Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)

The sheriff retrieves her weapon and climbs to her feet. She’s shaken, working on instinct, and I know that at any moment she might fire again. I turn to her, bracing for the bullet, but her eyes are confused. She looks dazed and set upon.

“Do you hear that?” she asks, and then my ears are pounded by the sound of a whipping wind, and from out of nowhere swoops a black helicopter directly overhead. It’s not like the kind they use on the news for traffic and weather. This one is long and sleek, like a bird of prey, and mounted on its sides are what look like rockets. From below I can see a logo painted on its belly—a white tower.

There’s a single shot. I hear it drill through the air toward us, and then I watch the sheriff’s body buckle. Her head flies forward, and she falls face-down into the dirt. The back of her head is gone, and there is blood everywhere.

Bex screams. I’m sure I would too if I weren’t in shock. The people in the helicopter just killed a cop. Wait! The people in the helicopter just killed a cop! That means they are definitely not with law enforcement. But then who?

“Tempest,” I gasp.

Arcade is the only one of us who has her wits about her. She sends another funnel of water up into the sky, and it plows into the chopper, knocking it out of its hovering position just as a second bullet screams toward us. This one crashes into the dirt inches from where Bex is standing. She’s next.

I scan our surroundings for an escape. There is nothing out here, nowhere to go and hide that isn’t open ground, except for the ice cream parlor, but getting to it keeps us out in the open, and then how do we get out? No, we’re going to have to make a run for it.

I activate my weapon and concentrate on the water beneath the earth. It’s there, deep—several feet down in fact, but I can hear it and it can hear me.

“Come!” I shout.

It blasts through the soil, eager to please, forming a powerful spray that smacks into the underside of the cop car. The big machine totters back onto all four wheels with a heavy crash.

“Get in!” I shout to Bex, and we dart to the car. The passenger-side door is crushed and won’t open, so we hurry around to the driver’s side. Bex scurries in and I follow, happy to find a set of keys still in the ignition. I have no idea if the engine will start, but I have to try. It gurgles and groans but won’t turn over. I try again with the same results.

“Keep trying,” Bex says, staring out through the remains of her broken window. When I look past her, I see Arcade is still attacking the chopper and narrowly avoiding its gunfire.

I give the key another turn, and this time, with some grinding and sputtering, the engine comes to life. I rev the motor loud, just to let the car know my intentions are to drive it hard and fast. It doesn’t stall out, so I take that as permission just as Arcade lands as nimbly as a cat on the hood. She leaps off and opens the back door.

“Go!” she shouts.

The helicopter falls out of the sky behind us. The propellers smack into the ground, break apart, and fly in every direction. The helicopter’s tail end spins around toward us, threatening to saw off the back of the car.

“Drive!” Bex shouts.

I stomp the gas pedal and steer us all over the place, fighting a bent alignment. I manage to get it on the road just in time to watch the chopper explode into a ball of fire and fuel in my rearview mirror.





Chapter Six


BEX CRIES. ARCADE STARES OUT THE WINDOW. I’m too shell-shocked to know how to feel. I just saw a woman die in front of me, and I know it was my fault. She died because of me, but why would they kill an innocent police officer and let me go? Why not just kill me instead?

“What was that?” Bex cries.

“I don’t know, but they shot her on purpose,” I say.

Arcade leans forward.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It makes no sense to me.”

“I believe they were trying to kill Bex Conrad and me as well,” Arcade says.

“They weren’t police or military. I think they were from Tempest.”

“They know we are coming,” Arcade says.

“We have to get off the roads, I think,” Bex suggests.