by P. C. Cast
Tate stared at Foster. She’d raised her arms so that her palms were pressed forward, stop sign–like, at the whirring funnel of death and air. Her body began to tremble. She staggered back one step, then another, until her legs pressed against her friend’s crumpled body. Tears streamed down her face. Her eyes were wide and frantic, and they found his.
“Help me!” She mouthed the words as the tornado broke free.
Tate’s body moved with an instinct that felt foreign and familiar at the same time. Pumping his arms, he ran onto the field between Foster and the tornado. He raised his arms and, just as he had been practicing for as long as he could remember, football-like, Tate threw that newly awakened power within him, the power that tethered him to the storm, directly at the funnel, using the same command Foster had given it, “YOU WILL NOT COME THIS WAY!”
There was a sound like lightning striking a massive tree, and the tornado shattered, exploding into multiple smaller, but deadly, funnel clouds that scattered, tearing great hunks from the earth and leaving trails of destruction in every direction except toward Foster, her fallen friend, and Tate.
Tate stood frozen, feeling his power splintering with the tornado, unable to move as one of the new funnel clouds—the clouds he had somehow created—tunneled away from him down the sidelines, ripping through the people trying to flee the death trap the bleachers had become.
Tate saw it happen. He saw her bright, Disney princess hair disappear into the maw of the funnel—saw his father’s coach’s jacket torn from his body just as his wife had been torn from his arms—and the tornado devoured Tate’s parents.
3
FOSTER
The sun reappeared briefly, stretching its long, golden fingers through puffy white clouds. As if mocking them, sunlight caressed Cora’s fuliginous cheeks, seeming to brighten as her breathing became more labored and the glint dulled from her eyes. Foster knelt beside Cora, wiping rain and mud from her face.
“Cora, what’s wrong? Where are you hurt?”
Weakly, Cora snagged one of Foster’s hands, pulling her closer.
“Listen to me carefully, baby girl.” Her tremulous voice was barely audible over the roar of wind and the screams of people.
“Foster! We need to get off this field!” Tate’s voice interrupted.
Foster barely glanced over her shoulder at him. “No. Not without Cora.” Then she turned back to the woman who had been mom, dad, and best friend for the past five years. “Where are you hurt?” she repeated.
Cora squeezed her hand with surprising strength. “It’s my heart, child. There’s nothing you can do.”
“Yes, there is something I can do! Cora, come on. I’m taking you to the hospital,” Foster said, snaking her arm beneath Cora’s shoulders. “We’re making it to the hospital.”
“No, no child. It’s too late for that. Now you have to listen, and listen good.” Cora’s cold hand pressed Foster’s. “She’s here.”
“She? Cora, you’re delirious. It’s a bunch of freak tornadoes. We have to get out of here. You need a doctor.”
“No. Listen to me.” Cora’s gaze trapped her as Foster recognized her adoptive mother’s tone.
She’s not playing. She’s completely serious. Oh, god. What’s happening to her? To us?
“Okay, okay. I’m listening.”
“Foster! We have to go.”
Foster’s head snapped around. Tate had torn off his uniform shirt and tossed his shoulder pads to the side by his discarded football helmet. He was getting ready to sprint away. Foster’s insides roiled. “Then go! No one’s making you stay here!” She turned back to Cora. “Tell me.”
“The tornadoes aren’t accidents. I don’t know how she got them to manifest here, but they are not accidents.”
“She, who?”
“Eve.”
Foster’s breath caught in her throat. “Eve? As in Eve of Doctor Rick’s Core Four?”
Cora nodded wearily. “I saw her. If the others—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—are here, too, you’re in great danger. You and that boy.” Cora cut her eyes at Tate, who was wearing a fresh trench in the ground with his pacing, but hadn’t gone anywhere.
“Tate? This doesn’t make any sense.” The pulse hammering behind Foster’s ears seemed to skip a beat. “Do they want to kill us? Like they did Doctor Rick.”
“Child…” Cora paused, gasping for breath as her face twisted in pain.
“Come on! We’re getting out of—” Foster began, but Cora’s hand, suddenly vise-like, kept her from moving.
