* * * * *
When I open my eyes again, I’m lying in a bed and the pain on the side of my head is down to a dull throb.
A white ceiling spreads out over me. A television hangs in a corner. Something squeaky rolls past outside of the room.
I’m in a hospital. The place that Madeline warned me not to come to.
A hospital. They must have found me after the—
Horror explodes inside. My heart leaps. The Deathwind blew up. My family was there. Tommy was there. Williams Town was right in its path…
“Tommy!” I sit up, sending fresh throbs through the side of my head. The sun beats into my eyes from the window. “Mom. Dad…”
“Allie. We’re right here.”
I face the voice.
Tommy stands up from the chair in the corner. Mom’s already rushing to my bedside. She leans over and places a kiss on my forehead. “You’re all right, Allie. You got a nasty bruise on the side of your head, but the doctor thinks you’ll be okay to go home tomorrow. They want to keep you here for observation.”
Bruise. Head. That explains the pain. I reach up and rub my temple. It’s tender. A little puffy, even. Something—a stick or gravel or piece of debris—must have hit me.
The Deathwind actually almost killed me.
Mom stands. Scratches line her cheeks. Her bare arms. They’re scabbed. She has dirt under her fingernails. I lift my hand for a comparison. So do I, but at least my arms are clean and I don’t seem to have any tubes in me.
“How you feeling?” Tommy smiles and grabs the rail of my bed.
Tommy.
Oh, god.
I held him there and let the Deathwind turn him. We wouldn’t be alive if I hadn’t. The tornado must have stopped right after that. The Deathwind got interrupted at the last moment and calmed down.
But Tommy shares this curse with me now along with far too many others.
I grab the white blanket and hold it close. I’m hyperventilating. Shaking. Hot tears stream out of me.
“Allie.” Tommy wraps his arms around me, but I can’t stop. Mom leans close and runs her hand through my hair. I sit there on the bed and bawl like a baby. I can’t take it anymore. I’ve done horrible things. Tommy’s life will never be normal again. My parents know what I am. My uncle’s betrayed me on every level. He might even be dead.
Mom kisses me in my hair. “Allie, calm down. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“No, it’s not. I’m a monster.” I can’t tell her what I’ve done. I just can’t. That family in the garage. Tommy. Evansburg…
“No.” Mom rubs my hair. “You’re not, Allie. I don’t care what anybody says.”
“Can we be left alone for a bit?” Tommy asks.
His question hangs for a long time. I don’t want Mom to leave. But I need to see Tommy. Alone.
I breathe out slowly, holding back a sob. “Can we?”
Mom rises. “Okay, Allie. Stay here with her, Tommy. I need to go check on her father.”
She leaves, going slow to make sure I don’t have another outburst.
Tommy hugs me close. I rest my ear on his chest. His heart beats slow and steady. “I’m sorry, Tommy,” I babble. “I didn’t want to turn you. I had no choice or we were all going to die. I was going to have Bethany turned instead but she got away and I couldn’t catch her. I didn’t want you to have to live like this. I—“
“Allie.”
“…I’m so sorry. I really didn’t want—“
“Allie!”
I stop. Lift my head from his chest. Tommy looks down at me. His eyes are soft. His face, forgiving.
“I didn’t get turned. Like you said, I’d know if it got me. I never passed out through the whole thing.”
I’m shocked into silence. I scoot to the edge of the bed. Sit up all the way. “Excuse me?”
Tommy shakes his head. “I’m not an Outbreaker.”
“But—“
“I’m not, Allie. I’ll even sit through the next storm to prove it to you.” He’s serious. There’s no trace of a lie. No anything.
I fall back into the bed. Sink into the pillow. A new horror washes over me. The room spins with it. The ceiling comes down. “Then the tornado kept going.”
“No, it didn’t. Obviously, it ended before it got to us.”
I look at Tommy. He twists his face like he’s debating on telling me something. He turns to me. Slaps his hands down on his lap. Swallows.
“The Deathwind turned your father, Allie.”
I blink. Sit up again. “What?”
The color drains from Tommy’s face. “He saw the Deathwind coming down at us. He must have thought you were the one in danger. He pushed us both out of the way at the last second. I saw it hit him. Then the tornado stopped right there like Madeline said.”
I remember something hitting us. Knocking us down.
I put my face in my hands. I’m relieved. I’m horrified. “Oh, god. What am I going to tell him?”
