Tempest (#1 Destroyers Series) (4 page)

“So, you survived? You’re okay? I’ve been
worrying since you told me your dad was moving you in
yesterday.”

“Uh?” Janelle blinked a few times and
recognized the voice. “Oh, hi Leslie.” She paused, trying to get
her bearings. "Worried? You and me both.” Should she tell her
friend about her father’s weirdness and the water vortex? The whole
day felt ready to burst out of her.

“I was so worried about you. I miss you
already. Class is going to suck this year without you around to
help me with Trig. Oh, well. I’ll just have to ask Todd. So, tell
me all about it.”

It was the invitation she needed to start
talking. She left out the water vortex--she wasn't sure why, but it
made her stomach lurch in warning when she started to tell Leslie
about it--but included everything else. There was no sense in
making her friend think that all her Honors classes had finally
melted her brain, like she always used to say at her old
school.

Fortunately, Leslie didn't dwell too much on
her weird story. After a flurry of
that's so weird
and
that's not like your dad at all,
she said, “You should go
visit that guy if you can find out what hospital he’s in. Make sure
he’s okay. It might help you figure out why he was out in the
storm, at least. Just be careful, though.”

“Careful?"

"Well, what are the chances of him randomly
having that mark on his arm just like yours? Maybe he's a distant
relative of yours, and that gray spiral is some kind of genetic
thing. That
is
the area your dad's originally from. So until
you know, don't go asking him for dates or anything."

She hadn't thought of that. "You can find
explanations for everything, Leslie." Well, except for her dad's
behavior and the fact that her house was unscathed. Even she hadn't
had any logical ideas for those. "You know--that makes me feel
better. Thanks. And that's a great idea. Going to the hospital, I
mean. I'll ask my dad where the closest one is and see if he can
take me there."

"Guilt trip him. After the day he put you
through, he won't be able to say no."

Thirty minutes later, Janelle managed to get
off the phone with Leslie. She rushed out into the living room,
where she found her dad sitting on the couch and staring down into
a glass of cranberry juice like it was a crystal ball ready to show
him the future. A pair of emergency candles burned on either side
of the table and cast a flicker on the walls. Somewhere, a drill
sounded off down the street.

He glanced up at her and swallowed, shadows
dancing across his face. “I’m sorry about scaring you earlier. I
don't know what I was thinking."

This was the opportunity Leslie had told her
about, and it was almost guaranteed to work. As soon as they were
settled in, she'd invite her down here for a week and hit the
beach. “Apology accepted. Where’s the nearest hospital?”

His eyebrows lifted. “You want to see that
boy.” Would he go for it? If her dad really did remember tugging
his sleeve down over his mark, it might go from an unofficial yes
to a no in an instant.

Heat crept up her cheeks. Good thing for the
power outage. “I just want to see if he’s all right.”
And if our
birthmarks are somehow connected
, she thought. “I helped drag
him out of the storm. How do we know he’s not lying there in
critical condition?”

Her father put his chin in his hand and
studied the floor. “He was looking better before the ambulance even
came to get him. I'm sure he needs his rest, so it might not be a
good idea.”

“Come on, Dad. I don't know anyone here. If
he goes to my school, it would be a good way to start making
friends. It won't be easy starting in a new place without some
connections."

He sighed, deep in thought, as she plotted
ways to get to the hospital without him knowing. “Okay," he said at
last, as reluctant as he'd been letting her go to the movies with
Leslie by herself for the first time two years ago. "He’s probably
at Laverne Medical Center. That’s ten miles north of here. I’ll
take you there tomorrow. It’ll be good for you to meet others, and
it’ll give you a chance to see the area. Did you catch his
name?”

Good. Results. She'd have to call Leslie
tomorrow and tell her the guilt trip idea was a hit. “No. Um…how
are we going to find his room? Hospitals are huge. We can't just go
around peeking in everyone's rooms for him.”

“Oh, I’ll find a way.” Smiling, he pointed
down the hall. “Why don’t you go get some unpacking done if you’re
feeling better? It’ll make less to do tomorrow.”

