Maybe I should be annoyed that Wes didn’t tell me, but the truth is that we’ve been chasing together for nearly three weeks now. Even after telling my brother to take his time, some part of me knew that the repairs must be done. I could have texted Eric to ask him myself at any point.
It’s only now that I can admit why I didn’t—I didn’t want to go back to chasing alone either. Even if getting closer to Wes terrifies me. Even if I don’t entirely know what any of this means, what will happen in another three weeks when my season ends.
But that’s a problem for another time.
“Okay.” I trace a path down Wes’s broad shoulders and toned biceps to the nip of his waist and the curve of his ass, pressing closer as I push onto my toes. My heart pounds, a staccato rhythm to match the lightning above. “Let’s finish my season together.”
I tug his mouth down to mine, heedless of the raindrops peppering our skin. Thunder rumbles all around us, flashes flickering against my closed eyelids, but I’m so absorbed in kissing Wes that it’s a distant, faraway sound.
At least until our phones start howling.
“Oh shit.” I stare down at the emergency message with a twist of unease. “Baseball hail. I didn’t think this storm was that strong.”
“It’s not,” Wes says, his voice grim. “But the one coming up behind it is. Time to go.”
Chapter Fifteen
We aren’t even back tothe highway yet when Tracy calls.
“Hey, Tracy, did you see—”
“Baseballs? Yeah, I saw it. We might have bigger problems.” Her grim voice has the hair on the back of my neck standing up before she asks, “You guys anywhere near town? I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“No, we’re on our way in now. Wes is driving.” I hesitate, glancing over at him. His usual easy expression is gone, eyes flicking from the road to me and back again. “You think the town is getting hit?”
Anxiety curdles my stomach. I already know the answer. The possibility of a tornado would only put that tone in her voice for one reason.
“We’re a couple miles west. It keeps moving the way it is, if a tornado comes down…”
“It’ll plow right into them.” I squeeze my eyes shut, only opening them when Wes’s fingers brush mine. Without thought,I spread my fingers wide and refuse to overthink the effect something so simple as holding hands has on me.
“It’s not looking good.”
I glance at Wes. He catches my eye long enough to dip his chin in a nod. “We’re heading your way. Just in case.”
As soon as I hang up, I juggle finding Tracy’s blue dot on the radar app, updating the GPS, and catching Wes up. The hail coming up behind us remains a concern, but when we stop to top off the gas tank, I find a path that avoids it if we’re fast.
Wes emerges from the gas station with two cases of water in his arms and a hard set to his shoulders. I hurry to open the car door for him, and when our eyes meet, his are serious. “Just in case,” he says softly.
“Let’s hope we don’t need it.”
We make it to Tracy and Matt’s location on the side of the road with forty minutes to go until sunset. On the edge of town, two miles south of the seething storm, Wes and I exchange nervous glances as we get out of the car. Light leaks from the horizon and casts the whole scene in an eerie glow.
No one says a word. Wes plants himself next to me, arms crossed and radiating tension. Tracy watches the sky with her hands shoved in her pockets, while Matt paces a short circuit, constantly looking down at the radar app on his phone.
“Funnel.” Matt is the first to spot it, one finger pointing upward. His voice is flat, all the usual excitement stripped out by the gravity of what’s about to happen.
“Don’t do it, you bastard,” I mutter under my breath as it wobbles above the town. My stomach knots with dread. “Don’t you dare do it.”
Wind howls past us, strong enough to send me stumbling. Wes tugs me into his side, his body warm, his scent familiar, and presses a kiss to my temple. Whatever low words of comfort he murmurs are lost on the wind.
We watch in horror as the funnel lowers. Our pleas and curses are entirely ineffective. I’m already dialing the emergency number to call it in when an explosion of dirt transforms the swirling vortex from funnel to tornado. Sirens start to wail less than a minute after I hang up. There’s nothing we can do but watch as a stovepipe forms, the column of whirling air quickly turning a blackish brown as it sucks up dirt and debris.
The steel grain silos perched at the edge of town break apart like wet paper as they’re sucked into the murk of the storm, quickly followed by a flash of blue-green light and a loud boom as the first transformer blows. The noise turns deafening. The high-pitched train whistle of the tornado, the roar of the wind, thunder, and more exploding transformers tear the evening apart one after the other like apocalyptic dominoes.
When you see a disaster on TV, there’s a boundary to it; it can’t exist beyond the confines of your screen. On the ground, there’s no escaping it. I’ve never been to a war zone, but I have to think it’s not unlike the aftermath of a tornado ripping through a town. It’s a level of destruction almost too big for the mind to handle.
Seconds are all it takes. One minute, we’re staring at a row of neat houses. The next, trees are ripped out at their roots, roofs are missing, windows are blown out, walls are shredded like tissue, and cars are tossed upside down like toys.
