Twisted (#1 Deathwind Trilogy)

  * * * * *

  I don't remember much of the trip home.

  Uncle Cassius doesn't say much as we drive past fields and through forests towards Williams Town, to where my confrontation with my parents waits.

  But Tommy and Bethany are waiting there, too. I can’t wait to see Tommy again. Heck, I want to see Mom and Dad, too, even through I’m going to get in major trouble. I’m going to give them all huge hugs when I’m home.

  It’s weird. I have no nightmares about tornadoes when we stay overnight at a crappy hotel. Nor do I even feel any fear every time I bring that white funnel back to mind. I should get something. Post traumatic stress. Tears. Terror at every dark cloud base I see on the drive. Anything normal that other tornado survivors go through. I'd been terrified when it was chasing us, but that whole feeling’s gone now, like someone’s reached in and ripped it out of me.

  Maybe it’s just shock. Or denial. I’ll start feeling the normal symptoms soon.

  Dread returns in full force when Uncle Cassius drops me off in front of my house. Now I’ve got to face it. The fact that I lied and my parents are going to finish what the tornado started.

  My house towers over me, looking down at me with its windows. The bushes are perfect, trimmed squares. The lawn, decapitated of all dandelions and daisies. The tree in front, molded into a perfect oval. Mom’s always trying her best to impress the neighbors.

  The front door opens and she stands there, hands on each side of the door frame. She’s wearing her lavender blouse today, the one that matches the flowers in front of the city hall where she manages all the water bills of Williams Town. Even from the end of the driveway, I can see the lines around her eyes that weren’t there before.

  I can’t help it. Even though I know what’s coming, I run up the sidewalk and give her a bear hug.

  “Allie,” she breathes, returning it. “I’m glad you’re okay. That must have been terrifying for you.”

  I mean to say something like thank you. Or sorry I worried you. But I screw up, get overexcited and blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.

  “Not really. It was kind of cool, actually. I got to see a tornado!”

  Mom’s hug stiffens. Footsteps approach and I know that Dad’s standing there, too.

  They’re not going to appreciate my story like Tommy and Bethany will.

  Mom releases me. All the relief in her eyes hardens. “Allie!”

  “I can’t believe this. We were going to cut you some slack if you’d just shown some remorse over what you did.” Dad tucks his phone into the pocket of his work slacks and shakes his head. Now I’ve done it. Any chance I had of not getting yelled at has just suffered the same fate as Kyle’s chase van.

  To say that my parents are furious at me now is like saying that the Grand Canyon is a big hole.

  My mother's the first one to blow, of course.

  She marches into the kitchen, leaving footprints in the fresh vacuum tracks on the floor. Waters her vase of flowers, then slams it down on the marble counter so hard that a hairline crack appears and snakes its way up towards the trembling lilies. I feel like those flowers. Shaking. Trapped. Cut with no support. This is going to get ugly. I wish I had Uncle Cassius with me. Tommy or Bethany, even.

  But no. This is mine to face.

  "I can’t believe you, Allie. You almost die, and you still don’t have any regret about this daredevil stuff you like to do. When is anything we say going to get through? This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t lied about where you were going.” Mom stretches the word lied long as she can. "You gave your father and I a bold-faced crock story about where you were going.”

  "Yes." I force myself to walk into the stifling kitchen, bracing for the worst.

  "You know, I'm not surprised," my father says. He shakes his head and pours himself some coffee. It's going to be a long night. He faces my mother, though he speaks for me, too. "I told you we should have gotten her interested in something else years ago."

  Mom sits, letting her face fall to her hand. "You think I didn't try?"

  Great. This again.

  Something growls inside of me, something I've never heard before. A sound like a roar explodes inside my head. I seize the corners of the glass table and watch my fingers splay out.

  "I hate it when you guys talk over me like that," I say, unable to hold in the growing anger inside. "I'm sorry I have weird interests, okay? Normal stuff just bores me.”

  Now it's Dad's turn. "Even something like mountain climbing or drag racing is better than going out to gawk at tornadoes and nearly getting yourself killed. Why, Allie? Do you like the destruction they cause? Or the fact that they kill people? That’s morbid and disturbing to me.”

  "Most tornadoes don’t kill people,” I say. “It's not morbid. Just fascinating. The one I saw was just in a field. It didn’t even destroy anything. It would be morbid if I was into medieval torture or something." I suck in a breath, rehearsing the speech I mentally prepared on the car ride back. "This was a once-in-a-lifetime thing for me. I wanted to go on this trip before I have to use all my money on college tuition and bills. I paid for it all myself. I worked my butt off for two years mowing lawns and stocking shelves so I could do this.”

