Excerpt
Chapter One


Janelle froze in front of the bay window as the breath caught in her throat. Mountains of black clouds lumbered through the sky and the glass buckled against the screaming wind. This was it; she was dead. “Dad, get away from the window. We’ve gotta get out of here!”

Her father faced her. Smiling. “Isn’t this exciting? I want you to see this.”

Every palm tree in their yard bent over as if pointing them back to Michigan, to the sanity she’d left behind. Rain beat against the house, adding to the roar that filled the world. The roof creaked like it wanted to peel off and fly away. It probably would, with her luck.

Janelle bit her lip, hugging herself. It was all a dream. It had to be. It was one of those nightmares where only she could see the danger, but no one would listen to her. She’d wake up soon and go to school and attend her Math Whiz meeting and order a pizza with her friends. Any minute now she’d—

Snap. A tree fell across the street with a sound like gunfire.

Her heart thudded as she moved behind the couch. “Please. I want to go to the shelter!” She’d turned into a bubblehead, but what else would make him listen? She’d cry, and scream, and throw a tantrum if she had to.

Footsteps approached. Eyes shining, her dad spoke in an even voice, the one he’d used on her bedtime stories so long ago. “We’re completely safe, Janelle. I’ve been through this before. Just enjoy it. You’d never have this experience back up north. This is nature’s most powerful storm.”

Behind him, a piece of sheet metal cut through the rain and somersaulted its way down the street.

“Exactly! What’s your problem?” Tears blurred her vision. Something was way, way wrong here. Her dad was always Mr. Careful. He never acted like this. Turning, she let loose the loudest shriek she could, digging her hands into her hair for good measure.

She fell silent, waiting for his response. Nothing except for the roar of the storm. God, he still didn’t care. That left one last thing. Sucking in a breath, she dodged through a canyon of moving boxes to the TV. “Look! We’re running out of time. We have two hours before we’re totally screwed.”

A weatherman pointed to a green and yellow radar mess behind him, rambling on about storm surges and wind speeds. The eye of Hurricane Gary twisted closer to shore, and Janelle’s new home, Palm Grove, stood right in its path.

“See?” A dry lump formed in her throat as Hurricane Gary vanished and an angry red border appeared on the coast. When that eye hit, she’d be gulping down seawater. “What if this ends up like Hurricane Andrina where like, nine hundred people drowned? We’ll die if we stay here!”

Click. Her dad had turned off the TV. “Honey, please listen. They’ll only tell you the bad stuff on TV. Hurricanes are actually really cool. They play an important role in—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Janelle ran into the kitchen and swept an avalanche of papers off the table in search of the car keys. If she had to drive to the shelter with her learner’s permit, so be it. “Where’re the keys?”

“I’ve got them.” Her dad fiddled with his shirt sleeve like it was more important than staying the hell alive. He opened his mouth, probably to say something else stupid, but closed it.

A car alarm went off somewhere across the street. So much for the tantrum. So much for the TV. Janelle sucked in a breath and kept her voice level. “Please. Why are you acting so weird?”

Her father’s gaze slowly dropped to the floor. He sunk to the couch like an old man, patting the cushion next to him. “O…okay. Come sit down, Janelle. We’re not in danger, and I’ll tell you why.”

A loud rap on the door made her jump back against the fridge. Now what—had a branch hit it? But the banging came again, louder than before. “Open up! Police!” a gruff voice called from the other side.

“Thank god,” Janelle said, running for the door. Someone with some sanity was going to get them out of here.

She tripped over a box and sent her collection of stuffed sea animals sprawling across the floor. The storm blasted in as she yanked the door open, tossing the papers off the table and swirling them in the air. A man in a dripping yellow rain slicker stood on the porch, bracing himself against the wind, and a black police car had parked next to her father’s truck. It looked like a chariot sent from the heavens.

“What are you still doing here?” he asked her father, eyes dark and narrow. “You’re under a mandatory order to evacuate. This could all flood when the surge comes in. There’s no way you’re safe here, and we can’t come out and help you once it gets too bad. There’s a shelter five miles inland at the high school. You need to follow me there.”

“I’m in. Thanks,” Janelle said.

“We’re fine, sir—” her dad started.

Janelle reached out and took his arm. It was time to be bossy somewhere outside her Math Whiz meetings for once. “No, we’re not.”

“Mister,” the cop spoke with the voice that could have stopped a rhinoceros in its tracks. “Do you care about your daughter’s life?”

A pause. He still wanted to stay put. Fine. She’d decide for him. Tugging his arm, she made for the door. Rain battered her skin and the wind sucked the air from her lungs. “Obviously not.”

“Sir,” the officer said. “We’re taking your daughter whether or not you decide to come.”

Sighing, her father said, “All right. Let’s go.”

The officer waved them out into the curtains of rain.

Her dad’s truck blinked its headlights as he jabbed the remote to unlock it. “Now!” he said.

Freedom. Safety. She wasn’t going to die. Head down against the stinging rain, she charged for the silver truck. Wind whipped her hair into her face and mouth as if trying to push her back into that nightmare. Her feet came out from under her—her tiny frame was no match for the gust—but her father seized her arm, yanking her back up.

He yanked the door open, staring hard at her through the watery beads on his glasses. “In!”

Janelle seized the door and pulled herself into the truck. Dripping, she spat out strands of blond hair.
A blur in the rain, her father struggled against the wind as he made his way to the driver’s side door. He climbed in, bringing half a lake with him. Maybe now he’d realize what a bad idea staying home would have been.

“You okay?” Janelle asked, fighting back a sarcastic comment and soaking the cool rain off her arms with her shirt. But getting drenched running to the truck beat the alternative.

He wiped off his glasses. “Of course. Just got a little wet.”

You could’ve gotten killed, she wanted to say.

The police car backed out of the driveway. Her father revved the truck up as a palm frond flew off a thrashing tree and plastered itself to the windshield. Streetlights blinked out, casting the street in an even more darkness. They’d finally lost power.

Janelle let out a slow breath. “We should’ve left hours ago.”

The police car led the way past a row of houses and the fallen tree. The truck swayed against the wind as it followed. A metal piece of something blew across the street ahead. If it took more than five minutes to get to the shelter, Janelle was going to scream—again.

She swallowed, studying the streams of rain marching across her window and the slogans on plywood-covered windows. Get lost, Gary. Gary was here. Get out of town, Gary. She couldn’t agree with them more.

The rain managed to beat down harder, until Janelle could only make out red and blue lights ahead. Her father braked twice to avoid trash cans in the street, clicking his tongue in annoyance the second time. Annoyance? In this?

Janelle glanced at him, but not so much as one stress wrinkle had appeared at the corner of his mouth. “How can you not be scared right now?”

His gaze flickered down to her bare arm. “You shouldn’t have worn a tank top. Here. Cover up your birthmark.” He reached over and took their cheap first aid kit out of the glove compartment. “People might think you’ve got a rotten sense of humor if you don’t.”

“We’re driving in a hurricane, and you’re worried about this?” Janelle held up her arm to show her birthmark. The two-inch-wide spiral had been there since the day she was born. Her father had always told her it was special for some reason. To her, it looked weird and gave people something to stare at. And now the sight of it sent a little shudder over her skin. It didn’t look that different from the hurricane diagrams she’d seen on TV earlier, and it even had a dark spot in the middle that someone could mistake for an eye. Okay. Maybe he did have a point. She dug through the kit for the biggest bandage she could find and slapped it over the mark as if it were a badge of shame. Yeah, this’ll go over great in Florida.