“I don’t have long. You have to listen to me. They’re all in this together. Your father isn’t dead. He’s gotten…” Cora winced, panting for breath. “He’s in trouble. Don’t know if he’s gone mad or if they have something on him. All I know is he’s alive.”
Shock seized Foster’s gut, pinching her stomach until she felt like she’d puke. Staving off the bile and the lump of despair growing suffocatingly large in the back of her throat, she swallowed several times before speaking. “N-not dead?”
“No. And not trustworthy. He’s not the man we knew.”
“Cora, I don’t understand.” Foster dug her fingernails into her palm to keep from sobbing.
“Baby girl, there’s things about yourself you don’t know.”
“My Jedi mind trick?”
“More … more. You’re linked. You and that boy. And others. I—I believe your father and the Core Four are here for the two of you. You and Tate. You can’t let them get you, Foster. You can’t go to the police. You have to run. Now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’m not going anywhere without you.” Tears washed hot down Foster’s cheeks.
“You have to. Your life depends on it. So does his. So do others. Baby girl, I’ve been dying for this past year. There’s nothing that can be done, but I can’t rest unless you promise me you’ll get Tate out of here and go to safety.”
Foster swiped the back of her hand against her eyes. “Where are we supposed to go?”
“Sauvie Island. Outside Portland. You know where that is, right?”
Numbly, Foster nodded as Cora tried to pull her satchel from across her shoulder. Foster bent and helped her. Trembling, Cora pressed the leather bag into Foster’s arms.
“Good. That’s my good girl. Take this.” Cora gasped for breath, and then spoke in one long, final burst of energy. “The address is in my bag. So are the codes to the gate and the front door and a letter for you. It’ll explain the rest, but don’t waste time reading it until you get to Sauvie. All the files are there. You have to go. Go to the address. Now. Take Tate and go. Hurry. You know how to stay under the radar. Your lives depend on it. Go.”
Foster sobbed so hard her words came out in broken, painful strips of breath. “Not without you! I can’t go without you!”
Cora’s hand shook as it reached up to cup Foster’s cheek. “I wanted more time.” She grimaced, her face blanching to a frightening gray. “At least I helped you,” she gasped. “Helped you find the first one.” She drew a labored breath and her gaze shifted to over Foster’s shoulder. “Take her now, boy. I’m trusting you to keep her safe for me.”
Foster didn’t turn, but she felt Tate at her back. Cora’s watery eyes went to Foster’s face. “I love you, my little strawberry baby girl. Always have. Since the moment I saw you. Always will.”
“I love you, too!”
“Promise you’ll do as I’ve told you: Sauvie—the letter—the boy.” Cora gasped for breath between words, her voice trembling with effort.
“I promise, Cora! I promise!”
“Thank you, baby girl. Now, finally, I can rest.”
Cora’s breath hitched, her familiar brown eyes widening as if she’d been surprised by something remarkably, wonderfully amazing and then her hand fell from Foster’s face as she released her final breath.
Foster’s heart beat so fast and so unbearably loud, she felt like that was all she was—just one raw and bleeding h
eart in the middle of a football field.
“Cora!” she screamed. “Cora!”
Strong hands captured Foster’s shoulders, lifting her and pulling her from Cora’s still body. Foster fought—kicked and shrieked for him to let her go—but it was like fighting a brick wall.
“Hey! Stop it!” Tate shouted as he half carried, half dragged her from the football field.
“Get your hands off me! Let me go!”
“No! She’s dead, Foster. And she told me to keep you safe. I’m doing what she told me to do.”
Foster felt as if her body had suddenly melted, like ice cream splatting against hot concrete, chunks of itself liquefying until it was nothing more than a dark stain—a shadow of what it used to be. But she knew Tate was right. Knew deep in her heart Cora was dead. She stared back at her adoptive mother’s crumpled body as she let the football player lead her from the field and from the only family she had left.
She almost gave up then. All she had to do would be to jerk away from this guy and run. People were screaming and stampeding all around them. He’d never find her in this mess. Foster’s sharp eyes swept the crowd of hysterically milling people, judging the right time to get away—to go back—to be with Cora.
