Page 57 of Into the Tempest

“He was fixing the roof,” the older child said. “It was banging.”

Ah, dammit.

Jeremiah began walking back toward us. He put his hand to his forehead. “What don’t people understand about cyclones? Can they not hear the sirens?”

I sighed. People skills really weren’t his strong suit. “Sounds like their dad’s just trying to save the roof, to save his house, most likely. Kids will be kids, Jeremiah. They will come out to see people.”

Doreen came back across the road, sans cat and kids.

“Are they okay?” I yelled.

“Yeah, yeah.” She waved her hand like she did this every day. “He thought it might be better to stick together. Arty’s eighty-seven, and Jean and Michael are in their seventies. Arty shouldn’ta been on his own to begin with.”

As Doreen was walking up, a white van drove up and pulled into the driveway. Not just any white van.

Channel 4 News.

Jeremiah growled beside me. Actually fucking growled. Before I could ask him to do it again, he set off down the stairs.

Oh no.

“You have to be kidding me. What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he yelled at them before the woman could get out of the van. “If you didn’t hear the latest update, take a look at the sky.” He gestured to the very dark sky coming toward us. “You have ten minutes to be back in whatever hellmouth you crawled out of.”

Doreen snorted, and I sighed.

He was going to be on the news again for all the wrong reasons. I went down after him in some futile attempt to calm him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I said to the van but taking Jeremiah’s arm. “Come on, we have work to do.”

The woman saw my attempt at distracting him as her moment to strike. She came out from behind her passenger door. “Doctor Overton, your message on the radar map, can you explain—”

He shot her a filthy glare. “So you know about the warning, yet you are still here? You admit to being fully aware of the risk, you know you had only twenty minutes when you left your newsroom, you can hear the sirens as we speak, and yet you arestill here.” He looked at the sky, at the wind that was now picking up, at the dark clouds coming from the west now. “You no longer have twenty minutes. You don’t even have five. You need to leave. Now.”

I noticed then Jeremiah licked his lips, doing that tasting thing he did. And he turned to look at me with fear in his eyes.

But then there was the sound of laughter.

Children’s laughter.

The two kids were back, near the gate again, but they were stopped, laughing and pointing at each other’s hair. It was sticking up, full of static...

Oh no.

“Get inside!” Jeremiah yelled, as he took off running straight for the kids.

Doreen flew down the steps and dragged me, the newswoman, and cameraman up the steps and undercover. Suri went inside with Bruce, and I knew I should have gone with her.

But I couldn’t leave Jeremiah.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

He sprinted through the mud and slid to a stop near the kids. He had to put his hand to the ground to stop himself from falling over. Then, all in the one motion, he scooped them up, one with each arm, and began runnin’ back toward us.

I didn’t dare breathe.

I couldn’t.

He came up the steps to me, the kids were crying, and by god, the fear in Jeremiah’s eyes... Then, in the next second, the whole sky went white and silent before a boom of thunder cracked so loud it shook us all, and a massive bolt of lightning hit the metal gate.

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