Chapter 4 Stormbringer


I-80 E, Wyoming

"Come on, they were great guys, but really, not the sharpest tools in the box, Dean."

Dean glanced sideways at her, a frown drawing his brows together. "Where do you get that? They pulled a heap of jobs successfully."

"Are you kidding? You couldn't see the ending right from the first moment we saw them?" Ellie shook her head slightly. "Dumb luck saved them. Look at what happened when they blew the safe!"

"Yeah, well, that was supposed to be funny, wasn't it?" He stared at the road, a long grey concrete ribbon stretching out in front of them, the sun just high enough now to be out of his eyes.

"It was funny, but it was also indicative of their level of intelligence." She snorted. "I love the movie, I do, but you can't tell me you thought there was any other ending but the one it had. They were doomed to die."

He shot another look at her. "Yeah, well they could've made it out."

Her eyebrows lifted. "Did you see the ending, Dean?"

"Yeah," he said, a little defensively. It was one of his favourite movies, a western he related to on a whole lot of levels.

"Tell me how they could have gotten out of that!"

"Well, you don't know, not for sure."

"Uh…sixty, seventy guys around a courtyard with automatic weapons, yeah, I do." His hands tightened around the wheel, and Ellie smiled in apology. "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to ruin it for you."

He shook his head. "You couldn't. I'll believe they made it out till the day I die."

"Okay." She saw the sign for the next town and looked down at the map. "We'll be turning left when we hit Cheyenne."

He nodded. "How much longer?"

"A couple of hours to Scottsbluff, maybe another twenty minutes from there."


Gilbert, Nebraska

The little town was quiet when they drove in, a few people moving along the Main Street, three or four cars driving with them or past them, the white painted Protestant church at one end, and the small motel at the other.

"Okay, remind me again of what a weather witch is?" Dean dropped a glance at the file lying on the seat between them.

"Basically, someone who can control the weather." Ellie looked out the window. "It's often someone young, an adolescent, similar thing to poltergeist activity, where the hormones and emotions are out of control and psychic power tends to get out of control as well."

"Yeah, okay…but the weather?" He slowed down as a group of teenagers sauntered across the road in front of them, confident in their immortality, in the responsibility of the adults driving the cars.

"The weather we see is just the result of the atmospheric forces; warm air, cold air, and those are just energy. I doubt if the witch is doing it deliberately, the random nature of the storms that Frank logged seem like they were created by reaction; but it doesn't change the process." She gestured down the street. "There's a motel a couple of blocks down there. Let's get a room and then we should probably go to the school."

"What's left of it," he commented darkly, putting his foot down as the road cleared.


As they drove back up the Main Street and she directed Dean to the high school, Ellie read slowly through the file Frank had passed onto them again. The weather in the little town had been changing gradually for the last four years. At first, the anomalies raised little attention. A rainstorm out of season here, a windstorm that had looked suspiciously like a tornado rising suddenly in the middle of winter and then dissipating over the course of an afternoon without causing any major damage.

The last year, however, had seen a marked increase in events that the meteorologists were so fond of calling 'extreme weather'. One hundred twisters had hit the town over the last spring-summer period, more than double the number seen over the entire state. Three snowstorms had dumped more than eighty inches of snow, just over this county, in August. And in May, the thunderstorm that had hit the town had destroyed the high school on the evening of the senior prom, leaving hundreds of students injured and traumatised.

Four deaths over the last six months could be directly attributed to the unseasonal or downright malicious weather. Two students, recently graduated, had died when their car had gone off the road in a sudden ice storm in June. Two months later, one of the teachers, Mr Hennessy, had died on the front lawn of his home, struck by lightning. And in December, Carl Feldman, twenty-two years old, and apprenticed to the only mechanic in town, had been killed when another lightning storm had hit the town and multiple strikes had brought the power lines down onto his house. It had burned to the ground.

Why the sudden escalation? From May to December, the events had been more localised than ever before, hitting the town itself, not just the county, not just the region. She rubbed her forehead with the inside of her wrist and stretched her neck back against the seat, yanking at the unfamiliar tightness of her skirt at the same time.

Dean had been astonished when she'd come out of the bathroom, hair twisted into a smooth and shining French twist at the back of her head, the dark navy-blue skirt and jacket crisp and business-like, the white blouse under it delicate and feminine with a scalloped neckline and fine white embroidered detail around the edges.

He'd dressed in his long-suffering dark grey suit, but obviously hadn't considered what she might wear. His eyes had travelled down past the skirt's hem, modestly just above the knee, taking in the dark blue silk stockings, and high-heeled pumps in the same shade of navy as the suit, his breath escaping in a long, slow whistle. She'd laughed and picked up her long overcoat, shaking her head at him.

"We're here." Dean glanced over at her as he pulled into the school's car park, choosing a slot in an empty area. Ellie closed the file, pushing it into her bag.

Dean got out and looked around. The school had been rebuilt over the summer vacation, and now, covered in snow, looked more or less as good as new, if you could overlook the still-standing remains of the big oaks and maples that had been smashed apart by the storm, their jagged trunks somewhat softened by the blanket of snow. He shut and locked the car, and wandered to the oak near the steps, looking up at the wide trunk, split in half, almost to the ground. He heard the squeak and crunch of Ellie's shoes on the snow behind him and turned.

"Some kind of storm to do that."

"Yeah." She leaned forward, looking closely at the trunk, reaching out to brush a little of the snow from the bottom edge of the split. Someone had carved their initials into the tree.

B.C.

On the other side of the splintered gash were another set of initials. D.L.

Dean looked at them, split apart perfectly. "Pretty good aim."

Ellie nodded. "Let's get a list of the graduating students while we're here."

"Yeah." He turned away with her, following her up the swept and salted concrete steps into the school. She glanced back at him.

"You can walk beside me; I'm not going to fall."

"View's better from back here." He grinned at her.


"Mr Corelli will see you now." The principal's secretary smiled politely at them and gestured to the door beside her desk, and they got up from the hard, plastic chairs and walked to it, Dean opening it and following Ellie inside.

"I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr Hughes," Mr Corelli walked quickly around the huge desk that took up most of the small office, holding out his hand to Dean. "We're having some problems with the county about the removal of the dead trees."

"No problem," Dean said, shaking it briefly. "We understand how busy you must be. This is my associate, Ms Anderson."

Corelli's brows lifted slightly as he took Ellie's hand, and she hid a grimace of distaste at his limp, somewhat sweaty grip, under a wide smile.

"Now, I'm sorry but I didn't quite understand why Midwest Family is interested in the school now?" He gestured to the two hard plastic chairs in front of the desk and powered around the other side, circumnavigating the massive piece of furniture and settling himself back into his chair. Dean sighed inwardly as he realised his ass still held the shape of the one in the outer office. "The policy has been paid; we've had most of the work done already."

"Actually, we're covering several cases here, Mr Corelli. The graduating students who were killed just after the school's tragic event, and another customer who died in an unrelated incident." Ellie smiled at him, leaning forward slightly. "Mainly we need the background to these events for the policies for the families. I'm sure you understand that we can't discuss the details of those, but it would be helpful if we could interview some of the other graduating students, and get an amalgamated view of all three incidents, at least as much of one as possible."

"Oh. Of course." Corelli spread his hands out expansively. "Just tell me what you need."

