Matthew spoke at the same moment a girl’s head peeked up just over the dash of the truck. Mark felt a rush of relief as he immediately recognized Foster’s mop of bright auburn hair.
“That’s her. Follow me, but smile. Let me do the talking.” Mark glanced surreptitiously around. No one else was in the parking lot. Everyone seemed to either be rushing toward the stadium or hiding inside, but he didn’t want to take any more chances. He concentrated for a moment, gathering himself, listening to the wet, wonderful sound of the blood pumping through his body. He followed that sound—that exquisite feeling—and drew his element to him. “Make it rain,” Mark whispered.
The familiar thrill washed through him. It didn’t matter how often it happened. Calling the power of his element always filled him with a heady rush of pleasure. Rain began to fall from the gray sky. Mark loved it. Loved how it slid seductively against his skin, caressing him, completing him. It didn’t matter that immediately the darkness just beyond the edges of his vision quivered and throbbed, shivered and writhed with the murky things that haunted his power, his life, his waking dreams. The Frill. The creatures that came whenever he called his element, water. The Frill waited at the edge of his eyesight, always present, always lurking.
If Eve were here she would remind him sternly that they were hallucinations—that the only way they could hurt him was if he allowed them to drive him completely mad.
But Eve didn’t know everything, and one of the things she didn’t know was a fact that had lodged itself deep within Mark’s troubled mind.
Someday the Frill, with their fluid, bendable bodies and their impossibly large mouths and flat, serrated razor teeth, would swarm and he wouldn’t be able to stop them.
Someday the Frill would devour him alive.
“They aren’t real.” The heat of Luke’s hand on his shoulder brought Mark back to himself.
Someday the Frill would engulf him, swarm him, destroy him, but that day was not today.
“Like I said, follow me.” Striding through the rain he’d summoned, Mark headed to the truck. He grinned and waved his arm as the girl’s head disappeared beneath the dash again. “Lacy Ann! It’s Daddy! Girl, your uncles and me, we’ve been worried sick ’bout you!” Mark added a country twang to his voice. “That dang tornado was a doozy, weren’t it?”
He was only a few feet from the truck when Foster’s head popped up again—along with the boy, Tate, beside her in the passenger’s seat. Mark was in the middle of another big wave, pretending to have to wipe away the rain from his face, as if he couldn’t see her clearly, when Foster ground the truck into reverse. The girl spun it backward and around—like the damn kid was a professional stunt driver—throwing gravel all over them, she roared the Chevy onto the road.
“Goddamnit!” Mark swore and sprinted for the Range Rover they’d parked on the other side of the lot—with Matthew and Luke running after him.
5
FOSTER
“What the hell was that about?” Tate chided. “Those guys might’ve needed our help.”
“What makes you think that? The way they were beating on every motel-room door and didn’t stop until they saw me? Or maybe the way they’re chasing after us?”
“They could’ve been looking for survivors or … I don’t know…” Tate scrubbed his hand down his cheek, adding blood to the streaks of dirt. “Didn’t that guy think you were his daughter? He’s probably just a dad worried because of the tornadoes. Why are you going so fast? If Sheriff Jamison—”
“Jesus! Shut up! That guy you think is a sweet, innocent dad and the two creeps with him are following us. I recognize them. They aren’t good guys. That’s why I’m going so fast.”
Tate groaned and grabbed his leg as he turned to look out the back window. Foster made a mental note: Remember, Douchehawk is hurt. Sadly, she was going to have to stop and get some bandages and something to clean the wound with. God, Cora, he’s a pain in the ass already.
“Hey, you’re right. That’s them in the black Range Rover, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re getting closer. You know that thing can outrun this old Chevy, don’t you?”
The Chevy’s tires squealed as Foster dodged around a fallen tree blocking part of the road.
“Whoa! Careful! You’re gonna get us killed!” Tate told her as he hastily rebuckled his seat belt.
“Just shut up and let me drive,” Foster snapped at him as her mind whirred. She glanced in her rearview mirror in time to see the Ranger Rover easily navigate around the tree.
“I’ll shut up if you tell me your plan and who those men are,” Tate said.
“I don’t have a plan, and all I know about those men is that they’re bad. Cora knows everything else.” Sweat slicked Foster’s palms as she gripped the steering wheel. Her leg ached from keeping the gas pedal pressed against the floor—and still the Range Rover gained on them.
“Cora’s dead.”
“I’m aware of that.” Foster ground her teeth together and didn’t take her eyes off the road. This guy is why I hate people. They’re just plain stupid.
“So, since she’s dead, how are you going to know what those guys want and—”
“Tate! Shut. The. Fuck. Up! I only know they want us, they’re dangerous, and Cora told me we needed to run from them. And that’s what we’re doing—running. God! I wish one of those tornadoes would fall down from the sky and blow them away from us!”
Except for the rattling of the windows and the sound of the overtaxed engine, uncomfortable silence once again unfurled within the cab of the truck. But she could feel Tate staring at her. Feel it almost as if he was touching her … running a hand along her skin … making her breath deepen and her blood sizzle through her veins as warmth flushed across her body.
“Do you feel that?”
Tate’s voice made her jump. “Feel what?” she asked.