That’s when she saw her.
Eve.
She was striding away from the football field at the opposite end of the destroyed bleachers. Her head swiveling from left to right, right to left, as she searched for someone. For them?
The rain had returned, obscuring Foster’s view, but there was no mistaking that it was Eve. Foster would know her anywhere, even though she hadn’t seen Eve since she was twelve. The woman was unforgettable with her velvet black skin, her closely shorn hair, and the enormous hoops she always wore through her ears. She was tiny—barely five feet tall—yet she seemed to fill Foster’s sight as she studied the panicked people around her with cold, expressionless eyes.
Foster knew Cora had been right. She’d died warning her about Eve. If I let Eve get me—get us—Cora will have died for nothing.
Foster planted her feet, throwing Tate off balance, and he stumbled to a halt.
“Not that way. We need to get to the parking lot. Find the car,” Foster yelled to him.
Tate nodded. “Over here!”
They ran, dodging debris and fallen people. Foster didn’t look at them. She refused to think about them and how broken and bloody and still they were.
The rain began again, and she put her head down against the slanting droplets and followed Tate. They rounded the corner away from the football field and Foster’s knees almost buckled as she staggered to a stop, gaping in horror at the scene before her. Half of the parking lot was gone, reset to dark brown newly tilled earth. The other half was a war zone of twisted vehicles, sections of the metal bleachers, and bodies. So, so many bodies.
Not now. Don’t think about them now.
Foster adjusted Cora’s satchel over her shoulder and charged forward to the section of the parking lot that was relatively undamaged. “We have to find a car. Did you drive here?” she shouted. Blinking against the rain, she scanned the patch of cars the tornado had randomly chosen to skip over. “Did you drive?” Foster repeated, whirling around in irritation when Tate still didn’t respond.
Tate stood twenty feet away, round eyes wide and unblinking.
“Tate!” Foster’s shoes squelched in the mud as she marched closer. “We have to go.”
“M-m-mom?” His chin quivered, and Foster couldn’t tell if rain or tears slicked his pale cheeks. “Mom!” He sprinted forward.
Foster clutched the satchel as she raced after him. “Tate!” she shouted, reaching out and snagging the crook of his arm. “Stop!”
“Let go!” Tate growled and tore away from her grasp. “My parents need my help!”
Foster’s gaze followed his outstretched hand. Metal entwined with metal to form a macabre sculpture. Long, blond hair swirled out from between two cars. One smashed on top of the other with such force it was almost impossible to decipher where one ended and the next began. Her stomach pitted as her eyes landed on stiff, square fingers reaching out, broken and awkward, from the sleeve of a maroon coach’s jacket.
“Dad!” Tate lurched forward as the wind changed direction, and Sleeping Beauty’s blond locks tangled around the snarled hand.
“Don’t.” Foster found Tate’s arm, her grip tightened as much to keep him from running to the awful gravesite as to keep her legs from crumpling beneath her. “They’re gone. Like my Cora. Gone.” Foster shielded her eyes as a sudden gust of wind pelted her with BB-like pieces of gravel.
Tate charged ahead.
“Don’t!” Foster shouted, lunging toward him. “Tate, there’s nothing you can do to help them!”
Heat licked Foster’s face as a rib-rattling boom threw her onto her back. Screams echoed around her as the ground felt as if it were pitching and rolling. Struggling, Foster pushed herself up from the mud, gasping to refill her lungs. Squinting against the flames twisting up from the mound of entwined metal and flesh, Foster searched for Tate’s white uniform.
He was sprawled on his back, pieces of wood and metal covering his legs. Foster fell to her knees next to him, her bare shins sinking into the mud as she shook his shoulders. “Tate!” she shouted through the ringing in her ears. “You have to get up! We have to go!”
Tate’s eyelids fluttered open. “Wh-what happened?”
“Come on!” Foster pulled him to his feet. Draping his arm across her shoulders, she led him away from the fire, away from the final resting place of his dead parents, and to the last row of undamaged cars in the parking lot.
