by Holly Hook
Janelle focused on the water, helping Gary, willing it to retreat back out the window.
You can't do that now, a mean voice said in the back of her head. She hadn't heard that voice in months, but it was right. You're not a Tempest anymore.
“Janelle!” Gary shouted, staring back at her. The water trembled, fighting his power. “Someone. Get Kenna out of here!”
Janelle moved before Leslie and Paul could stop her.
The ocean wrapped around her like a trash compactor, pushing her against the stairs. Leslie's hands caught her as she fell back, keeping her upright. The ocean felt like an army of hammers beating at her legs. Something cut her below her knee, making a red hot line of pain scream along her skin.
“Grab my hand!” Janelle held her right arm out to Leslie and went down the last step. “Kenna—get down from there!”
Kenna swallowed, eyed it the wall of water again, and slid down off the counter. Her arms flailed until Janelle caught one. Kenna gripped her arm so tight that Janelle's fingers tingled and turned white. She was strong. Leslie, too. Janelle never realized how powerful her companions were until now, now that her own strength had gone.
“I can't move,” Kenna said, leaning towards Janelle.
“Now!” Gary yelled. “I can't hold it back much longer.”
“Pull!” Leslie ordered.
Leslie did. Janelle felt as if her arm were chained to a truck. Paul crouched farther up the stairs, joining in on the tug-of-war. Even Sophia had both arms on Paul's waist, her eyes squeezed shut with the effort.
It took all of Janelle's strength to keep hold of Kenna, but after what felt like minutes, she felt the bottom stair hit her foot. “We're there,” she told Kenna. “Just put your foot up on--”
Gary lost control of the water.
It crashed down, engulfing him. Janelle had no chance to shout his name before the wall struck.
Water rushed up her nose. Into her eyes. Filled her ears with a muffled sound. The whole world went gray and white, swirling and pounding. Kenna's arm hit her on the cheek and the floor disappeared from under Janelle's feet.
She flailed. Her lungs began to burn.
She was going to drown here.
Die like her victims had.
A strange peace settled over Janelle. She fell into a gray place, a place without pain and suffering. At last she was making up for the tragedy she had caused. At last--
A pair of strong arms grabbed under her armpits and pulled.
Her head broke water. Salt burned her eyes. She kept them shut. The world outside continued to rush and crash and roar. A cough escaped her.
“Janelle!” It was Gary. “I've got you. Open your eyes."
The steps below dug into her hip. She was farther up the stairwell. Her arm flopped down on what felt like the bumpy leather of a shoe. She opened her eyes a little, blinking the water away. Sophia's hot pink shoelaces hung wet a foot away.
“Kenna?” she sputtered.
“We got her.” Gary gave her another tug on the arm, one that threatened to pull her shoulder out of its socket. “Oh,” he shouted. “Sorry. I forgot.”
Janelle stood, dripping a gallon of the ocean onto the floor.
This was the first time she had ever touched it without having a reaction. It was almost alien, the fear of drowning or getting swept away.
"That's okay," she said, turning around.
Janelle was now as helpless to control nature as the debris floating in the lobby below her, bobbing up and down in the still-rising water. It was a feeling she hated more than she thought she would.
“Upstairs,” Paul puffed out, looking at the water below. Real fear marred his features. Then his eyes widened and his jaw fell slack. “Leslie--”
Something rose from the ocean water churning below.
A head.
One with blond hair, emerging dry and untouched.
Andrina.
Gary faced her, his face wide with terror. “Janelle. Run.”
This time she didn't argue and rushed up the stairs.
Chapter Fifteen
She was here.
This was it.
Would Andrina even let her live now that she was human?
No!
Not after all of this.
"Go!" Gary yelled.
Janelle bolted down the hallway, not caring where she went as long as it wasn't near her birth mother. She joined the stampede of the others. The same awful tingling poked at her back. Becoming human had done nothing to her ability to feel that something was wrong.