Ellie glanced at Dean, who nodded thoughtfully. "A list of the students present at the senior's dance, and their contact details; we'd like a copy of the school's DRP as well."

"Of course." He leaned across the desk and pressed the intercom. "Sheila? Could you please run copies of the Senior Dance attendance sheets, and the DRP? Thank you."

"Were you at the dance, Mr Corelli?" Ellie asked. Corelli nodded, pulling a large handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiping his palms under the desk. "Then we'd like to hear from you, what happened that night, if you have the time?"

"Yes." The principal looked around the room for a few moments, then finally allowed his gaze to settle on Dean. "The forecast, that night, you know, was for clear skies, mild temperatures…just perfect weather for the evening." He shook his head and pulled the wire-framed glasses from his nose, wiping them distractedly and pushing them back on.

"Everything was actually going very well. The students were organised, the band had arrived and it didn't require every socket in the building, people were enjoying themselves, behaving themselves—" He looked quickly between them. "You know, that's not always the case at a high school dance, although we generally muddle through."

Ellie nodded understandingly, and he seemed to find reassurance in that, turning back to Dean. "Up until ten o'clock, anyway."

"What happened at ten o'clock?" Dean asked, looking at the fresh sweat suddenly beading the man's forehead. What was up with this guy? He'd seen men guilty of murder looking more relaxed.

"There was a—a—well, there was an unpleasantness."

"Go on," Ellie prompted Corelli gently, seeing Dean's expression freeze from the corner of her eye.

"Now, please understand I did not witness the encounter directly myself. One of my teachers brought it to my attention, and I only saw the tail end of the confrontation, as it were."

"Of course." Ellie nodded encouragingly.

"One of our students apparently attacked another." Corelli drew in a deep breath. "It was something to do with who had invited who and, frankly, the details were not clear."

"We'd like the names of the students involved, Mr Corelli," Dean said.

"Ah…I'm not sure I can release those kinds of details, Mr Hughes." Corelli looked around the room nervously. "Privacy and so on, you know. The students were disciplined at the time of the event, and those files are only available to education staff and the parents of the children involved, I'm afraid."

Ellie smiled understandingly. "We do understand the ramifications here, Mr Corelli, but as every incident on the evening in question may have a bearing in understanding the entire event, I'm afraid we're going to have to insist on those names, or include the lack of co-operation and subsequent omission in our report to headquarters."

"I don't see how it can possibly have a bearing on a weather event, Ms Anderson?"

"We don't make the rules, Mr Corelli, as I'm sure you understand, but we do have to follow them."

"Yes, well." He pulled his glasses off again and wiped them, looping them back over his ears with a delicate flourish. "I suppose the insurance company has the right to know the details, and you do represent the families of the students, after all."

Ellie nodded, ducking her head at that information. "Quite so, Mr Corelli."

"Ben Carpenter, Danielle Lorrentenso, and Melanie Rourke." Corelli watched her write the names in her notebook neatly, sighing deeply.

"And what was the nature of their altercation?"

"Ah…well, it was physical. Miss Lorrentenso attacked Miss Rourke while she and Mr Carpenter were on the dance floor." He cleared his throat, looking down at his hands. "She was very determined. It took three men to subdue her."

Dean frowned slightly. "And how long after that did the storm hit?"

"It would have been about two hours later, the ceremonies had just finished, King and Queen crowning and speeches and so on. We had no warning really. One minute it was quiet and peaceful; Mr Hennessy had just been outside to check the grounds for students and by the time he re-entered the hall, the roof had collapsed with the weight of the rain on it."

"Your response must have been very swift and decisive, Mr Corelli, to have saved everyone inside." Ellie looked down at the notebook in her lap.

"Yes, well, we have tried to be thorough in the matter of the student's safety," Corelli nodded. "I called the police, and the hospital, to alert them for injuries, called the fire brigade to cut the power before the place caught on fire—our transformers blew when the lightning struck them, it was a miracle no one was killed then—and got everyone into another building, but the storm became stronger, if anything and we ran outside when the old wing started to collapse."

Ellie glanced at Dean and he nodded slightly, getting up. "Thanks, Mr Corelli. I think that's all we need."

"Oh. Good," Corelli said, dabbing at his face with the handkerchief. "Sheila should have the details you need." He stood up but decided against coming around the desk again.

The secretary, Sheila, did indeed have the list and the Disaster Recovery Plan, and she handed them to Ellie as they came out of the inner office. Ellie tucked the papers into the file and followed Dean out to the corridor and down the stairs. They walked out of the building in silence, stopping on the broad flight of steps at the entrance to button up their coats.

"Well," Ellie said softly. Dean pulled the collar around his ears and nodded.

"Yeah."


Ellie pulled off her coat and jacket as they entered the motel room, dropping her bag on the sofa and leaving the clothing hanging over the back of a chair. She turned in time to see Dean close the door and lean back against it, his gaze riveted to her legs.

"How long?" She crossed her arms, standing in front of him. He looked up, wide-eyed.

"How long what?"

"How long is it going to take you to get used to this outfit?"

He shrugged, smiling and walked to her, vaguely surprised by the three extra inches of height the pumps had given her as well.

"You're not worried I'm going to think you're too sexy to do the job, are you?"

Her mouth twisted slightly. "No, I'm worried you're going to be distracted at the wrong moment and not be able to do the job."

He smiled down at her. "Nah, it's me."

"Yeah, exactly."

"We could, you know, desensitise the whole thing." He lifted a brow, letting his gaze travel slowly down her and back up, his fingers finding the small pearl buttons of her blouse, and undoing them one by one.

"Desensitise it?" Ellie shook her head. "I have to wear this for the interviews this afternoon, Dean."

"We'll be careful." He bent his head, running an almost-smooth-shaven cheek along hers. "Real careful."

He slid the soft, filmy material out from the waistband of her skirt, pulling it back until it hung over her shoulders, revealing the white silk and lace bra beneath. Ellie felt her breath rush out of her, as his hands slid slowly up her ribs, thumbs rubbing over her nipples through the thin material.

"Don't…uh…tell me, you've got a fantasy about career women, Dean," she breathed, tipping her head back as sensation flooded her nerve endings.

"Just one," he murmured, his mouth trailing down the long, exposed column of her throat. "And I didn't even know it until you walked out in this."

He dragged in a deep breath. "So, it's really your fault."

She shivered as he pushed her back against the table. "My fault? How did you think I was…oh…uh…going to dress…as…uh…an insurance…oh…agent?"

"Stop talking, you're distracting me."

"I know, that's the whole—"

He kissed her, cutting her off, and she slid her arms over his shoulders, and around the back of his neck. His hands slid down her hips, gathering folds of the skirt in his fingers, and drawing it up, his breath catching a little as his fingertips followed the satin of the stockings up her thigh and then slipped off onto the silk of skin. Breaking the kiss, he looked down, brows rising.

"You are not going to tell me that's not for me," he said, raising his gaze to hers as his fingers slid under the suspenders, following the inside curve of her thighs, then rubbed her slowly through the white silk panties that matched the bra.

"No, not for you," Ellie said, her indrawn breath hissing between her teeth. "Don't like pantyhose, it's too—"

"Sshh…" He covered her mouth with his, the kiss deepening and intensifying as his fingers slipped past the elastic and inside.