  Mom rises from the table so fast that the chair slides across the floor. It hits the window, rattling the glass a bit. For some strange reason, I wish it would break. Shatter.

  She points her finger at me, trembling. "You will not be going on any more trips without our say-so from now on. I…I just can’t stand the thought of something happening to you, Allie.” She turns away, deflated. “And by the way, I'll be having a long talk with my brother today. You’re not to even talk to him for a while.” She faces me again. Her face is an infuriating calm. “In the meantime, start thinking about what new, healthy after-school activities you'll be doing for your junior year. Because believe me, I'll make sure you're signed up for two or three. We have a duty to keep you safe, Allie.”

  A hole seems to open up under me. I'm falling. Plummeting. "Uncle Cassius is the only one in this family who even likes the same stuff I do! I hate sports. I don’t want to work on the school paper or wave pom poms. I just want to be around people who don’t think I’m a freak.” They’ll want to take away Tommy and Bethany next. I can’t stand school without them.

  "Four after school activities next year," Mom says. Her voice drops to a dangerous level. "I'll make sure one of them is Fashion Design."

  Fashion Design. Yuck. I can't imagine myself hemming dresses and suits for the school fashion show or the Madrigals. "Can I at least stay in the Science Club? Can that count as one?”

  "Allie, you're pushing it." Dad sets down his coffee. It sloshes, trying to escape the hot, steaming mug. "When you were out there with that tornado bearing down on you, did you ever think about what it would do to us if something happened to you? Do you realize how selfish of a thing that was for you to do?"

  I had. Oh yes, I had. But even though my terror from the memory's vanished, it still brings a sick feeling to my stomach, that same guilt that's haunted me since yesterday. I don't have an answer for that one, not one that won’t make me lose it.

  I turn and run to my room.

  My father mutters something not meant for my ears and I slam the door.

  Selfish.

  The word grows bigger and bigger inside me, ready to explode.

  No. This is all because of a freak occurrence. I wasn't supposed to almost die. Not even close. Kyle has a perfect safety record. He's never endangered people during a chase. It was only a strange, bizarre thing that happened.

  A very bizarre thing.

  The tornado chased us, hunted us down--

  Even came down the highway after us--

  We shouldn't have survived.

  I shake my head. Outside, I hear Mom's cell phone play its tu
ne--something by Beethoven. It's the signal that she's turning it on. It's Uncle Cassius's turn to face the music.

  Selfish.

  My limbs turn to lead, weighing me down. I crash onto my bed, the weight of the word pulling me down to the center of the earth.

  I drift down through darkness, tuning out the sounds of my mother's voice rising and falling on the other side of the house. I'm glad she's trying to stay out of my earshot. The lump in my throat ebbs away after a while, turning from stone to rubber. My stomach calms from a raging sea to a placid lake.

  Strange images float behind my eyelids. A green field, open and waving under a gray sky. And then, my window the afternoon I saw my first big storm six years ago.

  Low, dark clouds trudge past outside and I press my ten-year-old face to the glass, fascinated by the strange shapes they make and how low they come to the ground. The forest around our house quivers. The television drones out in the living room, where Uncle Cassius keeps it on for the weather. Mom and Dad are out to dinner and they’ve asked him to come over and sit with me so I don’t get scared in the storm.

  It rains.

  Pours.

  Beats against the glass, blurring the world outside.

  The storm moves quickly, the rain clears, and the wind starts.

  Streams of rain flow off the roof of our storage barn across the yard and scream into the air. Everything whips to the side, not down. My heart races, but I'm frozen. A roar races over the house, shaking the floor under my feet. I can’t stop watching the microburst.

  "Allie!" Uncle Cassius's footfalls thud down the hall towards me.

  Something hits the glass of my window, making it shake. I jump back. The wind roars louder.

  The roof of the barn flaps, peels back, and flies into the storm.

  He reaches me, pulling me away from the glass.

  We turn.

  The house disappears, and we're standing in a grassy field with no sign of civilization anywhere.

  The white funnel approaches, looming larger by the second. We stand, rooted like a pair of trees about to meet our makers. The tornado grows so close that I have to crane my neck to look up at it. It spins with fury, then slows, then breaks apart almost right over my head.

  I get my bearings, sucking in a breath.

  Then I see her.

  The woman with the creepy face.

  She stands where the tornado spun seconds before. She smiles at us both.

  "Welcome home."

  Chapter Four