UnWholly (Unwind Dystology #2)(76)

He does it without hesitation. He helps her up, and she scratches herself on the barbed wire coming down the other side, but at least she’s on the other side! Then Lev, the boy who she saw as her jailer, climbs over and joins her.

“There’s a road,” he says, “maybe a hundred yards or so through the woods. We can flag down a ride.”

“Who would be driving on a night like tonight?”

“There’s always someone desperate to go somewhere.”

The wind dies down a bit by the time they reach the road, but in tornado weather that could be a good sign or bad. They haven’t seen hail yet, and hail’s a sure sign that something worse is on the way.

Sure enough, there’s traffic on the two-lane road—not much, just a car every minute or two, but all they need is one.

“They won’t know we’re gone until after the storm passes,” Lev says. “If someone picks us up, promise me you won’t tell them about the mansion and what we’re doing there.”

“I won’t promise anything,” Miracolina tells him.

“Please,” Lev begs her. “The other kids there aren’t like you. They don’t want to be tithed. Don’t condemn them to something that was never their choice.”

Although it goes against her instincts, right now the line between right and wrong is blurry enough for her to say, “Fine. I won’t tell.”

“We’ll make up a story,” Lev says. “We were out biking and got caught in the storm. Just go along with anything I say. Then when we’re dropped off, if you really want to be tithed, go turn yourself in. I won’t stop you.”

And although she doubts he’ll make it that easy, she agrees.

“What about you? Where will you go?”

“I have no idea,” he tells her, and there is such a spark in his eye when he says it, she can tell having no idea is exactly the way he wants it.

Headlights approach, and the wind picks up again. They wave their arms and the vehicle, a van, pulls over to the side of the road. A window rolls down, and they hurry to the van.

“My God. What are you two doing out here in this?” says the driver.

“We were on our bikes—we didn’t know a storm was coming,” Lev says.

“Where are the bikes?”

“We left them way back,” Miracolina chimes in.

“We’ll come get them after the storm,” Lev says. “There’s a tornado watch—we just need to get out of here. Can you help us?”

“Of course I can.” He unlocks the car, and Lev pulls open the side door. As he does, the dome light comes on, illuminating the man’s face for the first time. Although the moment calls, quite literally, for any port in a storm, Miracolina can’t help but be a bit troubled by the man’s face as she gets in. There’s something odd about it. Or maybe it’s just his eyes.





34 ? Lev

Lev doesn’t pay much attention to the driver. He’s just glad to be out of the storm and to have transportation away from his gilded cage. He has lied to Miracolina. He has no intention of letting her turn herself in to the Juvenile Authority. He knows he might not be able to stop her, but that doesn’t mean he can’t try.

A gust of wind almost pushes the van off the road as they drive, and the driver fights it with both hands on the wheel. “Some storm, huh?” The man says as he glances at Lev in the rearview mirror. Lev averts his gaze. The last thing he wants is to be recognized as “that clapper kid.”

“Comfy back there?” the man asks. He hasn’t asked them where they’re headed yet. Lev runs though his mind the names of towns he knows in the area for when the question is inevitably asked.

Outside the rain slices at the windshield at such a violent angle, the wipers are defeated, and they have to pull over. The man turns to them.

“Tornado watch, you say? Do you suppose we’ll be taken to Oz?” He seems far too jovial under the circumstances.

“The sooner we all get home the better,” Miracolina offers.

“Yes, but you’re not headed home,” he says, the same happy tone to his voice. “We all know that, don’t we?”

Miracolina throws Lev a worried glance. The man has locked his gaze on Lev, and only now does Lev see how very mismatched his eyes are. The sight gives him a chill that has nothing to do with the storm.

“I know you don’t remember me, Mr. Calder, because you were unconscious at our last encounter. But I certainly remember you.”

Lev reaches for the van door, but it’s locked, with no visible way to unlock it.

“Lev!” shouts Miracolina, and when he looks back, he sees the man has pulled out a tranq pistol, which looks extremely large and nasty in such close quarters. Heavy hail begins to pummel the van, and the man must shout to be heard over it.

“The first time I shot you, it was an accident,” he says. “This time it’s not.” Then he tranqs both of them before they can say a word. Lev catches sight of Miracolina’s eyes rolling back and her slumping in the seat before he begins to drown in his own tranquilizer cocktail, spinning down, down, down, while outside the sound of hail gives way to a roar like a freight train barreling through hell.





35 ? Nelson

In a flash of lightning, he sees a glimpse of the tornado. It tears out trees from the side of the road not a hundred yards ahead of him. It tears up the road itself—chunks of asphalt flying into the sky. Something—a piece of road or a tree limb—puts a dent in the roof like the angry stomp of a giant. A side window shatters, and the van is dragged sideways from the shoulder and into the middle of the road.