Two hours later

"You don't seem that desensitised to me," Ellie said, her tone dry as she looked at Dean. Her skirt had ridden up as she'd slid out of the car, and his gaze was locked onto the length of thigh now exposed.

He laughed. "Might take me a few goes to get really used to it."

"Huh." She turned, reaching into the car to pull out her bag, feeling his gaze as strongly as if he'd run his hands over her. "You do this when I'm wearing jeans?"

"All the time." He nodded, closing the car door as she straightened and walked past him. She stopped at the front gate to the house.

"Okay, are you ready? No stray x-rated thoughts floating around?"

He smiled wistfully at her for a moment, then nodded, his expression smoothing out to a business-like scowl. "Yeah, I'm done."

She turned and walked up the cleared brick path, feeling him beside her as they climbed the steps to the porch.

"Mrs Allwood? I'm Carrie Anderson; this is my associate, Don Hughes. We're from Midwest Family Insurance." Ellie passed the business card to the woman standing at the door. "We're finalising some of the paperwork for the damage done to the school, and were wondering if we could speak to your daughter, Amy?"

"Uh…sure, I guess. Come in." Mrs Allwood backed up, turning aside and holding the door as they passed her. "She's, uh, upstairs in her bedroom. Um…make yourselves comfortable, I'll just get her."

Ellie walked down the hallway and turned into the doorway of the room Mrs Allwood had indicated. The house was a pleasant one, the rooms painted in neutral shades, the upholstery a little more bold. She glanced around the room, and moved in front of one of the two armchairs facing the sofa.


Dean sighed inwardly and walked to the sofa. Depending on who they were interviewing, there were a number of different setups they used to get the information using subtle rather than overt pressure. Ellie had quickly worked out that young, female interviewees responded best when Dean was beside them, and she was opposite them. He couldn't bitch about it. He'd done the same thing when he'd been working with Sam.

Mrs Allwood came into the room a moment later, followed by a young woman in her late teens.

"Amy, this is…uh…I'm so sorry, I've forgotten your names." She looked from Ellie to Dean.

"Ms Anderson and Mr Hughes." Ellie smiled reassuringly. "Hi, Amy, we're from Midwest Family Insurance and we just wanted to ask you some questions about your prom, and the storm on that night."

"Oh. Yeah, okay." She wandered to the sofa, sitting down next to Dean.

"Can I get you something? Coffee?" Mrs Allwood looked at them.

"No, thank you, we're fine." Dean looked over Amy's head at her mother, smiling.

"Um, alright, I'll leave you to it then." She turned away and walked down the hall.

Ellie looked at Amy. "There's no need to be nervous. They're just routine questions."

Amy looked up at her, then at Dean, her gaze cutting back to her hands, curled in her lap. "Sure."

"Can you tell us what happened that night?" Dean asked. Amy looked back at him, and shifted back on the sofa, sighing.

"It was all pretty lame, you know? At least until Danielle showed up and, like, started a monster catfight with Melanie Rourke. Did you hear about that?" She looked at Dean.

"Not in any detail. Were you there? Did you see it?"

"Oh yeah, I was ringside. Danielle and Ben were going together forever, at least a year, you know, and then one week before prom, he just suddenly asked Melanie. Danielle was out of town, you know, and didn't find out until the day before, and she was, like, just so mad about it. I wasn't surprised when she showed up."

"What happened?" Ellie asked, opening her notebook. Amy glanced at her, and turned back to Dean, shrugging a little.

"Well, she just went at Melanie, and we all thought, you know, Melanie's so dead. Danielle's got a lot of Latino blood and she just doesn't stop…" She hesitated, her eyes losing focus. "Melanie was screaming names at her, and Danielle just sucker punched her, and she—Melanie—went down for a minute…then she got back up and went for it." Amy shook her head.

"I mean, girls fighting, it's like, so bad, in their dresses and everything, it was just gross, they were, like, shrieking, at each other, and you couldn't understand one thing they were saying, then the teachers got involved and pulled them apart, and like, Melanie's dripping blood onto her dress, and Danielle's hair is just, like, everywhere, but I guess they got it sorted out. Ben was so embarrassed, you could see he was, like, beet-red practically all over."

She drew in a breath, and looked at Dean. "I left after that, with my boyfriend, we were just over the whole school thing, you know? But I heard the next day, that Ben and Danielle got back together that night."

"They did? What about Melanie?" Dean flicked a glance at Ellie.

"Uh, well, Corelli must have called her dad, 'cos she got picked up a bit later and taken home, apparently."

"So you weren't in the hall when the storm hit?" Ellie wrote the details down.

"No, Mitch—uh, my boyfriend—and me, we went down to the library. I work there, sometimes, so I got a key, and we were, like, just fooling around, you know, when we saw the storm hit the building." She shook her head. "We saw those strikes. Four of them, hit the power poles exactly, blew them up. We didn't hang around, we got in Mitch's car and we smoked outta there. It was freaky, like watching God or something."

Dean nodded slowly, looking at Ellie. She looked back at him, a small crease between her brows.

"Well, uh, thanks, Amy. That was very helpful." Dean slid back a little and stood up. Ellie rose as well, putting her notebook back in her bag and lifting it onto her shoulder.

"Sure, yeah." She stood up, not moving, forcing Dean to back up and walk around the low table in front of the sofa to get around her as Ellie made for the hall.

"Uh…you know what was really surprising." Amy turned as he reached the doorway, and he stopped, looking back at her.

"What's that?"

"Well, Melanie's really like this ultra-nerd, you know? Never a hair out of place, legs tight together, you know?"

Dean sighed inwardly. Yeah, he knew.

"Yeah, and?"

"Well, she just fought like a wildcat, I mean it was totally surreal to watch the preacher's perfect little girl just scratching and clawing at another girl."

"Melanie's the preacher's daughter?" Dean asked.

"Oh, yeah. Sunday school and Bible camp, the whole thing." Amy nodded, walking up to him. "Guess it's always the quiet ones, huh?"

"Yeah, usually is." He turned away, walking down the hall to the front door, where Ellie was waiting. He wasn't sure what to make of Amy's extra information. But he remembered another case, a long, long time ago now, where the preacher's daughter had had a few issues as well.


They saw four other students in the afternoon, all recounting more or less the same details. Only the last boy had anything extra to add.

"Look," he said, his eyes cutting from Dean to Ellie nervously. "I don't want to get hammered for this, you know?"

"Sure, silent as the grave, man." Dean nodded at him.

"I, uh, dated Melanie for a few weeks," he said, the little half-shrug of one shoulder like a twitch. "And she is not the way she, uh, comes across. I mean, her dad—he's like the original fire and brimstone model, you know, and you don't fu—uh, mess with him." He shook his head. "I mean, you don't shit where you eat, right?"

Dean was nodding slowly, his eyes narrowed as he watched the boy struggling. "Sure, absolutely not."

"Right." The kid pulled in deep breath. "So we broke up, but she—uh—" He looked uncomfortably at Ellie and away.

Dean glanced at her, and Ellie shuffled the papers in her lap, looking at her watch. "Mr Hughes, I need to check in with head office, can you continue this interview?"

"Yeah. No problem." Dean looked back at the boy as she got up and left the room.

They both turned to watch her leave, and the boy looked at him. "Man, how do you concentrate on work?"

Dean suppressed his smile. "Not so easy. What happened after you broke up with Melanie?"

