The Dysasters (The Dysasters #1)(14)

“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.

Tate shivered like a horse knocking off flies. “That sensation all over my skin. It started as soon as you said you wished a tornado would—”

The roar of a descending funnel cloud cut off Tate’s words. Foster’s eyes felt cemented to the scene unfolding in her rearview mirror. A stone gray tor nado touched down behind them—neatly cutting off the path of the Range Rover, and anyone else who had the bad luck to be following.



“Thank you,” Foster whispered automatically, immediately feeling foolish for doing so.

I didn’t just make that happen. That wasn’t me. Was it?

“You are welcome. You felt it, too, didn’t you?” Tate said.

Foster frowned at him. “Okay, first, I wasn’t thanking you. I was thanking the, um, universe for that.” She pointed her thumb over her shoulder. Tate turned in his seat—again grimacing in pain. Foster glanced down at his leg. A crimson stain soaked his uniform. That might actually be bad. We have to get something to fix that ASAP. “And second, what feeling are you talking about?”

Still turned in his seat, gawking behind them, Tate seemed not to hear her. “Daaaaamn. That tornado is not playing. No one’s getting past it. Seriously. It’s just sitting there, spinning, like a glitching video game.”

Foster did a mental eye roll. Of course he’s a gamer.

Tate finally turned back around. “You can slow down now.”

Foster somehow managed to relax her foot enough to let up on the gas.

“All right. Tell me,” Tate said.

Foster glanced at him. He stared at her.

“Tell you what?”

“That you felt it, too. It was like on the football field. Something happened to me. To us. I felt it all over my skin. Tell me you felt it, too.”

Foster didn’t take her eyes off the road. She sighed and said the first thing that came to her mind. “Truthfully, the only thing I want to tell you right now is that I wish you’d do like the picture book says and go the fuck to sleep.” Heat needled her skin and Foster held very still, waiting for whatever the hell would happen next.

Inside the window-rattling silence of the truck, Tate’s sudden yawn was fantastically loud.

“Man, I can’t think straight. My leg hurts. I’m so tired. Everything that happened today just doesn’t seem real…” He propped his elbow against the window, dropped his head against his fist, and yawned mightily again. “I can’t believe Mom and Dad are gone. It’s not real, right? Tell me we’re stuck in a nightmare and I’ll wake up soon in my bed with Mom telling me I’m going to be late if I don’t hurry.”

“Yeah,” she forced her voice to soften. “If calling it a nightmare makes it better then I’m good with that. And thankfully, we’re almost out of town.”

Because your town is pretty much the size of a super Wal-Mart. She thought that part. It was best not to poke the sleepy bear.

“Wait, what was I saying? My head doesn’t feel right.”

“Rest while I drive. I remember there’s a little store just up the freeway. I’ll run in, grab some stuff to fix that cut on your leg, some sustenance, maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll even have something to wear that’s not covered in mud and”—she glanced down at the grime clinging to her ripped sweatshirt—“whatever else. You’ll feel better after you sleep, change, and get something to eat.”

“Fine, but when I wake up we gotta get back there and start helping people,” Tate grumbled, his eyelids drooping to half-mast and then closing completely.

Foster adjusted the rearview mirror. Behind them the wall cloud continued to maul the sky, and the rain-wrapped tornado was barely visible, and there definitely wasn’t any sign of Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s Range Rover. But a knot of worry sat in her stomach, heavy and thick like she’d eaten too much cheese.

She’d felt it. She’d definitely felt it—not that she wanted to talk to Tate about it. Why the hell would she? Like she trusted him? A stranger? Plus, then she might have to admit that she’d also felt her Jedi mind trick working. Foster cut her eyes to Tate.