The Dysasters (The Dysasters #1)(56)

And she let him.

Foster never thought she wanted to be that girl, the one who melted into someone else and called him happiness, but if this is how it started, it sure felt damn good.

The music changed to a dreamy, jazzy melody and Foster’s eyelids hung heavy as she closed out the world around them and reveled in Tate’s earthy scents of hay and horses and the way each muscle of his chest firmed against hers as he maneuvered them around the dance floor.

“You’re okay?” It was less a question, and more a release of tension, but Foster answered anyway.

“Yeah, why?”

“You seem … different.”

She was. She could feel it. It was as if she’d been living inside someone else this whole time, waiting, incubating, until the space around her was safe enough to occupy—safe enough to call home. Her entire world might not be safe, but Tate was. Her Tate.



Foster’s nerves fizzed with warmth.

Could he actually be hers?

“Tate—”

“Foster—” they blurted simultaneously.

Tate brushed a stray hair from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear as he guided them to an empty corner of the dance floor. “Go ahead.”

“Right now, with you … This is the only place I want to be.”

And then his breath was all she knew, like he’d peeled the air from the clouds, stored it in his lungs, and brought it to her as a gift. His mouth covered hers, searching for answers and releasing soft, patient prayers with each flick of his tongue.

The earth beneath Foster’s feet stilled as if she and Tate controlled the entire planet, and at this moment each of them poured their energy into the other and there was nothing left to keep it spinning.

Then someone screamed.

Not a bloodcurdling shriek. More of a confused and frightened squeal for attention.

The music stopped.

And then there were gasps followed by chairs scraping the pavement and rushed footsteps beating into the gravel in sharp, staccato crunches.

Foster didn’t want to pull away, didn’t want to stop the sweet exchange that had her nerves alight with the promise of their future. But she had to. Something was wrong. She could hear it in the way the people ran through the parking lot and the yells coming from behind them—coming from Sabine and Finn.

Keeping her tucked against his side with his arm snuggly around her shoulder, he turned them to face the fields behind the barn-like store. And there, descending on them against an angry red setting sun, was a wall cloud spewing the hollow point of a deadly funnel—a funnel that was coming directly at them.





18


TATE


“Fuck! No no no no no. This shit is not happening again!” Tate’s voice was strong and serious, and didn’t shake at all—even though his insides were spinning around in a weird rush of ohmygod I just kissed Foster and fucking tornado is going to kill us all!

“Tate! Foster! You gotta do something!” Finn spoke fast and low.

“Get out of here. Now,” Tate told their friends.

“Okay, yeah. Let’s get back in the truck. I’m sure we can outrun it,” Sabine panted, looking wide-eyed and truly terrified.

In his imagination Tate could see the two of them crushed in the middle of a mound of vehicles … just before they exploded …

“Tate!”

Foster’s voice brought Tate’s mind back to the present. He met her haunted gaze.

“There isn’t time to run,” she said.

“Hey, wake up you two! We need to get out of here!” Sabine cried.

“No. Not by driving,” Tate said. “The parking lot’s already a traffic jam. None of them are going to make it out of here.”

“Listen up!” a man’s voice boomed over the band’s loudspeaker system. “The Bennett Farm across the street has a root cellar! Everyone over there! Hurry!”

The panicked tide of people shifted direction, and instead of bottling up the parking lot, people climbed over Bella’s fence, crowded through the gate, and poured across the little two-lane road as the sky opened and rain began to pelt them along with the whipping wind.

“Go!” Foster told Sabine and Finn. “Get to the cellar!”

Finn and Sabine nodded and, holding tight to each other’s hand, started to rush off, but Sabine pulled them to a stop to shout over the wind. “What about you two? You stay out here you’re going to get killed!”

Tate and Foster shared a long look. He nodded, understanding the wisdom in Foster’s serious green eyes, and then he told Sabine, “We’re going to stop this tornado from killing anyone.”

“But how can—” Finn began, but Foster cut him off.

“Don’t worry about that. Just get out of here. Tate and I can handle this.”

Then, very deliberately, Foster took Tate’s hand, and squeezed it before looking up at him with those eyes and that beautiful, honest face. “We can do this. We can save these people.”

And suddenly Tate believed they could do it—they could save them. “Together,” he said. “We’ll save ’em, like we couldn’t save our parents.”

Holding hands, Tate and Foster walked in the opposite direction everyone else was running. They walked around the rear of the store and directly for the diving funnel.