"Well, uh, nothing to me." He wiped his hands on the legs of his jeans. "But she, uh, she was seeing that guy, Carl, the mechanic."


Ellie was sitting in the car, laptop open on her knees when Dean opened the driver's door and slung himself into the car. He looked down at the screen.

"Thanks. Nice exit. Kid had a big load."

She looked at him, one side of her mouth curving up. "I remember being eighteen."

"You were never eighteen." He leaned along the seat and kissed her neck. "We need to see this girl."

"Yeah." She looked at her watch. "No time like the present."

He started the car, waiting until she'd put the laptop back in its bag before pulling out.

"Don't keep me in suspense, what'd he say?"

"Long story short." He made the turn at the end of the street, and headed for the church. "Her mom died of cancer when she was twelve. Everyone felt sorry for her, and that year—"

"It rained for a year." Ellie nodded. "That's in the file."

"Yeah." He rubbed a hand along his jawline absently. "Nothing much else until this year. She, uh, starting dating, and got kind of fixated on Ben Carpenter."

"Who was seeing someone else at the time."

"Yeah." He slowed down as he turned onto the next street. "After the prom and the storm, they had some freaky weather for a few days, which ended up with the ice storm in June, that killed Carpenter and his girlfriend." He looked at her. "The kid said that before her dad picked her up, she saw them, making up under the stairs."

"Okay, well that explains the storm that hit the school, I guess." Ellie leaned back against the corner between the door and the seat. "I'm feeling lucky to have missed all that."

"Yeah." He smiled, looking at the road. "Me too. We were never in one place long enough to get involved in that kind of crap."

"So the first emotional trigger is the dance and the other girl," Ellie mused, closing her eyes. "Maybe she saw them together a lot after that, couldn't control the way she felt and had an ice-cream-and-soppy-love-song night when she brought on the ice storm?"

"Maybe." He pulled up in front of the church. "This it?"

Ellie pulled the town map from the glovebox. "Yeah, house is behind the church."

"What made her flip out and fry the teacher?"

"I don't know. What about the other guy?"

"Well, according to Toby, she started seeing Carl Feldman at the beginning of December. He didn't say they were dating, said that she was sneaking out of her house and going over to Feldman's place for a little action."

Ellie frowned. "And he knew that, how, exactly?"

"Feldman was bragging about it, at the local watering hole."

"Mmmm…uh huh. Well, that's always reliable." She looked at him. "Anything else?"

"Said that Feldman was also seeing the waitress from the diner, the girl who tends bar two weeknights, the local hairdresser. Dude must have had loads of energy." He shook his head.

"And not much happening in the grey matter." She shrugged. "Well, that's motive, I guess. You ready?"

He nodded and they got out, walking slowly down the sidewalk past the church to the houses behind it.

The Rourke house was a big, plain clapboard, the yard tidy under its blanket of snow, a grey four-wheel drive parked in the driveway. There were no flowerbeds or shrubs, just a single small tree, slender branches drooping slightly under the weight of the snow. Dean looked at the car.

"Looks like they're home."

The path had been shovelled and gleamed wetly in the light from the porch. They climbed the steps and knocked on the door, light spilling out through the etched panes of glass to either side of the entrance, Reverend Rourke clearly visible as he came down the hall toward them.

"May I help you?" Rourke was a huge man, several inches over Dean's height, his shoulders filling the doorway, the muscle delineated under the snug sweater he wore. He looked from Dean to Ellie.

"Reverend Rourke?" Ellie smiled at him. "I am Carrie Anderson, and this is my associate, Don Hughes. We're from Midwest Family Insurance." She handed him her card, waiting as he read the details on it with a frown. "We'd like to speak to your daughter, Melanie, about the storm that hit the school."

"That was months ago. She talked to everyone already." The frown deepened as he handed her back the card.

"Well, we're doing follow-up on the background of the event, Reverend, and we've spoken to several of the students already—"

"Then you don't need to speak to Melanie," Rourke cut in abruptly. "Besides, I'd already picked her up and we were on the way home when that storm hit. She can't tell you anything."

"Daddy? What's going on?" The voice was soft and light and slightly breathy, the girl hidden completely behind her father.

Reverend Rourke turned aside reluctantly, revealing a young woman with straight, mid-length blonde hair, drawn back from her face with an Alice band, wide purplish-blue eyes in a round face, fitted navy pants hinting at slender legs. She was wearing a close-fitting white sweater that left little to the imagination.

"Nothing, sweetheart." He looked down at her. "Go on back to your room."

"You wanted to see me?" Melanie looked at Dean directly, and he nodded.

"We have a few general questions about the night of your Senior Prom, Melanie." Ellie's glance slid to the girl's father. "We're just trying to get as much information about that night as possible."

Melanie looked up at her father. "That's fine, Daddy. I don't mind helping these people out."

He sighed deeply and lifted a massive shoulder in a slight shrug. "Well, okay."

Melanie turned and walked down the hallway, talking over her shoulder, "Come in, we'll use the parlour, I think, it's more comfortable."

Dean followed her, squeezing to the right hand side of the hall to avoid Rourke. Ellie followed, stopping and turning to Rourke as he shut the door behind them. "We really won't take much of your daughter's time, Reverend."

He studied her for a moment, his face expressionless then he shrugged again. "She's an adult. Nothing I can do to stop if she wants to talk to you folks. I just don't want her getting upset over nothing."

"These are just general questions, sir."

She turned away and followed Dean and the girl down the hall and into the second doorway.

The parlour had a small fire lit, and a few lamps glowed around the room. The sofa opposite the fire was a two-seater, and matching armchairs were positioned to either side of it, facing the fire as well. Dean was already seated on the sofa, his notebook and pen in hand, Melanie sitting next to him. Ellie made her way around to the armchair closest to the girl.

She glanced at Dean as she took her seat. In the warm, golden light, a frown crossed Dean's face. What was that, she wondered, pulling out her notebook and a pen.

"Melanie, could you tell us what you recall about the night of the senior dance?" she asked, flicking another glance at Dean. He started slightly and turned to look at the girl.

"It was awful, just awful," Melanie said, her gaze on Dean. He looked down at his notes.

"I didn't hear what happened until the next day, of course," she added, turning to Ellie, her tone cool. "My father came to pick me up before the storm hit, and we were lucky that we were almost home before it did."

Ellie nodded, keeping her expression pleasantly neutral, wondering at the faint antagonism that underlay the words.

"We've heard from several other students that you had an incident with another girl at the dance," she said, "Could you tell us about that?"

The atmosphere in the room changed, the air thickening. Ellie felt a light tingle in her fingertips and along her scalp. Static, she thought, keeping her eyes on Melanie's face. For a long moment, she thought the girl wouldn't answer, and wondered if she was about to find out how it felt to be hit by lightning inside a house, but the charge dissipated, and Melanie turned her attention to Dean, smiling and shrugging.

"Oh that, that was…well, you know how teenage girls are about boys." She tilted her head slightly. "I was over him in a second, when I realised what kind of boy he was."

The dark blonde lashes fluttered down over the girl's eyes, her head inclining deferentially. Dean's expression changed from polite interest to wariness and he slid backward along the over-soft cushion, his gaze dropping to the notebook.

"So there were no hard feelings when he, uh, got back with his girlfriend at the dance?" Dean asked.