“The freezer,” Sophia sputtered as she ran. Her face had gone paler than the walls around them. Her eyes were dilated. Hyrokkin was screaming inside of them to be saved.
"But Huracan--"
Sophia took her arm and pulled her towards the kitchen. "How do you know he's even going to help us right now? We won't get upstairs in time."
She was right. He didn't have his payment yet. It was the kitchen, then.
Paul was the first through the double doors, pulling Leslie behind him. Sophia followed. Janelle rushed in after them, holding the door so Gary and Leslie could help Kenna through. The poor girl still staggered along on the carpet, leaving a wet trail that Janelle prayed that Andrina wouldn't notice.
“Oh, Janelle!”
Andrina's awful, fake singsong voice floated down the hall if she had just walked in from a trip to the grocery store and not a raging hurricane. It made everything inside Janelle flatten. It was somehow worse than the roar she expected.
Andrina would find her and destroy everything she had worked for.
Maybe she would even destroy her.
“In there,” Gary said, opening the door to the fridge.
A sudden urge to turn and run swept over her. The last time she'd gone into a freezer, Andrina had trapped her and Gary in. Leslie, too.
“Go,” Leslie said. “She won't release me if she finds me. Paul's going to go get Huracan.”
Janelle swallowed. “Okay.” She motioned to Sophia. “You too.”
“I was planning on it,” she said, ducking in.
Janelle followed Sophia back to the freezer and the door closed behind her. The cold wrapped around her skin as she found herself among cheese, lettuce, and mayonnaise. An emergency light burned overhead. Even in here she could hear the storm raging outside. The howling. The roaring. It was muffled, like it was happening next door almost, but she knew better than to be fooled.
“In here,” Sophia said, opening the door to the freezer. Vapor floated out and along with it, air like the middle of winter.
Not a good idea, that voice said. Hyrokkin would be at her strongest in the freezer.
“I'm good.”
“But Andrina--”
“I said that I'm good.”
Sophia's face fell in understanding. “Oh.”
“You go,” Janelle said.
Sophia ducked into the frigid cold without another word, letting the pitted door swing shut behind her.
Janelle was suddenly back at Alara, in that meat freezer where she had found Leslie, bound and gagged with nothing but a flimsy blanket over her to protect her from the cold. But Sophia wasn't Leslie. Cold didn't bother her.
“Janelle!” Andrina's voice was much closer now, maybe just outside in the hallway, or in the kitchen. “I know you're in here. Why delay things and make this difficult?”
The door to the kitchen outside burst open with a thud.
* * * * *
Leslie tensed and backed up against the kitchen counter. The tapping of high heels drew closer out in the hallway. Kenna joined her, grabbing for anything on the metal surface that might be sharp. Her hand wrapped around a butter knife. It was the only thing within reach.
Gary and Paul were gone, off to go get that lazy storm god upstairs. Where was he? He should have at least sensed the presence of Andrina by now.
“Don't look at the freezer door,” Leslie told Kenna. “We can't have her looking in there.”
“Got it.” Her grip tightened on the knife. She had the same chance at hurting Andrina with that as she did finding a unicorn.
But Kenna had taken enough, been the weak one enough. Leslie could see that anger burning in her dark eyes. With the tap of another footstep, something orange danced inside her pupils. Fire. It took everything Leslie had not to scoot away.
Here they were, the only two people Andrina wasn't going to release or kill.
Yet.
Thank god Huracan hadn't yet had the chance to make her human again.
The kitchen doors swung open.
Andrina stood framed inside, dry and well-groomed in her gray business suit. Her high heels shone in the dim backup lights. It was dark enough in the kitchen for her glow to show up. It shimmered like the color in her eyes, a blue-gray aura that turned the air electric. She grinned, arms spread, and took a bold step into the room.
Her gaze landed on Kenna and the grin fell away.
Leslie caught her breath, waiting.
Kenna and Andrina stood, staring at each other for what stretched into a minute. Tingles swept over Leslie as if Andrina were sending out invisible tentacles to snatch her prey. The paralysis crept over her limbs, holding them in place as her venom took effect.
