my dad says, because it sounds like a plan. “We don't have many options. It's either stay on the road which might open up, or get out and get stuck in what, some overcrowded gas station or 7-Eleven without our things?” He looks around and shakes his head. “We're in the middle of nowhere. No hotels. What's here—fast food joints, a body shop? What would we do, sleep in the car? Under an overpass? My vote is to keep going unless we hear different.”

Sure. Exactly what he would say.

“Life or death without a survival guide,” I whisper. Jillian looks at me and opens her mouth to speak, but no words come out.

“My vote is go back to Houston,” I say. “We've gone less than fifteen miles. Turn around and floor it and we'll be back in ten minutes. It's a big city. There are brick buildings, places to hide. Everything can't be closed.”

“We're not going back,” my dad says. “They told us to evacuate. You're suggesting we drive back into the center of the storm? The hotels are all closed. What would we do, break in somewhere?”