Melanie hesitated again, and Ellie crossed her legs, moving her hand unobtrusively to her back, finger touching the hard smooth butt of the gun that was holstered there. She let it fall when the girl laughed, but kept the position, wondering how just how fast Melanie could pull her weather tricks.

"No, I know what boys are like, they're fickle, they don't know what they want most of the time." She smiled at him, the artless smile of a would-be Lolita, unaware of how transparent she was, of how obvious her attempts at manipulation were. Ellie felt a fleeting stab of pity for her.

She felt her uneasiness disappear as she recognised the crush. Melanie wouldn't hurt Dean, not now. She straightened in the chair, putting her notes and pen on the occasional table beside her.

"Could I use your bathroom?" She would have a few minutes to look through the girl's bedroom, while Melanie practised her wiles on Dean.

Melanie turned to look at her, a glint of something in the violet-coloured eyes, as her face took on a warm smile. "Of course, ma'am. It's upstairs, second door on the right once you're on the landing."

"Thank you." She glanced at Dean, her right eyelid flickering in a wink almost too fast to see. "I'll be right back."

She caught a glimpse of the tightening of the muscles around his mouth, before he smiled awkwardly at Melanie, and she turned away. He was a big boy, he could take of himself.


Dean felt his face stretch into a smile as the girl turned back to him, the expression in her eyes all too obvious at this distance. He was gonna kill Ellie when they got out of here. He pushed the thought away as Melanie inched closer to him.

"Did you have any other questions for me, Don?"

"Uh," he hedged, looking down at the notebook in his hands. "Oh yeah, just one more."

His head snapped up as he felt her hand slide over his knee.

She was a lot closer and leaning toward him, staring into his eyes. "You have really beautiful eyes…did you know that?"

"Uh, yeah, huh…" He fought the impulse to close them. "Uh, you were, uh, seeing Carl Feldman, before he died?"

The hand stopped its slow slide up his leg and her eyes narrowed. "For a week or two. He wasn't a nice guy."

"Why not?" He took advantage of her distraction to shift back along the sofa, swearing internally when his back hit the arm.

She looked at him speculatively for a moment, then moved along the sofa again, swivelling so her knee rested against his.

"He was fucking around."

Dean looked at her, one brow rising involuntarily. Her voice had changed, from the breathless little-girl to a slightly deeper and much older timbre. The wide-eyed innocent look had gone too, he noticed, replaced by a calculating expression that added another five years to the way she looked.

"You're shocked? Don't be," Melanie said, smiling as she inched closer. "I'm not quite as prim and proper as I might seem."

"Uh …"

He was excruciatingly aware that her father, a reverend who was roughly the size of a tank, was sitting in the next room, or possibly wandering around the house and if she got any closer, his position was going to look a lot more compromising than it was.

"You seem like a really nice guy." She smiled at him, and lifted her hand again. Dean caught it before it made it to his thigh.

"Yeah, and I'm married. Happily." He pushed her hand back to her lap, waving his left hand at her. A jolt passed through her hand and left a tingling aftershock in his. "The hell?"

"I think I could probably make you forget that for a while."

"Uh, no. You couldn't." He grabbed the arm of the sofa and levered himself out, taking an extra stride away from it for good measure. "It's not like the movies, Melanie. Not all guys are easy, not all of them change their minds, and not all of them don't know what they want."

She sat on the edge of the sofa, watching him. "Then why are you so nervous of me?"

"Ah, because you're under age, your father is somewhere around, I don't want make you feel bad, but I'm just not interested…take your pick," he said, glancing around the room.

She stood up and walked toward him, and he started to back up. "Am I so unattractive, Don?"

"What? No. You're very pretty." Dean shot a look behind him, skirting the armchair. "I'm way too old for you. You need a young guy, someone your own age, someone you, uh, have things in common with."

"There's no one like that, Don." She sighed and followed him around the room. "There's no one like me."

Dean stopped moving for a moment, looking at her, hearing the certainty in her voice. "Sure there is."

She shook her head and took a long stride forward, sliding her arms around his waist and looking up at him. Understanding came in a silent flash of heat. He pulled her arms from around him, holding her wrists in front of her.

"Not going to happen." Dean dropped Melanie's wrists and took a step back.

"Ahem." Ellie coughed from the doorway. "Did you finish up, Mr Hughes?"

"Yeah. We're done." He glanced back at Melanie.

"We'll let ourselves out; you don't need to trouble your father," Ellie said.

The girl stared back, her face decidedly un-girlish now, Dean thought, the expression on her face cold and thoughtful.


Dean slammed the car door shut, tilted his head back against the seat, and closed his eyes. "Don't you ever do that to me again."

"Sorry," Ellie said from the passenger seat. "Very bad?"

"She groped me." He let out a long breath, opened his eyes and turned the key. The engine rumbled to life and he turned to look at her, his expression uneasy. "She knows, Ellie. She knows she's doing it."

"Then I guess we should get out of here."

"Think she'll come after us?" He put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb.

"Did you tell her you knew?"

"No." He thought about Melanie's expression when the knowledge had come to him, entire and whole. The girl had still been locked in her internal fantasy.

"We've probably got a few hours then." She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, the small crease appearing between her brows. "We should get our stuff and go back to Scottsbluff for the night, I think."

"Yeah." He started the engine and pulled out onto the street, driving slowly as snow started to fall.


"I don't think we're going to be able to get out of here," Dean said fifteen minutes later, pulling back the motel curtain and looking out at the thick soft snow that covered the asphalt parking lot, the white-blanketed lump sitting in front of the room that was the Impala.

Ellie zipped up her gear bag and joined him at the window, peering out. She'd changed as soon as they'd gotten in, to Dean's vocal disappointment, and was warm in jeans, multiple layers of shirts and a thick, soft jumper. Even so, the sight of the snow sent a slight shiver down her back. She thought of Melanie's face, cold and calculating as they'd left the Reverend's home. The snow fall wasn't menacing. There was no wind to speak of, just the huge, fluffy flakes drifting down, thicker and thicker.

"She's not sure," she said aloud, turning away from the window and walking to the kitchenette. "Not sure if we know, not sure who we are."

Dean let the curtain fall and followed her. "So she's keeping us here, until she can figure it out?"

"Yeah, that'd be my guess." Ellie plugged in the coffee pot, turning it on. "Shifts, tonight?"

He started to nod, then glanced at the door, lifting a shoulder in a half-shrug. "Even with snowshoes, I don't think anyone's gonna get through that tonight."

"She doesn't visit in person—" Ellie said. "Although…"

She turned around, going to the bed again, unzipping her bag and searching through it.

"Although…what?"

"She might, for you," she said distractedly, her fingers pushing and pulling as she looked under and over the contents in the bag.

Dean's mouth twisted unhappily. "I'm gonna be bait?"

"She definitely has a thing for you."

"The last guy she had a thing for was burned alive in his own house," he said unhappily. "What are you looking for?"

"These." She found the small case and pulled out two small button-sized transmitters from it. "Jeans pocket, I think."

She passed him one, tucking the other into her pocket and putting the receiver into her jacket pocket. "She doesn't want to harm you."

He remembered the feeling of heat from the girl, the tingling electrical charge that had zapped him when he'd told her he was married. "Wait a minute, I told her I wasn't interested, told her to find someone her own age."