“Please, please, please, please, please,” she whispered, leaning Tate against the side of an early-2000-model pickup. Foster squeezed the door handle. “Oh, thank god,” she said, releasing the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Get in.” Foster resumed her place as Tate’s crutch and helped heft him into the bright red truck.
As she rounded the front bumper, she unzipped the bag and dug around blindly for Cora’s giant wad of keys. Foster threw open the driver’s side door before selecting the thickest, strongest key and jamming it into the seam of the piece of hard plastic covering the inner workings of the steering column.
“My m-m-mom and d-d-dad. Th-they, they…” Tate sputtered between ragged breaths.
“Put your seat belt on,” Foster instructed, the ringing in her ears finally subsiding. Plastic pinched her fingers and she winced as, centimeter by centimeter, she wiggled her fingertips into the slowly growing gap.
“They, they, they…” Tate repeated, stuck between what’d he’d seen and what his mind was willing to process.
“Hey!” Foster barked. “I need you to focus or we’re going to be as dead as all those other people. Put your seat belt on.” Cora had taught her that in times of uncertainty, stress, or panic, the best things to do were to remain calm and take one step at a time.
The lump in Foster’s throat returned, and she blinked back the tears pressing hot against her eyes. She needed to do what Cora had taught her, what Cora would have done. She needed to get Tate out of his head, out of his grief, and back in the game. “Nighthawk,” she said as evenly as she could while yanking on a piece of bolted-down plastic.
Tate’s white compression top, soiled with mud and grime, matched the dirty paleness of his features as he turned to face her. He sucked in a haggard breath. “Yeah?” His voice was small, and, in his dirty, stripped-down uniform and cleats, he looked like a lost little boy.
Foster’s stomach clenched. She knew that look, knew exactly how he felt. She wished she could stop and tell him that she understood what he was going through and that the hurt would lessen, though it would never, ever go away—how eventually he’d find a new normal and life would go on, that he’d be okay.
But she couldn’t. With Eve so close, it would be a lie.
“Can you put your seat belt on? I can’t start the car until you do.”
With a blank stare, Tate reached over his shoulder, grabbed his seat belt, and clicked it into place.
Foster gritted her teeth and gave the plastic one final yank. “Yes!” she shouted in a burst of relief, tossing the covering out the door before climbing into the driver’s seat. “See what happens when you put safety first?” For an instant, her lips quivered in a nostalgic smile as she repeated the words Cora had said to her so, so many times.
Cora is dead.
The alien thought filled her and her smile slipped back into a sorrowful frown as her eyes swelled with tears. Would she ever be able to genuinely smile again? At that instant, Foster wanted to stop, to curl up and let the anguish overtake her. She’d lost another mother, another home, and she’d never get them back. She was caught up in something bigger than herself like a seed carried too quickly by the gusting wind to ever settle and grow roots.
I can’t do this. I can’t be like Tate. We both can’t be out of it. Do what Cora taught you to do: think—act—one thing at a time.
Mentally shaking herself, she wiped her sweaty palms on the upholstered seat and reached into the guts of the steering column. Foster’s fingers fumbled around wires and metal until they found the small rectangular box with the metal pin she saw so clearly in her mind’s eye. She pressed on the clutch and shoved the pin to the left. The truck rumbled to life, and Foster silently thanked the Internet gods for the magic of YouTube.
“H-how’d you learn to do that?” Tate asked, the color beginning to return to his cheeks.
“I was homeschooled. I learned a lot of things during my independent study periods that you public kids haven’t ever even heard of.” Foster slammed on the gas, kicking up gravel as she tore out of the parking lot and onto the main road.
“Ever take a first-aid class?” Tate held out his shaking hand. Blood streaked his fingers, and he quickly returned his hand to the gash in his thigh.
“You’re in luck.” Tires squealed beneath them as she swerved around tree branches and mangled car parts. “You happen to be sitting next to an American Red Cross first-aid certified—” Air fled her lungs as she slammed on the brakes, the seat belt catching and pinning her against the back of the seat. Silence hummed between them, broken only by the squeak of the windshield wipers and the steady, pleading whine of emergency vehicle sirens.