Tommy looks out the window and back to me. “I think he knows already. You might not have to say anything. You already told your parents what the Deathwind does to you if it gets you, remember?”
“Is he here?” I ask.
“Yeah. They brought him in like the others. He’s lying unconscious in another room. Your mom’s just waiting for him to wake up. All the others the Deathwind took have woken up already. All the doctors around here are running around confused.”
“Does my mom know, too?” I have to find out for sure. Mom’s going to figure it out soon if she doesn’t.
“I think she might.”
“Great.” I let my head fall to the railing. Big mistake, because it sets it off pounding again. “My family’s going to be really interesting now.”
Tommy’s there, hugging me again from the side. “At least you won’t have anything to hide from them.”
“But…my dad!”
“I know.”
I hug Tommy back. He’s warm. Still human. Still normal.
“You know, Allie, I was totally willing to be turned.”
“I don’t want you to be.”
“We were about to die. Even you were. It would have been worth stopping that.”
His words make me think of something. “Madeline. Uncle Cassius. What happened to them?”
We separate. “Madeline’s here, too. I saw her get put in another ambulance. She had a bunch of bruises. The tornado even almost killed her it was so bad. I think your uncle and Kyle are in jail. I haven’t seen them. But there’s a lot of police going in and out of here, and a bunch of them down the hall by Madeline’s room.”
“Good.” I can’t believe how happy the fact makes me. How vindictive I feel.
Sixteen people in my hometown got turned last night, including one that I love.
Williams Town is never going to be the same.
Uncle Cassius didn’t have to tell Madeline to come here.
* * * * *
The drive back home is quiet.
Dad stares straight ahead the whole time. He makes all the right turns, but he stares ahead, lost. Mom tries to make some small talk. It’s useless. None of us wants to discuss what we need to the most.
When we get home, we stand in the living room for minutes. I turn on the light and fiddle with the switch. Dad turns on the TV and keeps it low, but it does nothing to dispel the tension in the room. Mom finally leaves to go make some coffee for Dad. She leaves the two of us alone, waiting on either side of the couch.
We stand there, staring at each other. Time stretches out. Dad clears his throat, then turns away to follow Mom into the kitchen.
He’s not ready to talk about it yet.
Neither am I.
When he starts to hear the growling in his head, he will be. When the next storm’s coming, he will be.
I’ll need to be there when it happens.
I turn away and go to my room. Flop down on my bed. Somewhere, Madeline and Kyle and Uncle Cassius are in cells. All they have to do now is wait for the storm that will let them escape.
The Deathwind’s calmed down for now. It’s caught up, satisfied that it’s shed some of its energy. But it won’t stay that way forever.
For now. I don’t know how long we have before it blows up again. Madeline still needs to turn ninety-five more people if my math’s right.
I close my eyes.
This has only gotten started.
* * * * *
“Allie. We must both be sleeping at the same time.”
Dorian and I stand in a parking lot. It’s a motel, lit up in tacky yellow in the dark. The blue car that belongs to his family’s parked nearby. They’ve left Evansburg. Maybe for now. Maybe forever.
“Dorian.” I pace in front of the closed doors. “My dad’s…my dad’s…”
“Turned. And your uncle’s a jerk. Madeline’s still got almost a hundred victims to go.”
I stop and face him. “How do you know? I could have just as easily said ‘dead.’” Can Dorian sense what I’m thinking right now?
Dorian digs his shoe into the concrete. There’s a wad of ancient, smashed gum there. I can make out every detail of the pavement, every crack and every groove. “Something happened to us after we merged.”
I lean against the car. “What?”
Dorian looks right at me. The black flecks in his eyes are pits so deep that I can’t make out the bottom. “We have a link now, Allie. I don’t think we can stay away from each other for too much longer.” He steps closer. He’s desperation. Longing.
He reaches for me.
I wake.
The room’s mostly dark. My blanket’s nestled under my chin, like Mom’s come in and tucked me in. My computer’s on, too. Mom or Dad has left it on the weather channel site, to a radar loop that’s thankfully, empty.
I turn to face away from it. There will be time to think about it in the morning.
Because it’s not over.
Not by a long shot.
Be sure to catch the next installment:
Torn (#2 Deathwind Trilogy)
Out Now at Your Favorite eBook Retailer!
Also be sure to check out the Destroyers Series, the prequel series from which the Deathwind Trilogy is based.
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