by Molly E. Lee
It hit the ground with a crunch loud enough to make me sick before it rolled.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six fucking times.
With each hit his truck took, a vision of my future died in my eyes—images of Dash and me chasing all over the country, of green-eyed babies splashing in puddles after a big rainstorm, of a silver-haired and wrinkled Dash, still holding my heart after decades together. Once the truck stopped its horrific momentum, a new vision overwhelmed all the rest—me in a black dress, a slab of marble with Dash’s real name carved into it, and my heart being buried in a casket.
There wasn’t any air left in my car. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. Even the sounds of the tornado, which lessened as it traveled farther west, taking the smaller vortexes with it, became nothing but white noise in my ears. I kept blinking in an attempt to restart what I’d just seen. To rewind what couldn’t possibly have just happened.
Dash didn’t just catapult through the air and then roll six times, his truck a mess of broken metal lying hundreds of yards away from me.
Somehow, I hit the gas, racing toward where Dash’s truck had landed, my body running completely on autopilot and adrenaline, as my mind had practically checked out.
The mega-twister was now at least a mile to the west of us, but rain continued to come down in sheets. Thankfully, the softball-sized hail had let up.
I screeched to a stop on the road and bolted out of the door, leaving the car running. My heels sank in the mud as I sprinted toward what used to be his truck. The suction slowed me down, so I ripped the heels off and tossed them to the side, approaching the now crushed upside-down truck at a full run.
Dropping to my knees, I crouched by the driver’s side door, the same door Dash had me pressed up against not two months ago, kissing me hard enough to forget cameras were rolling. Glass littered the muddy grass around it, all the windows completely blown out.
A rock lodged itself in my throat as I set eyes on Dash and tears stung the backs of my eyes.
“Dash!” I screamed, reaching for him with shaking fingers.
Somehow, he was still buckled into his seatbelt, his arms falling toward the ceiling of the truck, his head hanging there with his eyes closed and mouth partially open. Blood snaked its way up his forehead and steadily dripped onto the ceiling of the truck.
I touched his face, but he didn’t stir, so I moved my fingers to his neck. His pulse was steady. Air whooshed out of my lungs in a thank you, God moment, and I reached for his seatbelt. Then I quickly drew my hands back.
What if I shouldn’t move him?
You can’t leave him upside down to bleed out!
Fuck!
I jerked my cell from my pocket, dialing John one more time. He would be closer than emergency responders, and he could at least tell me what to do. Glancing toward the storm, I could see the tornado raging far in the distance, and I prayed John had gotten to an area where his cell would work.
This time, it rang.
“Blake?” John answered, out of breath.
“John! We’re just off the highway, northeast of where the storm originated. Probably about four hundred yards from Dash’s starting location.” Tears streamed down my cheeks, but I talked fast. “His truck . . .” I swallowed hard. “He rolled six times. He’s upside down right now, hanging from his seatbelt. His pulse is steady. Can I move him?”
“We’re on our way,” John said, and I took a breath. “Can you see any tension in his neck?”
“No,” I said, looking closer. “He’s just hanging here. Unconscious.” Please let him be just knocked out. “But I can’t see everything, John! There is no way something isn’t broken.”
The image of the truck hitting the ground as it flipped over and over again stung every cell in my body. The glimpses of a future I may never see continued to pulse on repeat in my mind, shredding my heart with each vision.
“Is there blood?”
“Yeah,” I said, sucking in a sharp breath. “But I can’t tell where it’s coming from.”
“Can you smell gas?”
“Yes,” I answered after inhaling hard.
“Fuck, we’re at least ten minutes out. You’re going to have to move him on your own. I need you to listen to me, Blake. You have to be extremely careful with his neck when you unbuckle him. Try to move it as little as possible.”
“Okay. I can do this.”
“I know he has over seventy pounds of muscle on you, but you really can do it. Use your body as leverage and slide him down.”