But it was Kenna that she was staring at most.
Andrina's mouth fell open. Then, as if ashamed to show her emotions, the goddess pulled it back together and turned her face to stone. It couldn't hide the insanity swirling in her eyes. “How did you escape Xibalba?”
The foreign word hung in the air for a second.
“Xibalba?” Kenna echoed. Her grip tightened on the knife. She held it at her side in plain view. Her arm trembled like she was willing the metal to melt in her hand, which, Leslie remembered, she probably could.
If Andrina saw it, she showed no sign of caring. Outside, something thumped.
“The Mayan underworld!” Andrina's eyes narrowed at Kenna. “Do you think I dumped you in the cenote just to let the water rise over your head? Like I said, how did you escape?”
Leslie's head about exploded in confusion. She'd heard the word before, but right now, with her heart pounding and her pulse throbbing in her ears, she couldn't process it. If they made it out of here, Kenna owed her a story.
Kenna kept her silence. She glanced at Leslie, then away again to stare into the space ahead of her. Was she out of her mind, just zoning out like this?
“Leslie.” Andrina's voice piped up and she stepped closer, ignoring Kenna. “While your friend over here thinks, would you care to have a seat?”
The goddess's voice assaulted her ears and exploded in her head. Leslie's legs moved on their own, lowering her to the floor. Andrina had taken over completely. She was now nothing but a puppet, trapped in this body with invisible strings attached.
“Good,” the goddess said. She raised her voice. “Janelle. Come out here to me.”
No.
Leslie held down a cry.
Andrina was about to make her give Janelle her breath.
To turn her into a goddess.
To betray her.
Leslie looked down at the floor, waiting for the freezer door to open and for Janelle to walk out, wide-eyed and terrified.
But the squeak of the door never came.
"Janelle," Andrina repeated, louder. She closed her eyes as if sensing the premises. "Come out. Walk towards my voice."
Still nothing. It was impossible that Janelle hadn’t heard Andrina, unless--
Oh.
Janelle wasn't a Tempest anymore.
Her best friend was no longer paralyzed in Andrina's presence. Her limbs would no longer follow the goddess's orders.
There would be no breath giving right now. And also, no release.
Leslie held down her sigh of relief. Andrina didn't suspect a thing.
The relief fled like a herd of antelope in front of a lion when Andrina opened her eyes again. They swirled with rage and she stormed towards Leslie.
"Where is she?" Andrina grabbed the front of Leslie's shirt, pulling hard. Leslie staggered to her feet. It took every ounce of her restraint to look into those eyes and not scream. "I don't sense her anywhere in the building. Where is my daughter?"
"I don't know!" Leslie racked her brains. Andrina couldn't sense Janelle if she wasn't a Tempest. That helped. Could Leslie send Andrina upstairs to where Huracan was waiting? No. Paul was up there. She'd vaporize him without warning. "Honestly. I don't know where she went!"
"She isn't dead, is she?" Andrina's words rose into thunder, but the storm swirling in her eyes was all panic, not rage. The howling picked up outside, so much that it sounded like the whole building was about to come down. "I don't trust that Sophia around her. If it turns out she's dead, I swear, I will rip every single one of you apart. I won't even give you the honor of being released!"
"No!"
Andrina lifted Leslie high into the air, all her teeth showing. Lines of madness grew deeper around her mouth and her eyes. Turning goddess had eaten away at her sanity, hollowing her out and leaving nothing but a husk where a woman had once been.
No. Turning goddess had just made Andrina more like herself.
"Janelle's not dead!" Leslie cried. "I'm telling the truth. I just don't know where she is. Maybe downstairs? Maybe she ran into another building when the flooding started? I don't know!"
"Then why don't I sense her anymore?" Outside, something huge hit the building. Andrina slammed Leslie back into the counter.
Lights flashed in her eyes, every shade of yellow so bright that she thought the power had come back on at first. The steel door to the freezer shone in the corner of her vision. She dared not look. Now she could only pray that Janelle didn't open the door. Everything would be lost if that happened.