Flashlight in tow, she unpacked her large
collection of books and did battle with the wires of her computer,
glad for the mindless work that took away the day behind her. Her
pictures came out of another box: one of her and her father working
at a soup kitchen last winter, another of her and Leslie at the
amusement park. The one of her mother came out last. The
curly-haired woman smiled at her from in front of Lake Huron,
holding up a huge fish. It was one of the only pictures of her they
owned. That one had to go on her night table.

The bandage started to itch again as she went
through a box of yearbooks. She’d forgotten about it until now.
Wincing, Janelle peeled it off to reveal her own birthmark.
Or
maybe you just
think
it’s a birthmark,
a little voice
said in the back of her mind, despite her phone call with Leslie
earlier. The gray swirls she had grown used to her entire life
seemed alien now, sinister in the dim light. Janelle had a sudden
urge to ask her father for a cover-up tattoo, and she wasn’t sure
why.

* * * * *

The cool shade of a palm tree washed over
Janelle as her father parked beside it. Laverne Medical Center
towered overhead with its seven floors. Janelle’s palms tingled
with nerves. Maybe Vortex Guy would have some earth-shattering
revelation about their birthmarks, if he was even here. With her
luck, he’d been checked out and released to his parents already. Or
maybe the mundane was true and Leslie was right, that the gray
spiral was a rare gene floating around the Palm Grove area after
all. That, of course, didn't explain anything else about
yesterday.

Janelle kept her musings to herself as they
climbed out of the truck. She had a feeling if she brought it up to
her dad, he'd find an excuse to drive them both back home.

“I’ll go up and ask around for him. You wait
here,” her father said once they’d entered the main lobby.

“Why?” she asked. “I’m not a baby. I can do
it myself. And I want to ask about volunteering here if I can,
since I'll be getting my license soon.” She'd never gotten the
chance back at home.

“Just sit tight,” he said, turning away and
heading for the elevator. "Don't wander off. Stay here where the
security guys can see you."

Baby.
That little voice reared up in
her mind again. When was he going to realize that she could do
things on her own? She'd had to get perfect grades her entire
student career just to keep him off her back, not to mention sign
up for enough after school activities to consume most of her
out-of-class life. By now, he owed her some freedom, and it seemed
like she'd never get it until she moved out.

Janelle sighed and paced around the waiting
room, watching the same news stories on TV loop over and over: the
crappy economy, another food recall, a big controversy over the
comment of a talk show host, a celebrity in the hospital for a toe
infection. Of course, Hurricane Gary made one of the slots, with
two deaths already reported from the storm surge south of Palm
Grove. Another meteorologist pointed out a new storm forming in the
Atlantic, Tropical Storm Heather, but Janelle sagged with relief
when he said it was supposed to weaken and die without coming near
land. Good. She didn’t need any more problems. The weatherman moved
on to talk about a long drought in the Northeast when someone
tapped on Janelle’s shoulder.

“You ready?”

Janelle whirled around to face her dad. “So
is—”

“He’s on the third floor. I went up to let
him know you’re coming. I'm guessing they've done some tests on
him, but he seems to be okay." He stared up at the drought story as
he dug into his pocket. “Why don’t you get him something out of
that gift shop over there? Here’s ten.”

Janelle strode into the gift shop and
agonized over her choices for several minutes. This was going to be
her first impression, and if it turned out this guy wasn't related
to her, she didn't want it to be a bad one. But why did everything
have to be pink? Or flowery? Or both?
She
didn't even like
the color, and she had a feeling that Vortex Guy wouldn't, either.
Ultimately she decided on a teddy bear in a blue
Get Well
Soon
T-shirt.

“I hope he doesn’t think this is too girly.”
Janelle pushed open the glass door as she exited the gift shop,
hurrying out into the hallway. “Let’s—”

A squeal rang out next to her, turning the
heads of two passing women in scrubs. A janitor stopped to gawk,
letting his trash can roll into the wall with a bang.

Janelle turned to see what the sound was. The
metal door sagged in her hand as if depending on her for support,
hanging from its top hinge only. It was as if the Hulk or something
had pulled it right off. She stood, stunned, unable to come up with
an explanation as her father stared on, jaw falling open.
“Uh…what?”

