by Molly E. Lee
“Me, too.” I swallowed hard, my eyes cutting to the station’s crew filtering in through the giant double doors.
“As you know, myself and the rest of the network are incredibly interested in what you could bring to our table. With Preston’s retirement, we know we have big shoes to fill.”
“And you think I can do that?” I asked, unbelieving.
“I’ve watched every single one of the videos on Mr. Lexington’s site. And all of the ones with you in them multiple times. You’ve got something, Blake. Something I think our program is in desperate need of. We think you could bring passion back to the show. Wake people up.”
I flinched from her last words, ringing so similar to Mom’s yesterday. “Sorry,” I said, clearing my throat. “What was the last thing you said?”
“Wake people up?” She grinned, her teeth sparkling white. “You are young but have an intense amount of field experience, and you have the education to back it up. This could be a great stepping stone for you. First, forecasts. Then on-site reporting when severe weather strikes. After that, who knows?”
She painted a pretty picture, one where I could almost see myself playing the role, but not quite. I closed my eyes, trying to imagine it more clearly.
Me, standing in front of the green screen, reading the cues and positions while I relayed the forecast. Me, a microphone in hand as I stood in some unknown location reporting on a severe storm. All dressed up in clothes I normally wouldn’t wear, my hair a look of perfection, my lips painted, teeth whitened.
The image hit a wall and was smacked away by one that sent a thrill rushing through me.
Me, standing on a dirt road, an EF-5 six hundred yards out. Dash on my left. My clothes covered in dirt from the wind or soaked from the rain. The sky as my actual limit.
“Blake?” Ms. Owens reached across the table and squeezed my arm.
I opened my eyes, smiling. “Sorry, I was just trying to visualize it.”
She pointed a finger at me. “I like that. Everything is about visualization here. Which is why we’d like you to do a mock forecast for us.” She motioned her head to the green screen.
“Right now?” I asked, my stomach in knots.
“I’m afraid so,” she said, standing from the table. “The closer the storm gets the sooner we’ll need the green screen to cover it. Plus, more auditions will start coming in tomorrow. You’ve been given the first shot.”
“Thanks,” I said, following her to the screen. She pointed to an X on the floor made from white tape.
“That’s your mark.” She pointed to the cameras and the screen right beside it. “Those are your cues. Just read what you see on the screen and point to the correct location on the wall.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
She raised her eyebrows. “And try to smile, okay?” She patted me on the shoulder. “People like happy weathergirls.”
I gritted my teeth against the term, knowing I was so much more than that. Fastening on a smile, I moved my hand back and forth, glancing from the screen beside the camera to the green wall behind me, getting a feel for the placement. Once I had that down, I nodded at the cameraman, who gave me the go signal.
“Good afternoon. We’ve got a great week shaping up for you all.” I read the lines exactly, gesturing with my hands at the predicted temperatures for the week. “ . . . with a sunny, seventy-four degree spike just in time for the weekend.” I finished the report, stumbling twice when it came to the direction in which the images rolled.
Ms. Owens smiled, but her lips were thinly stretched as she came up to me. “That was . . . good,” she said, though it sounded anything but.
“Did I miss a beat?”
She shook her head. “Not exactly.” She touched her finger to her lips. “It was a little flat. Are you nervous, sweetheart? You’re on camera all the time.”
I shifted my weight. I wasn’t nervous at all. “No nerves.”
“I guess I’m just curious where all that . . . spark is from your chase videos? Can you channel that and give it another go?” She tapped my shoulder again and walked off camera, leaving me staring at the screen.
I stood there, thinking of a way to conjure up the feelings from a chase, and somehow relay them here, doing a fake report. Not the easiest request by any means.
A sigh sounded from behind the camera. “Why don’t you talk a little about something else? Warm up a bit?” she asked. “How about you tell us what it was like to get injured on a chase?”
“The supercell we’d tracked ended up growing by ten percent by the time we’d caught up to it. The crew I was with, they weren’t used to the quick change in directions cells like that often take, and one of them was distracted by the tornado instead of paying attention to all his surroundings. It’s not always easy for everyone to be aware of what is going on around them once they’ve locked onto the mesmerizing effects of a tornado.” I shrugged, glancing down at my rib. “It hurt. But it was worth it. Chasing storms, collecting data no one else can . . . It’s what I live for.”
Ms. Owens clapped. “There it is! That. We need more of that.”
I raked my hands through my hair.
“Can you give us that every time?” she continued, but I was too busy trying to calm my racing heart to answer her right away.
“No,” I said, tears stinging the backs of my eyes as I grinned like a maniac. “I can’t. Because it doesn’t work without the chase, without the storm. Without him.” I huffed and walked toward her, reaching out my hand to shake hers.
“I don’t understand,” she said, taking it.
I shook it before dropping my hand to the side. “Thank you so much for this opportunity. A year ago I would’ve taken the job in a heartbeat, and done a few backflips for good measure. But the girl you love in all those chase videos? She’s a better meteorologist when Dash Lexington is leading her into the eye of the storm. I wouldn’t be as useful here. I’m needed there.”