"Yeah, I don't think she paid much attention to that." She smiled up at him, then turned to the coffeepot as it stopped burbling to itself. "I think you're right. She won't come tonight; she's just making sure we can't leave."

She poured coffee into a cup and handed it to him, pouring another for herself. He sat down at the small table, looking down into the black liquid. Ellie sat across from him, blowing lightly over the hot coffee.

"What are we going to do with her when she does turn up, Dean?"

He looked at her. "She knew what she doing, killing those kids, that teacher and the mechanic. Maybe she didn't know when she brought the storm to the high school, but she knew when she started killing."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." He nodded slowly. "When you left, she kept up with the act, but when I asked her about Feldman, she let it drop. She didn't say it in so many words, but…in her eyes, I could see she knew what she'd done." He looked down at his cup. "She knew it, and she was…enjoying it…enjoying having that power."

Ellie sipped her coffee. "From July to August, she was seeing that teacher, Hennessy."

Dean frowned. "How'd you find that out?"

"Didn't think I'd left you on your own with her for no reason, did you?" She gave him a half-smile. "I looked through her bedroom. There were emails about meeting places, out of town mostly, and she wrote about it in her diary."

"Huh." He curled his hands around the cup. "Anything else in there?"

"Well, a lot of it was garbled, angsty teen stuff, but apparently in April, her father told her that he was planning on asking a woman to marry him. She gave him some serious hell for it, and he dropped it. There were some confusing references to what might have been their conversation about it—apparently the Reverend mentioned that he had needs or something euphemistic along those lines—and she decided that she did too. Maybe it kick-started her hormones, or just pushed her in a direction she was heading in anyway. It was hard to tell from the diary."

"So her first move into the wonderful world of sex was to try and swipe someone else's boyfriend?"

She shrugged. "He was just the first one she was attracted to. And…from what she's written in that diary, she's never had any friends, female or male, to help out with the social conditioning that most people go through. Up until the wedding conversation, the Reverend hadn't so much as mentioned sex to her once."

"Another solid parental choice." He leaned back in the chair. "So, seventeen-year old virgin, suddenly discovers lust and fixates on the local quarterback. Man, you can't write crap this clichéd."

"No. It's a bit of a mystery as to why the quarterback dumped his girlfriend for her, but after the dance and the storm, she was following them around."

"Because torturing yourself is so much fun?" He finished the coffee and made a face.

"I guess." She finished her coffee and rose, taking the cups to the sink and going to her bag for the file. She set it on the table and pulled out a chair, sitting down and flicking through the file.

"I think you're right, she realised that she'd called the storm and she started practising. The notes in the diary were pretty cryptic, but it sounds like she was doing some of it just over the county line, which would explain the odd bursts of weather anomalies in the region but not in the town." She found the printouts Frank had included. "Twisters, thunderstorms…those were already pretty normal for early summer here, and maybe she wasn't sure if it was her, or if it just happened. But on the county line south, June 19, there was an isolated temperature drop. Two farms were caught in it. Both lost livestock." She looked up at him. "The temperature dropped from eighty two degrees to fourteen degrees in an hour."

"And a few days later there was an ice storm on a perfect June day," Dean said.

"Yeah. There was a fair in Mitchell that weekend." She looked back at the file.

Dean looked at her. "Did the diary say what the teacher did to piss her off?"

"Um, he went back to his wife."

"Ouch." He leaned back. "Do we kill her? Is this something we should leave to the cops? She's not exactly a monster. She's just a kid."

"Cops arrest her for murder and the DA's office will throw it out because they cannot convince a jury she can control the weather, let alone use it to kill people." Ellie knuckled her forehead, rubbing at the small crease. "She is just a kid but she's already killed four people that we know of, two of whom were also kids. You really want to let her go and hope she doesn't do it again?"

He grunted in frustration. "Can we kill her?"

"We can kill her; there isn't a problem with that. If she'll give us the opportunity to do it is another question."

"Yeah, okay, tethered goat here." He got up and crossed to the table, pulling out a chair and reaching across the table to take her hand. "What's the problem?"

"We need a setup that's believable." She caught her lip between her teeth, eyes a little distant as she thought about it. "And we can't do anything if she's going to keep us trapped here."

"What kind of setup?" he asked suspiciously.

"Well, you told her you're married. And we're sharing a room." She looked up at him. "And she doesn't like competition."

He took that in. "You think she'll come after you, instead of me?"

"Unless we can give her a good reason to believe that I've left town, maybe because of a fight, then yeah, probably." She leaned her chin on her hand. "I guess either way will work, so long as we're not together at the time."

"Slow down—what will work either way?"

"Either she tries to get rid of me when you're not around. Or I leave, ostensibly, and she comes after you, thinking I've gone."

"Yeah, I vote for Plan B."

Ellie smiled at him and shrugged. "If she lets us out, we can go with Plan B."


Dean woke slowly, rolling over on the soft mattress, his hand sliding over the sheet next to him. He felt Ellie's back and rolled closer, hearing her soft murmur as she wriggled back toward him.

The night had passed in peace and silence, the snowfall muffling the occasional dog barking, the depth keeping everyone in town in their homes. He'd gotten up sometime around three and had looked out to see the cover almost to the wheel arches of the car, the car itself a shapeless mound in front of the room. The night sky had been clear by then, filled with a million stars, shining like diamond chips on black velvet.

He could hear water; dripping, running…he opened his eyes and looked at the curtains, edged with bright light. Thaw must have come, he thought, looking back at Ellie and pulling her closer, the mixture of drowsiness and desire too intoxicating to resist.

Sometimes it was lightning and thunder, their bodies charged and glowing with heat. Sometimes it was like swimming in a deep, warm sea, with no sense of time, no rush, everything building slowly and inevitably. It was never exactly the same, never perfunctory, never painting-by-numbers or even remembering whatever had happened the last time, he thought distractedly, sucking in air as her fingers slid over him. Sometimes…he thought he would die from it, the unbearable yearning and the explosive release through his body, wondering if it could ever so perfect again—and it was.

This time, it was like the tide coming in, filling him up, every fibre, every cell, with a languid, radiant heat that kept on growing and spreading. He could see it in her eyes, in the way her lips were slightly parted, in the tremors that raced through her body, and the pulse beating faster at the base of her throat, the slow thrust of her hips against his and the beginnings of the oscillations deep inside, making his breath catch, his muscles spasm.


"Where do you want to do it?" He looked out the window, at the street, awash with the snow melt, the sky blue overhead, the sunlight pale and weak but there.

"The diner, I think. That ought to be public enough." Ellie pulled on her gloves and picked up her bag. "You sure it's okay if I take the car?"

He turned to her, grinning. "Yeah, I'm sure."

"I'll circle around, come back in from the west. It'll take me about two hours, leaving the car on the edge of town and walking back in. I should be in place before she gets the word."

"Well, if she comes a little early, she'll be in for a surprise." He racked the slide on the automatic and slid it back into his jacket pocket.

She stopped him at the door, arms sliding around him, looking into his face. "What do you want for your birthday?"

He ducked his head, but the one-sided smile was there anyway. "I don't know, I forgot about it."

"Liar."

"I did." He looked down at her indignantly, gesturing around vaguely. "Other things to think about."

"What do you want?"

His face settled into seriousness and he looked into her eyes. "I want to be home."

She nodded, letting him go. "Definitely."