“Oh, my.” The old woman from the gift shop
counter darted out to look at the damage, then Janelle. “You’re not
hurt, are you?” She took the door by the rim as Janelle let go and
shook her head. “The maintenance guys just put this in last week.
I’ll have to call them back down and give them an earful. Ted, can
you call them down?”

The janitor closed his mouth and reached for
his phone.

Janelle backed away and left the woman to
pull the door to the side. “I am
so
sorry.” What else was
she supposed to say?

The woman stared at her and shook her head.
"It's not your fault. It couldn't possibly have been."

Her father’s hand came down on her shoulder,
squeezing with urgency. “Let’s go. You need to be a bit more
careful, honey.”

She couldn’t tell if he was joking or
serious, so she kept her mouth shut as they boarded the elevator
and squeezed in next to a lunch cart. A mechanical failure. She'd
just pulled on the door at the wrong time. There was no other
explanation, and her father walked next to her, eyes pointed
straight ahead and not offering one, either.

Janelle’s stomach rumbled at the smell of
sloppy Joes, but she forced food from her mind when they came to a
small visitor’s lounge a minute later.

“Go on.” Her dad pointed to the corner ahead.
“Second to last room on the right. He didn't have any other
visitors, so we should be fine."

Finally. He trusted her to do something.
Janelle sucked in a breath and started down the hall. She weaved
past the beeping nurses’ station and dodged past carts, to where
the door to the second-to-last room stood wide open. Her throat
suddenly felt very dry.

Nobody took up the first bed, but the second
one had the curtain drawn. That had to be it. Janelle swallowed
over the lump in her throat and squeezed the teddy bear tighter.
Great. She was going to look nervous and stutter all her words.

A muffled female voice floated out from
behind the curtain, stopping Janelle in her tracks.

It was probably a doctor or nurse taking a
blood sample. Or his mom. Well, she hoped. She stopped and gripped
the plastic rail of the first bed. What if he had a girlfriend
visiting him? Sure, this teddy bear thing would go over really
well.

“…disappointed in that, to say the least.
You’ve completely wasted your full potential. You were doing great
there for a few days, and it looked like we’d have something to
celebrate, but no.” The woman tossed down something paper onto what
she guessed was Vortex Guy's bed. “But when the big moment came,
you just wimped out like so many of the others and—”

“I did it. Why can’t you be happy with that?”
Vortex Guy’s voice rose above hers. “I want to forget about it. Can
I go back and live with my mom now?”

Janelle took a couple of steps back and
bumped into the empty bed, hoping they couldn't hear her. This
sounded ugly, but at least it didn’t sound like the
boyfriend-girlfriend kind of argument.

“You know the state won’t let you, so you’re
under my roof until you turn eighteen. Or maybe not,” the woman
added. “I’ll pick you up sometime tomorrow. I’m sure the doctors
want to run tests to rule out everything under the sun and make
their money. They must think I’m loaded.” A bony hand throttled the
curtain from behind.

“Uh…you
are
loaded."

The woman's voice went from annoyed to
something far scarier, something with a weird undertone of growling
that made Janelle stiffen like a deer caught in headlights. “Don’t
talk back to me. Ever.” The hand tugged the curtain all the way
back.

Janelle’s stomach lurched, but she had no
time to move.

A short-haired blonde woman in a gray
business suit stormed away from the second bed and stopped inches
away as if she'd hit a brick wall. Her gaze bore into Janelle. She
had eyes the color of an approaching thunderstorm, gray and dark
blue at the same time. “Who are you?”

The growl was gone, but the question felt
like it was poking right into her, down to her core. Janelle
suppressed the urge to run out of the room and back down the hall
to her dad. Nothing about this woman made her want to stay in the
room. She held up the bear and focused on keeping her voice level.
“I’m here to visit him. I…I helped pull him out of the storm
yesterday.”

It was as if someone had flipped a switch
inside Rude Woman. She smiled, showing all her teeth, but it wasn't
the kind of smile that Janelle liked. Her gaze didn't stray, as if
she were appraising every feature on her face. “Oh, I see. Feel
free to take your time, sweetie. Really. It's no problem.” She
hurried to the door, pulling a cell phone from her pocket and
clicking her high heels on the linoleum.