She tilted her head but then nodded. “I see.”
“I apologize for the delay in figuring that out.”
“Understandable. Perhaps sometime in the future we can work out a collaboration of footage?”
“Maybe,” I said, rushing through the double doors and hurrying to my car in the parking lot. I had my cell out and on speaker as I started the car. “Mom?” I asked once she answered.
“Yes, honey?”
“Are you keeping an eye on the radar?”
“Yes, of course. I’m in for the day with Hail.” She took an excited breath. “Is your meeting over already?”
“I ended it early. I have a storm to catch.”
“Be safe!” The happiness in her tone was not lost on me.
“Always,” I said and hung up, focusing on driving as fast as I legally could.
I chided myself as I tried to call Dash, whose cell went straight to voicemail. John and Paul’s were also unreachable. I’d been such an idiot—thinking the woman I used to be was still affecting who I was today. Her dreams were no longer mine. I was a different person. And I knew what I wanted now.
My instincts had never led me in the wrong direction before, and I was following them head on.
Pulling up the radar on my phone at a stoplight, I quickly estimated where my team would be. I only had the clothes on my back, which were much fancier than I’d ever wear on a chase—black slacks, heels, and a bright blue lacy top—but Dash was chasing a cell that looked much bigger than it had an hour before when I’d glanced at it. And now that my head and heart were clear, I knew I had to get to him as quickly as possible.
I wasn’t doing this for him, or for the show, or for the team. This is what I wanted my life to look like. An endless sea of chases, on Dash’s right side.
That was if he wanted me to be there. Honestly, after everything I’d put him through, time and time again, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d decided he was done with me. And as heartbreaking as that notion was, it didn’t stop me from speeding down the highway
toward one of the biggest cells I’d ever chased.
If I knew Dash, they were already in the thick of it.
Dash
“JOHN AND PAUL will be riding in the Mocking Jay,” I said, nearly stumbling over the name John had come up with for the fortified chase vehicle I’d graciously said they could have first crack at. “They will cover the southwest portion of the cell.” I pointed to a radar image pulled up on one of the larger Macs in the lab. “Daniel, you and your guys will cover the southeast portion, two miles back. And I’ll cover the northeast portion as close to the cell as I can possibly get.”
“Alone?” Daniel asked, motioning to the production crew ready to film with me in my truck.
“Yes. Alone.” I eyed the cameramen who would make up the last team. “You can follow me at a safe two-mile distance back. Make that distance wider if the storm develops outside our predictions, understood?”
They each nodded in turn.
“Good. This cell is rapidly growing, and conditions are prime. It will be one for the books.” Something churned in my gut, but I couldn’t tell if it was anticipation for the chase or the fact that it would be one hell of a storm and Blake was missing it. Despite knowing it should stay clear of more populated areas, my nerves on edge.
As the guys went to prep their vehicles, I pulled Daniel aside. “We need to schedule a meeting.”
“We do?” he asked.
“Yes. After this storm is over, I want you and me to have a sit-down and rehash some things about this contract.”
He closed his eyes and sighed, but nodded. “Whatever you say, Dash.”
I grinned at his attitude. Maybe it wouldn’t be as hard as I thought to get what I wanted. Maybe Blake had been right in the sense that as the star of their show, I had power to demand more. Though, I wasn’t one to get my hopes up, and decided to keep them in check until I actually finished the meeting. Pushing the thoughts to the back of my mind, I focused solely on the chase ahead of us. It would be rough and widespread. It deserved every ounce of my attention, no matter how many things tried to steal it away.
The long green grass trembled in the wind as the funnel dropped from the wall cloud above it.
“Dash, are you seeing this?” John’s voice rang clear in my ear as I held my position on the paved road just northeast of the storm.
“Yeah,” I answered as the tornado touched down, forcing the already shaking grass to frantically roll in hurried waves.
“I thought you said this would be an EF-3, maybe an EF-4.”
I shook my head, making sure not to jar the camera in my hand as I watched another funnel drop right beside the already established tornado. “I told you that the cell had grown since the last time we looked at it. There’s something different about this storm.”
“I don’t like it, bro. You’re too close. Pack up and head back to a safer distance.”
“I’m fine. You worry too much.”
“John is right,” Paul chimed in. “I’ve got the storm up on radar right now. It’s growing. It’s too fast and too unpredictable. If all those vortexes converge, or go the wrong direction, you won’t be able to get out in time.”
My heart rate spiked as I watched the developing funnel merge with the tornado on the ground, making it twice the size.
“I hear you,” I said, but rain erupted above me, pouring down in sheets so hard it was difficult to see let alone hear. “John? Paul? You there?”
After a full minute of silence, I sucked in a breath and changed camera angles. The tornado churned up the earth beneath it, almost like it was inhaling the dirt for more power. It grew steadily into a massive, dark brown EF-4 with no hint of dissipating anytime soon.