The diner was half-full when they arrived and Dean followed Ellie inside to a booth in the middle. Nice and public, he thought, his stomach flipping in anticipation. Ellie's face was smooth and cold, and the sight brought back memories he had to hurriedly push down.

"Why is it that you never listen to a word I say?" She hissed at him as the waitress approached their table.

Dean glanced at Janine, according the name-card pinned above her shirt pocket, and gave her a weak smile.

"This isn't the right time or the right place—"

"To hell with the right time and place. I want an answer! Right now!" Ellie leaned toward him.

It wasn't the first time they'd pulled this sort of act, but every time, the wobbling sensation in his stomach was the same, brought on by seeing her eyes spitting fire at him, hearing anger or contempt in her voice. He pulled himself together and made himself scowl at her.

"Alright! You want an answer, here's your answer. Yes. Yes, I want a divorce. As soon as we get home."

She drew back, shock and pain in her face, and he had to grip the table to stop himself from jumping up and going around the table to her. The first time, her acting abilities had scared the crap out of him; he hadn't been the least bit sure that it was all an act. He was getting used to it, but it still got to him. He looked at Janine and rattled off his order at her.

"Give me the keys." Ellie's face was white, the words coming out through closed teeth.

"What? No." He picked up his coffee.

"Don't be more of an asshole than you already are, Don. Give me the freakin' keys."

"Fine." He pulled them out of his pocket and threw them across the table at her. They skated off the edge and onto the floor and he got another furious glare.

"Fine. See you in court." She bent and picked up the keys, standing up and knocking her chair over, her hip knocking the table and almost sending his coffee straight into his lap as she stormed out.

Outside, the car started and the engine revved high once, settling down to its standard low roar as she pulled out of the parking space and rolled out of town. In the diner, it was silent. Then someone picked up their fork again and started eating, and slowly the small noises returned to the room.

"You alright, honey?" Janine wiped the coffee spill from the table, picking up the cup. "I'll get you a fresh one."

"Yeah, thanks." He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. He'd eat his breakfast, walk back to the motel…and then it was just a matter of waiting.


Ellie drove out on highway 71, heading south. She could take a left onto a local road and do a big donut in an hour, coming back into town from the north. Dean would take his time with breakfast and be back at the motel around the same time she was coming in. The timing wasn't critical but it would help if they could get it fairly close.

The fields on either side of the road were brown and flattened from the enormous snowfall of the previous night, the ditches running high with the melt. She had the road to herself, and she pushed in the tape, turning the volume down a little so that she could hear over it.

It had taken them working a half dozen cases together before Dean had reluctantly decided that she could drive the car without him riding shotgun. He'd sat and watched her drive on each case, his eyes narrowed, every sense listening to the engine, the car, the road. The last case, she'd happened to be driving when they were peripherally involved in a high speed car chase along the interstate, and she'd seen the sweat pouring off him as his hands and feet had twitched and jumped in sympathy with every gear change, every turn, watching her double clutch to get the best out of the car in the tight manoeuvring in and out of the other vehicles along their path. His heart had been pounding and he was breathing like a steam engine by the time she'd gotten them out of the police chase and onto a secondary road, but he'd admitted that it had been adequate test of her skills.

The smile at the memory disappeared as she passed a lone tree, its canopy swinging back and forth. She slowed, pulling off onto the shoulder and opened the door, feeling the wind against the side of her face. Along the southern horizon a line of cloud had appeared, building as it came closer.

The wind against her was blowing toward the line of cloud and she swore softly, getting back into the car fast, shifting upward through the gears as fast as she could.

Melanie Rourke followed people. They'd both known it. She thought of the thaw in the night, of the gaps between the motel curtains and the window frames, of the way the girl had looked at her thoughtfully. And out of season tornadoes were her weapons of choice. Shaking her head impatiently, Ellie knew it was too late now. She had to get out of here.

Behind her, the storm was building, lightning sheeting along the base clouds. And the wind picked up speed.


Dean glanced at his watch as he walked slowly back to the motel. Pretty much on time, Ellie would either be there or not far off. He lifted his head as he heard a rumble in the distance, looking around. Far to the south, he could make out a smudge on the horizon.

No. No, no, no, no, no! Anxiety fizzed through his blood as he looked at the horizon, his thoughts jumbled and bouncing in his mind. The thaw. She'd followed those kids, had waited until they were out of town. She'd seen them, she must have, seen them in the morning. Shit!

He vacillated on the sidewalk, looking up the two blocks to the motel, and back down toward the Main Street. Would she be waiting for him there already? How far out of town would Ellie be? Could he force her to stop whatever she was bringing, before it hit Ellie in the car?

The wind swirled along the wet streets, freshening against him as he stood there.


Ellie saw the bridge as she came around the bend in the road, slowing to look at it. Between the underside of it and the fast-moving river there was at least twelve feet of room. The river had come up in the night, courtesy of the excessive snow melt, but there was enough space on the further bank to just squeeze in, she thought. The timber and iron and concrete structure looked solid, well-anchored. She bit her lip and turned onto it, the car bumping over the rough surface. At the other end, she could just make the turn and the car bounced down the rough slope in between the wildly waving trees. The river bank was gravel and rock, and the tyres spun a little as she eased it around and pointed the hood toward the bridge.

She drove slowly under the structure, face crunched up nervously as she listened for the whine of metal on metal if she were too close to the supports above. There was silence, and she stopped the engine under the middle section of the two lane bridge, in shadow now.

God, he was going to kill her if anything happened to the car, she thought, getting out and racing back to the trunk. She needed tape for the windshield and windows and there were rolls in the gear bags.

As she stretched the tape over the glass, she thought of how far she'd come, the distance back to town, the most direct route she could take. Melanie would be waiting for Dean in the motel, confident the tornado would take out what she saw as her only opposition. Dean would be pissed if he had any idea of what she'd done, what she'd sent. How many events could she control at once? What they'd seen, what Frank had found seemed to indicate that she'd only been controlling one at a time, but she couldn't shake the memory of the static building when they'd been in her house. Enough of an electrical charge and she could disable him—or kill him, if her sense of self-preservation kicked in strongly enough.

Debris was flying past now, picked up and spat out by the powerful vortex that was spinning toward her. She looked past the car, along the river and saw it towering into the sky, grey and filled with the branches and leaves, grass and shrubs and small trees that it had drawn up on its path.

She was about a mile and a half from town, and if she was going to try and make it, she should get going now.


Dean opened the door, and walked through, gun out, the barrel swinging around the room. Melanie was naked, stretched out on the bed, and smiling at him. He slammed the door shut behind him, and levelled the gun at her.

"Call it off, right fucking now." The safety was off; his finger was tight on the trigger.

"I can't." She shrugged and sat up slowly. "Once I've called them, I don't have control over them any more."

He looked at her, trying to decide if she was lying or telling the truth.

"If she dies, so do you," he promised.

"Aw, don't be like that, Don. Come and sit down." She patted the bed beside her, pouting at him.

Fury seethed in him, and he realised he hadn't wanted to hit a woman this much since they'd had Meg trapped in Bobby's house.


Ellie ran full speed through the field, feeling the pull and pluck of the wind behind her, her heart pounding in her chest, lungs aching, muscles starting to feel leaden. The roar of the twister filled her ears and she was running with her eyes slitted against the dirt and dust that filled the air around her.

