Twisted (#1 Deathwind Trilogy)

Chapter Ten

  Tommy picks me up ten minutes later.

  He's quiet when I climb into the car. Very quiet. I close the door and he puts the car into drive, making a U-turn in the road. He looks away from the flattened barn and the torn-up concrete.

  Tommy stares ahead at the lines on the highway. A police cruiser passes on its way to check out the damage. We drive in silence, which pushes against me harder and harder until I'm ready to scream.

  "Say something."

  He blinks and swallows.

  "Anything. Even if it's, 'Wow, Allie, you must have made those people at that farm crap their pants.'" I try sound funny, but my words are at the corner between laughing and going hysterical.

  "I took pictures," he says, fishing in his pocket for his phone. "To be honest, I don't think you want to see them."

  "Now I have to." I regret saying it the second it's out.

  "You don't. I don't know what happened, but well, the end result--" He doesn't finish but instead pulls out the phone and hands it to me.

  My palms sweat as I sift through his pictures. Us at the open house yesterday. Me leaning back and planking on the swing.

  And then, horror.

  The farm fields display on the screen with low, ominous storm clouds hanging over them.

  Next picture.

  A pair of tornadoes, dark against sickness.

  Next.

  The tornadoes whip across the field now. They’re so close I can barely tell them apart.

  Next.

  There’s just one tornado now, and it’s a giant wedge driving the world apart. It’s massive. It’s every documentary and picture I’ve seen of the monster tornadoes that level entire towns.

  I’m shaking so much I drop the phone. “Okay. I regret that.”

  Tommy hits the gas. “Sorry. I’ll get us to Evansburg faster.”

  “No need to apologize.” I keep my gaze locked on the landscape. On the sunlight. I breathe in. Out. Keep my arms wrapped tight around me.

  “What…what happened?”

  I swallow, tense up, and force myself to tell him.