Flood Rising (Jenna Flood #1)

Just you.

She shook her head. “I can’t explain why, but I have to do this alone. You asked if there was anything I can do. This is it. Please trust me.”

His smile fell, replaced by an intense stare that cut right to her core. “Jenna...”

“Trust me,” she repeated, then added a word that seemed strange in her mouth. “Dad.”

“I trust you,” he said, barely louder than a whisper. He held out the keys, but as she took them, he said, “Remember, Jenna. Nurture is more powerful than nature. I raised you well.”

As she bolted from the room, she heard Cort shouting, “Where the hell is she going? In ten minutes, this place will be—” The door shut, cutting off his voice.

In ten minutes, what?

Doesn’t matter, she decided, and she ran faster.





59



6:03 p.m.



Noah’s words haunted her as she sprinted toward the parked Jeep. He had seen through her. He had seen something that even she couldn’t see. She was being summoned—drawn by a siren song that rang out from every cell in her body—to a reckoning where she would discover whether he was right.

Stop it? Why?

She slid behind the wheel and started the SUV. The track maintenance yard was just three hundred feet away, easily identifiable by the collection of strange looking vehicles, many of which sat on rail sidings. Two men in hard hats and work clothes stood near one of the vehicles and she steered toward them, rolling down the window as she skidded to a stop.

“Where’s Sophia?”

One of the men glanced up, a perturbed expression on his face. “You shouldn’t be driving in here.”

“Sophia,” she repeated, more forcefully. “It’s an emergency.”

“She went to check the west track. But you shouldn’t—”

Jenna didn’t hear the rest. She angled the Jeep toward the rails directly ahead and punched the accelerator. She bounced over the rails without slowing and then steered onto the access road that ran parallel to the tracks. A cloud of dust rose behind her like some kind of biblical pillar of smoke, marking her presence. Cort would have no trouble tracking her. The speedometer ticked up—fifty miles per hour…sixty…seventy. It didn’t seem fast enough.

She passed an enormous hangar-like structure, easily as large as the Aerojet silo building in the Everglades. The side facing the rails was open. A massive antenna stood inside, undergoing some kind of maintenance. The dish was pointing straight up, like an enormous chalice waiting to be filled.

Beyond that building lay several empty pads, each with three concrete footings that rose up from the dusty ground like grave markers, then a dish, then more pads. She checked each without slowing, looking for the track maintenance vehicle that would indicate Sophia’s location. Three long minutes later, she spotted what she was looking for: a Chevrolet pickup truck that had been modified with flanged steel wheels to run on railroad tracks. It sat parked in front of a towering antenna dish. As she got closer, she saw movement high above, on the staircase that led up to the base of the massive dish.

Jenna stopped the Jeep and got out. A dark haired woman wearing blue coveralls, descended the staircase, taking several steps at a time with the agility of an experienced parkour athlete. Even from a distance, Jenna could see the resemblance; the woman—it had to be Sophia Gallo—looked just like her.

Sophia paused on the lowermost landing just above the concrete pillars upon which the antenna rested. There was an unmistakable look of excitement on her face, and Jenna found that she too had broken into a broad smile.

“Come on up.”

Without waiting for further prompting, Jenna mounted the short flight of stairs to the landing, where she found Sophia waiting with open arms. Jenna fell into the embrace without the slightest hesitation.

The sense of kinship—sisterhood—was overpowering. The bond she felt with Mercy was only a shadow of what she now experienced. This woman didn’t merely share the same DNA. Sophia and Jenna were the same person, only separated by age and experience.

Sophia released her and held her at arm’s length. “You’re new.”

It sounded a little strange, but Jenna understood. It wasn’t just that Jenna was young. Sophia was a connected part of a family that Jenna had only just learned about. “Yeah,” she replied. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“I’m Sophie.”

“Jenna.”

“Wonderful.” Sophia laughed with undisguised joy, “Well, you’re timing couldn’t be better. Come on up to the vertex room. You can tell us both.”

She gestured to the ascending stairs, which rose at least another forty feet above the landscape.

“Both?”