Tempest (#1 Destroyers Series) Read online

Janelle hooked her arm under one of Vortex Guy’s. Her heart raced. They had to get this kid inside. The other side of the storm could be bearing down already. She could look at his marking after they did that.

  “Janelle, let me take—“ her father started, moving in. But another man nodded and took Vortex Guy’s other arm. Her father sighed and bit his lip. Janelle looked away. She could do this on her own. Wouldn’t he want that? He expected her to take care of everything, anyway.

  And she wanted a closer look at the spiral he had on his arm.

  She and the man dragged him to the door. Water soaked in through Janelle’s shoes. Vortex Guy’s pant legs dragged through water. It didn’t matter. He was already soaked. The rest of the crowd followed her and the man as they pulled the kid through the school doors and back into the dark. Janelle stared at his spiral until the shadow of the school fell over it.

  Yes. It matched hers exactly, all the way to the dark spot in the middle.

  “Back. Back,” her father said, waving the crowd towards the walls. A space opened on the floor and someone laid down a blanket. “Give him some room.”

  “Over here,” Janelle told the guy who had the kid’s other arm. “On the blanket.”

  They set him down. Vortex Guy muttered something and let his head fall to the side. Her father knelt next to him, swallowed, and pulled his sleeve down over his spiral.

  Was he trying to hide it from her? Too late. Maybe he’d done it for the same reason he’d told her to hide hers. She expected her father to smile at her and make some joke about the whole thing, but instead, he busied himself straightening out the blanket.

  The guy coughed. It sounded wet. Suffocating.

  He was dying. Janelle’s heart thumped. First aid. He needed first aid. That class she’d taken last summer...drowning…vomiting…choking…she knew what to do for this, somewhere. He was breathing, so no Heimlich maneuver. She gripped him on the shoulder, pulling it off the blanket. “I’ll roll him onto his side, so if he coughs up anything—”

  “What’s wrong with him?” a plump woman cut in. “Where did he come from?”

  Her dad lifted a finger to his lips and addressed the thick crowd around him. “Quiet. He’ll be fine after he rests a while.”

  Janelle couldn’t stop what came out next. “But he sounds like he nearly drowned!” She twisted around and put her ear close to his mouth, all too aware of how close she was to his face. Warmth blew against her cheek. He was breathing. That meant he still had a pulse, too. She looked back up. “There any doctors here?”

  Others echoed her question up and down the hall. A chubby woman made her way through the wall of onlookers. “I’m a nurse. Let me see.” She took Janelle’s place and took Vortex Guy’s pulse. “Strong. Someone call the ambulance, though.”

  A stiff breeze blew down the hall, ruffling Janelle’s hair. The guy opened his eyes, which darted back and forth. It was a look of confusion, of terror. “I…I…” He squeezed them shut, curling into a fetal position.

  “What’s wrong?” Janelle asked, leaning closer. But the boy put his hand over his eyes, trying to block her out. “How did you get out there?”

  “Close the door,” a woman called from down the hall. “The storm’s coming back.”

  A squeak followed as someone pulled the double doors shut. Rain beat against the building, but the wind had lost its punch. Janelle couldn’t even hear it whistling against the windows anymore. It sounded like just a plain old rainy day outside.

  Static cut over the man on the radio. “Gary has now been downgraded to a tropical storm, with maximum wind speeds of seventy miles per hour. It may be downgraded yet again to tropical depression status within a few hours. Now we are beginning to receive damage reports…”

  Vortex Guy winced. “Turn…that off. Please.”

  At least he was talking now. Janelle turned the radio off as she leaned in for another glimpse of the gray spiral. But her father’s shoes appeared next to her, like a silent warning against looking again. If she tried to flip his sleeve back up, he’d stop her. She could practically feel his stare on her back. What was his problem?

  Janelle turned away from him. A salty aroma hit her nostrils, sending a strange tingle through her body. Had this guy just crawled out of the ocean or something? But that didn’t make sense since it was miles away.

  “What were you doing out there?” Janelle asked, but still he didn't open his eyes. His head fell to the side, revealing a cute mole on the side of his nose.

  “Leave him alone, Janelle.” Her father took her arm, making her stand. He took her place at his side. He lowered his voice as he spoke to Vortex Guy. “Rest a while. You’ll feel better soon.”

  “Dad, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing, Janelle. He must have had a hard time walking through the storm.”

  She couldn’t shake the feeling that this was not nothing. Or that her father didn’t know about it. Janelle’s skin tingled under the bandage that hid her own mark. She wanted to peel it off and ask her father why the heck she and this guy had the same thing, but people stood on every side. Now wasn’t the time to do it.

  Sirens approached and cut off. A moment later, the ambulance backed towards the double doors, lights flashing. Someone had dialed 911. The crowd pressed themselves to the walls as the paramedics wheeled in the stretcher to take away Vortex Guy and whatever connection he might have to her.