“If it helps him I could move this fucking truck right now. Stand by.” I set the phone down and braced myself on my knees, making sure I had good balance. Then I gently positioned my shoulder so Dash’s head would lean against my chest, and slowly unbuckled his seatbelt while holding onto him as tightly as possible.
He sank onto me with a force I definitely wasn’t prepared for but adjusted to quickly. Making sure not to so much as jolt his neck, I shimmied myself backward and allowed his body to slowly slide out of the truck with me. Righting myself, I grabbed my cell, slipped my arms underneath his shoulders, and dragged us both backward, away from the truck, until I couldn’t breathe from the exertion. Then I collapsed on the wet earth, Dash’s back against my stomach, his head against my chest.
Finally bringing the cell to my ear, I said, “I got him.”
“Any movement?”
“Not even a twitch,” I answered, barely holding back another onslaught of tears.
“Okay. We’re almost there. I’m hanging up and calling the paramedics.”
“Okay.” I heard the line go dead and tossed the cell on the ground.
I placed one hand on Dash’s chest, letting the steady rise and fall calm my frayed nerves. The other I slipped into his hair, feeling for glass.
A sting on my finger told me I’d found the source of blood—a chunk of glass in the back of his head. I silently prayed that John would get here faster. Shifting to gently lay Dash’s head on the ground, I sprinted back to my car, grabbing the first-aid kit I kept handy and rushing back to him.
Opening up butterfly bandages, I quickly removed the glass and pressed a wad of gauze against the wound, staunching the blood until it slowed enough to seal with the bandages. That would have to do until paramedics arrived. I ran my hands over the rest of his body, underneath his soaked clothes, hunting for more cuts or broken bones, but my hands weren’t as skilled as a medic’s would be. I’d never felt more useless in my life.
He didn’t need CPR because he was breathing, but why the hell wasn’t he waking up?
“Dash,” I keened, unable to stop the tears as I knelt next to him. “Please, wake up. I need you to tell me what’s wrong. I can’t help you if I don’t know what hurts.”
I glanced back at his mangled truck, knowing he had to be in so much pain that I couldn’t see. What if he had internal bleeding and I was just sitting here next to him bawling like a baby?
The sound of tires screeching to a stop near us had never sounded so sweet.
Paul and John were at our side in a blink.
John pulled out a pocket flashlight, peeling back Dash’s eyelids and shining the beam in them. Then he took his pulse and searched his body for injuries as I had done.
“I don’t think anything is broken,” he said.
I jerked my arm toward the truck. “How is that possible?”
He shook his head, and Paul placed his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know. I’m just telling you what I see.”
“Then wake his ass up!” Paul snapped and I swiped at the rain running down my face.
“I’ve tried! What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“Fucking kiss him or some shit.”
“This isn’t a fairy tale, Paul!” I yelled.
“To hell it isn’t. If he survived that with only a head wound? Fucking fairy tale.”
I couldn’t fault the man his lo
gic and instantly planted my lips on Dash’s. Not once . . . not once since we’d been together had he never responded to my kiss, but now the cold rain made his unmoving lips even colder.
Pulling back, I shoved my wet hair off his face and held my breath. “Dash,” I whispered after I could no longer go without breathing.
His eyes fluttered open, the green in them finding mine in an instant.
“Blake,” he said, but it sounded more like a hiss. He clenched his eyes shut as he gripped my hand. “How are you here?”
“I was on my way to you. I found you,” I cried with relief.
“Crazy woman.”
“Me?” I asked, sniffling. “You’re the one who took a ride on a mega-twister.”
He hissed. “Not my best moment.” He tried to move again, but John stopped him.
“Lay still. Medics are on their way.”
“Great,” Dash said, glancing at John and Paul before returning his gaze to me. “I’m canceling the show.”
“What? No. You can’t.” I shook my head, cupping his cheek.
He nodded but winced. “I have a meeting set up with Daniel once we get done with the chase.”