Not going to make it, she thought, glancing again over her shoulder, looking down just in time to jump over the tangle of wire and fence post in front of her. It was moving too fast. She could see the back of the motel, maybe another six hundred yards ahead of her, on the other side of the highway, but she didn't have it, the speed or the stamina to keep going. Her hair tugged back and up with the suction of the winds behind her, and she doubled over, forcing herself to run faster.

The drainage ditch opened up in front of her before she'd realised it was there, and she fell down the steep slope, tucking into a roll and managing to stop herself before she hit the concrete lip at the bottom. In the relative shelter of the deep cleft, she wiped her face, and glanced around. A few feet to her right, the square black opening of the storm water drain beckoned, just a couple of inches of water pouring out along the bottom now, sunk deep into the ground, safety if she could get up it far enough in time…in fact, the thought occurred to her, a safe way to get to the motel. She scrambled to her feet and almost dove into the blackness, feeling the icy water soak immediately into her jeans and boots, crawling forward as fast as she could.


Melanie knelt on the bed, smooth, pale skin shining in the dim light, her breasts heavy and tipped by coffee-coloured nipples, her hair loose and hiding half of her face as she looked at him.

"What, you need a seeing-eye dog to get this?" His face twisted in disgust. "You're a fucking monster."

She bowed her head for a moment, her hair falling forward, hiding her expression. When she looked back up, her expression was hard, her face stripped of any semblance of a girl.

Dean stared back at her, his finger tightening on the trigger. If she couldn't—or wouldn't—call off the storm, there was no point waiting any longer.

The klaxons along the street started honking. He could hear a roaring now, not distant, and getting closer. Inside the room, the acrid smell of overcooked batteries filled his nose and he looked back to her, seeing her hair rising and standing out in a nimbus around her head as the static charge built quickly.

The room went dark. He fired, the flash from the muzzle lighting up a small area, and he saw her jerk back as lightning arced from her to him. The hit knocked him backwards, the muscles of his body contracting sharply. The noise of the wind rose to a shriek, windows smashing inwards, the door splintering in the frame, a chair whipping past him and flying out into the maw of the black storm that filled the motel forecourt from end to end.

Dean rolled sharply to the left, shaking his hands to try to dissipate the shocked tingling from the lightning strike, staying as low and flat as he could as more of the room's contents were sucked out past him. The bathroom was only a couple of feet in front of him, and he crawled to the doorframe, pulling himself in and slamming the door shut, scrabbling to the narrow gap between the old-fashioned tub and the toilet cistern, and wedging himself into it. He heard screams from the other room, a tumult of destruction as the wind pressed against the outside walls and took the roof, felt the shuddering of the building as it clung to its foundations, grateful for its age suddenly, that it wasn't a paste-and-plywood throwup.


Ellie heard the noise of the water before she felt it rising against her. She crawled faster through the drain, knowing that the rainfall would be on the south-east quarter of the twister, that she had some time before the town's storm water drains would start to fill in earnest. She could see light ahead, a few shafts from a grating in the street, and she pushed on.

Water was pouring down the grating and over her when she made it to the junction, climbing up the iron rungs embedded in the concrete wall with her head ducked against her chest. She couldn't hear the roar of the twister any more, just a low muttering of thunder as the storm passed the town to the north, and the rushing noise of the water in the tunnel below her. She felt the grating against her head, and stopped, lifting a hand and pushing against the heavy iron lid tiredly. It came away from its lip, grating harshly over the asphalt as she lifted it aside, and climbed out. The klaxons had stopped, and she looked around, seeing an empty street, several torn and smashed houses, perhaps a dozen cars, lying where they'd fallen, on their roofs, or sides, windows gone, metal crunched and crumpled. Turning around, her breath caught in her throat when she saw the motel.

The roof had gone, and several of the rooms were missing their front walls, glass and furniture and appliances scattered over the parking lot. Her eyes went to the room they'd had, and her heart stopped as she looked into it, seeing the interior swept clean, the front wall completely missing, the rain falling onto the dark blue carpet.

She rolled from her knees onto her feet, the crushing fatigue of the last half hour and an unacknowledged pain-edged fear in her heart taking the strength from her legs as she stumbled toward the room.

Come on, she thought, tripping for the fourth time over another piece of debris lying in the street that she hadn't seen, this is Dean, he could survive being run through a wood-chipper. He's fine. He might have gone looking for you. She might not have turned up at all. Walk. Keep walking.

She stood in the centre of the room, looking blankly around it. There was just nothing left at all.

The small click of the bathroom door handle barely registered on her senses, but the raw screak of the door being forced past the twisted frame did. She turned, and a monstrous wave of relief almost drowned her as she registered him standing in the narrow gap between the door and frame. He let out a long exhale, leaning against the doorjamb, the corner of his mouth twitching upward, the same emotions in his eyes.


January 21, I-80W, Idaho

Ellie opened her eyes, rubbing them as she looked around, the familiar sounds of the car and the highway not giving any guide to location. "Where are we?"

"Idaho." Dean glanced at her. "Somewhere."

She nodded and yawned. The desire to sleep had hit her as soon as they'd gotten out of the town. It hadn't been a win, on any level. She'd wanted to forget.

Walking down through the trees surrounding the river with him, her heart had been in her mouth, wondering if the car would even be there, or if there, if it would be fixable. They'd both let out held breaths when they'd climbed down the slope to the river bank and seen her sitting snug under the bridge, in one piece, only one small dent in the roof where the wind had picked up the rear end and tapped it against the bridge support above.

Dean had backed it out carefully and driven it back up the slope onto the bridge, shaking his head as he listened to everything, his eyes and hands running over every inch once she was out and in the sunshine.

The town had not fared as well. It had been a mess, but the twister had only brushed the northern end, veering off to cross the county line after the motel had been demolished. Melanie's body still hadn't been found when they'd left, and neither of them knew if it had been Dean's shot or the twister that had killed her. Ellie was hoping it had been the twister; it seemed fitting.

The ER had been full when they'd gone down there, but a doctor had seen Dean straight away when he saw the black fingernails, the scorch marks up his wrists. The lightning Melanie had thrown at him hadn't been hugely powerful, enough to burn him where he'd had contact with the ground but that was all. The nails would drop off, the doctor thought. He'd applied an analgesic cream, bandaged both hands to the wrists and written out a prescription for painkillers. Dean had insisted on driving, despite the bandages, claiming there wasn't much pain.

"You want a break?" She straightened in her seat, pushing a loose strand of hair back with her wrist, turning the volume on the stereo up.

"I'm good." He slid another sideways glance at her, as the next song came on, his fingers turning the stereo up a little more.

"In my life, there's been changes
But nothing seems to satisfy me the way you do, no
You make it easy, the way you please me, every time I'm close to you
All this temptation, I can't see wrong from right
It's a new sensation, you know I'm blinded by the light

Feels like, I'm walking on holy water
Feels like I'm walking on sacred ground, baby
Feels like, I'm walking on holy water, every time you come 'round

Ellie smiled as she heard him singing along, his voice soft and uncertain at first, gaining power as he hit the chorus, belting it out. She leaned back into the corner, sunglasses over her eyes.

"You were all I ever wanted, never had a girl in my life 'til I met you, oh no
I got a certain feeling, you got my senses reeling
Whenever I get close to you
You're my salvation, I found you just in time
My one temptation, you know I can't believe you're mine"