"And why would she need to run from the storm surge? She's a Tempest!" Andrina lifted her higher, so that Leslie's head banged against the infrared lights over the counter. Something glistened at the corner of Andrina's eye as Leslie watched. It was almost unreal, impossible.
A tear.
"You're lying to me." Her grip tightened on Leslie's shirt. She gasped for air as the fabric pressed on her neck like a deadly corset. "Sophia and that winter goddess killed her, and you're all trying to save your own--"
Andrina gasped and her head tilted back. Her grip loosened on Leslie and the tingling fell away.
Leslie fell to the floor, gasping for breath. The world faded to a dark gray, but not enough for her to miss it.
Kenna stood behind Andrina, eyes blazing, the butter knife buried in her back.
Andrina screamed, an awful sound that rattled the silverware in every drawer and threatened to burst Leslie's eardrums. It was a siren wailing over a collapsing building with the screams of terrified people below all mixed into one. Leslie kept her hands over her ears. Kenna grit her teeth and kept the knife planted. A dark stain spread out from around it. Andrina turned, a blur in the middle of the dark kitchen, but Kenna kept up, moving like a film in fast-forward. Leslie backed away. It was all she could do to keep from getting hit.
This was a kitchen, a place of heat and fire. Kenna had reached her full strength up here, enough to remind Leslie what she was.
And that wasn't a scared girl soaked to the bone and lying in the mud.
* * * * *
Kenna had no clue she could move this fast until now.
Her legs worked on their own, keeping pace with Andrina's thrashing. The kitchen blurred, but she had a sense of where everything was. The counter stood three feet to the left--no, about five steps behind her now. The wall, ten feet away. Leslie huddled near it, keeping down.
Kenna's stomach threatened to heave up its contents, but she stayed focused on the knife in Andrina's back, keeping her grip. The insane goddess thrashed and screamed. The noise she made was awful, far worse than any explosion or eruption she had ever heard. At least Andrina's screams drowned out the sound of the knife digging farther into her skin.
If Kenna heard that, she might faint.
Andrina twisted again, nearly throwing her off. Kenna focused on the knife, keeping hold like a bull rider.
Heat up. Heat up. Come on. Hot. Hot!
The butter knife brightened, turning yellow-red in Kenna's grip.
Andrina stopped. She sucked in a sharp breath, a gasp of pain that split the room.
Kenna racked her brains. She couldn't keep this up much longer. If she didn't get Andrina away from here, she'd destroy everyone, starting with Sophia. She and Janelle were still hiding in that freezer. Kenna had no doubt that they had both heard every word she said.
Idea.
"Listen," she said, willing the knife in her grip to cool. "Janelle's not dead. Do you know how I got out of the cenote?"
Andrina grabbed the counter in front of her, back heaving up and down. "Pull it out!" she begged, punctuating her sentence with another scream.
"Listen!" Kenna repeated.
She was on top here. For once she was winning against the storm goddess.
"Listening!" Andrina spat. She reached behind her to rip out the blade, but her hands raked against gray fabric, missing by inches. Even if Andrina managed to get hold of the knife, she had almost no hope of pulling it out.
"Janelle is not dead," Kenna repeated. It was time for what Sophia would call Lie of the Century. "I needed to make an offering to the old Mayan gods for them to let me out of the cenote. The gate was opening…and Janelle came back to Chichen Itza to look for me. She climbed down to help, but I knew there was no hope of us both getting out. So I made my offer."
She winced and braced for the worst.
It came.
"Janelle is in Xibalba?" Andrina roared.
She whirled around so fast it caught Kenna off guard. Her grip loosened on the knife.
Kenna flew--
--and landed on something so hard that her vision dimmed, flickered, and went to black. It came back to reveal the storm goddess closing in, eyes swirling with that blue-gray apocalypse. Behind her Leslie stood against the wall, helpless to do anything in the presence of Andrina. Her pale face stuck out in the near-dark of the kitchen.