I wasn’t stupid, I’d heard the guys’ warning, but I could spare a few minutes to film a monster this huge.
The rain didn’t let up but turned to sharp pelts of hail that made me flinch as I filmed. The blood turned to fire in my veins, staving off the chill from the rain as my adrenaline spiked. Glancing to the southwest portion of the storm, I squinted through the sheets of rain making visibility poor.
Was that another vortex?
“Dash!” John’s panicked voice rang through my head, the earpiece nearly vibrating in my skull.
“John?”
“It’s changing course!” he screamed as if he were shouting through the storm and running from it at the same time. For all I knew, he could be, because the massive tornado had started to move, and it carried its corresponding vortexes that surrounded it with it. Any one of those could hit one of my team, with how widespread out we were.
“Get out of there now,” I said, moving toward my truck. “Do you hear me? This thing is rain-wrapped, but I can see the additional vortexes from here. Everyone needs to move!”
“We’re trying!” John said. “There is insane debris—”
“John, watch that!” I heard Paul scream before silence filled my head.
“John? John? Paul!”
A new form of panic filtered through my heart as I shoved my camera in the truck and jumped behind the wheel. “Guys?” I asked again only to get no answer.
Hoping they’d just had to dodge some debris and couldn’t hear me, I started the engine and flipped the truck around. The huge beast spun next to me, gaining ground as I floored it down the paved road. Even with my windshield wipers at full blast, I could barely see a foot in front of the truck but maintained my speed because it was either that or get swallowed by the tornado.
The thing had grown bigger than any of us had expected. As I spared it glances while trying to flee from it, I prayed that the rest of the team had gotten the hell out of Dodge before it had tripled in size.
With every piece of pavement I gained on the monster, it seemed to leap outward toward me, and I gripped the steering wheel so hard I thought I might break it off. A sinking weight hit my stomach as I felt the winds push against my truck. A thought I’d never had before made my heart freeze in my chest.
I may not make it out of this one alive.
Blake
THE HIGHWAYS LEADING to the storm cell were deserted as I raced toward it, reminding myself to breathe.
I could see the full expanse of the tornado as I headed northeast, knowing that was where the heart of the storm was and where assumedly Dash would’ve taken position. Unable to reach any of them on their cells and not having my nifty Bluetooth piece anymore, I could only pray the team was doing the wise thing and aborting, fleeing as fast as they could in the opposite direction.
Not me, though. And certainly not Dash.
This felt eerily familiar, me chasing after him to pull him off a storm that was too big to catch, and yet it felt terrifyingly new at the same time. Because this storm wasn’t like the one a year ago. This one had defied the rules and grown too quickly and lasted too long already. It wasn’t moving in a predictable course, and the rain wrapping around it made it more dangerous than any we’d ever faced before. This was chaos in its purest form, and I knew Dash was in the thick of it, somewhere. And although I knew I wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing to protect him when I found him, I just knew I had to get to him.
Rain pelted my windshield so hard I could barely see, but I maintained my speed, keeping an eye on the tornado as it shifted course once again, this time banking just slightly to the west. The tiny reprieve offered little relief, but it did offer me a better sight of the road ahead as the winds sucked the rain with it.
My hands shook as I tried to hold onto my resolve, but everything about this tornado screamed monster, not nature.
I’d never seen a tornado with so many vortexes swirling around it, each one incredibly difficult to see unless you were actively looking for it. These mini-tornadoes seemed to feed the EF-5, creating a powerhouse of terror beyond anything I could fathom. The chaser in me wished I had my handheld, but the human in me told me to stay focused on the task at hand—finding Dash.
Hail plinked off my car, adding a steady rhythm to the roaring
sounds of the storm. I flinched as they grew larger, spotting some the size of softballs on the road.
“Holy shit,” I said, unable to keep the words inside. “Dash where the hell are you?”
I begged the question out loud because I knew I had a few precious minutes left before I would have to turn farther to the east to escape the storm’s path. Any more time and I’d be risking my life on a gamble that Dash was out here. Hell, I already was, but something in my gut told me that if I could just get to him, everything would be okay.
The logical part of my brain told me I was an idiot for thinking anything close to a storm this big would ever be okay.
Please, God, just let him be all right.
I don’t know how many times I’d asked this of Him, or how many I would in the future, I only knew that when Dash and I weren’t chasing together, the fear in me amplified. Now I understood what he had felt when I’d gone rogue without him, and I hated myself even more for it.
Never. Again.
“Oh, thank God!” I screamed as I spotted Dash’s truck about six hundred yards ahead, racing toward me in the opposite lane. Tears of relief bit my eyes, but I held them back as I brought the car to a stop. I would wait for him to pass and then fall in behind him. Everything would be okay.
The massive twisting monster to my right roared, the winds nudging the side of my car like it was testing its weight. I took my eyes off Dash’s truck for a split second to surmise the directional change of the tornado. The main vortex was on course, but one of the mini-tornadoes surrounding it juked left, packing with it enough wind power to lift Dash’s truck off the road and send it spinning through the air like a football.