The Snake in the Grass (Coleridge Academy Elites Book 0) by Lucy Auburn

Author:Lucy Auburn [Auburn, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-06-09T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

I stared out the windows at the rain as Wally flicked on his phone and pulled up a playlist to feed into the speakers. Questions gnawed at me. “What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you picked up Silas.” He was going slow, the wipers turned to max, the road barely visible in front of us. I shivered and rubbed my arms, leaning towards the heater like it could drive out the source of the cold. “I know something happened between you two. He’s not talking, so you’re my best bet to learn to truth.”

Wally’s hands flexed on the steering wheel once, twice. He looked like he was considering whether or not he’d have better luck out in the trees with the lightning.

“Tell me,” I urged him. “I’m his sister. If I can’t help him, who can?”

Based on the way Wally sighed, I knew I’d gotten to him. So I pushed a little harder, dug in a little more. “I just want to make sure everything is okay.”

“Nothing is okay.” He slowed down as the rain picked up in front of us, water sloshing across the road and spraying on either side of his tires. “I can’t tell ya half of what’s going on, Brenna, ‘cause I hardly understand it myself. Everything about this is...” Wally cleared his throat. “It’s different. Silas is different. The way he talks about that school you’d think going there was gonna save him.”

There was a lull in the truck cabin as both Wally and I thought about, but didn’t say, the scars Silas bore deep beneath his skin. I flexed my right hand, knuckles scraped raw, thoughts skittering about. I was afraid to think too long on what I’d done; I couldn’t bear to think of what it felt like to stare at Daddy’s expression on Silas’s face, his rage as he pushed me to the ground.

Minutes passed. The road darkened before us. Bolt of lightning came so close that they seared my vision, and the thunder shook the world around us.

Then, in the distance, I saw it.

A funnel cloud.

“Wally.”

“I see it too.” He sounded calm, centered; he was his father’s son, a salt of the earth type who plants his feet somewhere and stays, come Hell or high water. “We’re not gonna make it to your house, Brenna, so you’ll need to come stay with me and my family. We’ll make it into a tornado party.”

I nodded, throat tight.

And prayed to an undeserving god that my brother was somewhere out there, safe and whole.

As if hearing my thoughts, Wally said, “I’ve got an old radio back at the house. We can try to pick up the channel for the Ranger’s station, see if we can catch your brother. He’s probably halfway through a pack of MREs by now and drinking the last of the beer we stashed there.”

“Probably.” I gave him a wan smile. “God knows he’s survived worse.”

After a few moments, Wally said, “He wasn’t in the dorm he was supposed to be in.

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