“Dude,” Paul said. “We’re done with the chase. You getting launched pretty much ended it.”
“Right.”
“Dash, you can’t do that,” I said.
“I can and I will. I don’t care what it takes. I won’t make you choose between the two.”
I laughed and cried at the same time. “Isn’t it obvious? I already made my choice. I left the meeting to get to you. To chase.”
His eyes lit up as they locked on mine. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. “I can’t stay indoors and predict the weather. I belong with you, chasing in the field. If you’ll have me.”
He closed his eyes, smiling. “Always.”
Sirens blared in the distance, jarring me back to reality. Dash may be talking and acting normal, but we had no clue what was going on underneath his skin.
“We’ll meet you at the hospital,” John said, and Paul nodded.
“Ride with me?” Dash asked, gripping my hand even harder.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, hoping he knew I meant that in every sense of the phrase.
Dash
Two weeks later
“I’M HAPPY TO hear it,” I said into my cell, leaning against the door to the Mocking Jay. “I’m sure these changes will make for a better working partnership between all of us.” I listened to Daniel add his agreements, plus some compliments about the most recent footage for the show.
The mega-twister had defied all our predictions and every rule I’d thought applied to tornadoes. It was the biggest cell I’d ever chased, and the one and only storm to ever get the better of me. Somehow, though—a fucking miracle, really—I’d made it out unscathed. Blake had described what had happened to me, but all I could remember were all my windows blowing out from the force of the storm and then waking up in Blake’s arms. A minor concussion and a quick stitch on the head later, and I was in top shape—well, sore for a while, but whole.
“Thanks, Daniel,” I said and hung up.
“Everything good?” Blake asked, hugging my arm.
“They agreed to my terms. Now if anyone wants to pursue another career, there won’t be any sketchy dealings on our end. Clean breaks.”
She flinched at the word, and I pushed her hair back to kiss the expression away.
“I told you I’m not going anywhere,” she said against my lips.
“And I’m grateful for that, but it needed to be done. For the good of the team. Just in case.”
Blake smiled at me before turning to her mother, who had remained silent a few feet behind her. “You ready for this?”
“Oh, you know I am, honey!” she said, clapping her hands and climbing into our chase vehicle.
Blake chuckled as she walked around the car to get in the passenger seat, and I sank behind the wheel.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” Blake said, glancing at her mother who grinned at me in the rearview mirror. Blake moved her focus back to me, but I only spared her a quick look before focusing extremely hard on the road. “And I can’t believe you invited her on a chase.”
I smiled. “It was her idea.”
“Yes,” Ms. Caster said. “I’ve always wanted to see what it’s like being you for a day.”
“How could I resist her request?” I asked, reaching across the gearshift and placing my hand on Blake’s thigh.
“Where are Daniel and the crew?” Blake asked after we’d driven for about ten minutes, her eyes behind us as she noticed how empty the road was of other chase vehicles.
I didn’t dare look at her, too scared of giving something away. “Oh, I sent them after a line of cells in Nebraska.”
“Really?”
I nodded, changing lanes as I increased my speed. “I wanted your mom’s first chase to be sans cameras.”
Ms. Caster patted my shoulder from the backseat. “Thank you for that, dear boy.”
I could see Blake’s smile from the corner of my eye. “And just when I think I can’t fall for you any harder . . .” She shook her head, glancing down at the opened laptop resting on her knees. “Dash,” she said, her gaze bouncing from the screen to the road. “You just missed our turn if you wanted to get on the southeast side of this storm.”
“We have to meet John and Paul first, and then we’ll head that direction. They aren’t too far, and they have a prime spot just a mile west of the cell,” I said, my heart racing hard against my chest the closer we got to our destination. I swallowed hard, forcing myself to even my breathing as I tried to hide the nerves that pulsed through my blood. I hadn’t been this scared when the EF-5 had got me.
When the Tracker Jacker, parked on the side of a paved backroad with long, trembling pasture grass on either side of it, came into view, I think my heart actually stopped beating for a minute. I parked the Mocking Jay in front of the Tracker Jacker, eyeing my boys’ stances outside their vehicle. They both avoided looking at the bed of the truck like their life depended on it.
Real smooth guys.
Blake hopped out of the car with her eyes on the sky. “Mom, check this out,” she said once her mother had gotten out and made it to her side. Blake pointed at the wall cloud that had recently darkened the sky to the east. “This area here,” she said, spinning her finger to indicate a slightly lowered portion of the cell, “that’s where a funnel will most likely develop.”
Her mother squinted and shook her head. “How can you possibly know that?”
Because it’s in her blood. I grinned, walking past the two focused on the storm, and stopped by John and Paul.
“This is it,” John said.
“Are you ready?” Paul asked, rubbing his hands together.
After the mega-twister had nearly killed me, I realized there was never going to be a perfect time to do what I was about to do—that I just had to take the risk and lay my heart out for Blake because I was never guaranteed another moment with her. There was only the present, the now, and I was done wasting one more second of time without her knowing exactly how I felt.
And in a few minutes, I’d know just how she felt about me, too—not that I didn’t know she loved me, but shit, I wasn’t a hundred percent she would say yes.
All her doubts about marriage led straight back to Justin, but they had come to some kind of terms, and after he’d called to tell me he’d handled all his bullshit and released me of the worry I’d had since we’d spoken last . . . we had reached some kind of understanding, too. Not that I ever wanted to hear from him again, but if their closure moved her in favor of the idea that marrying me wouldn’t be so bad, then I’d take it.
Of course, I was about to find out once and for all.
“As I’ll ever be,” I finally answered Paul. “You two know what to do.” I winked at them and then dropped to the ground by the back end of John’s truck, clenching my head
.
“Blake!” John shouted. “It’s Dash!”
“What?” She turned and sprited the distance between us. “Dash?” she asked, breathless as she skidded to a stop before me, her eyes so focused on me that she didn’t even notice the items filling the back of the Tracker Jacker. “Is it your head again? Take deep breaths.” She reached out to gently lift my head from its drooped position.
My heart lodged itself in my throat as Blake’s favorite Blue October song started to filter from a Jambox on the bed of the truck. I shifted right on cue, positioning myself with one knee on the ground.
Blake’s mouth popped into the shape of an O, and she covered her chest with her hands as I held the ring I’d carried all season toward her.
“Blake,” I said loud enough to be heard over the thunder that rumbled the sky above us. Her eyes glistened as she looked down at me. “You are my best friend, my heart, and my mirror. I don’t want another second to go by where the world doesn’t know you’re mine.” I smiled. “What do you say? Want to chase with me forever?”
Fat drops of rain fell around us as the sky shook again, and for a blink of a moment, my insides panicked, matching the chaos that surrounded our profession, but then they settled as Blake smiled and nodded. Only she could make me feel as calm as if we were cozied up in my bed back home as opposed to standing within a mile of an approaching supercell.
“Yes, yes, yes!” she said over and over again as I slipped the ring on her finger and stood. Throwing her hair back, she claimed my mouth as she jumped, locking her ankles around my hips.
A crack of lightning in the distance jolted us out of our kiss, the rain coming down so hard John tossed the Jambox inside the truck. I held one side of her face, staring into those dark brown eyes I loved.
This was us, intense, chaotic, dangerous, powerful, all-consuming. I loved her with the power of a hundred supercells, and with a passion that couldn’t be touched. And now she’d know it, forever. I would get to spend every day for the rest of my life with my best friend, doing what we loved together, but . . . but we were only on the edge of bliss.
I let her slide down my body, gently setting her on her feet while I sung the lyrics of her favorite song into her ear before releasing her so she could rush to her mom’s side. I couldn’t be sure, because of the rain, but I think they were both crying despite their smiles.