“You said we wouldn’t get caught.”
“I was wrong. Our mistake was sending the last batch unedited. Dennis picked up the differences.”
“Well, if Charles wants drama, he’s going to get it. Putting Vern and Jazz together is asking for trouble.”
“He’ll be lucky if the cops aren’t called before midnight.”
Noah raised the camera, ready to film, but lowered it again as he glanced at Gale. “Hey, Gale? Are you okay if I turn on the camera? Technically, we’re in the room. I don’t have to.”
Gale stiffened at the suggestion.
“We shouldn’t be in here anyhow,” I said.
Noah and I headed to the door.
Gale didn’t turn around, and despite Charles’s adamant rules, he remained seated on his bed with a book.
The clash of personalities began while setting up the command post. We couldn’t agree on whose gear to use, and there wasn’t room for both, so we fought for space, unwilling to compromise.
Jazz and Vern wrestled over desks and outlets until it got physical enough that Noah had to step in. Olivia and Maggie fought with Lex about the tangle of cords on the floor being a tripping hazard.
After running to the store to purchase paper maps of the county, I hung them on the wall, getting in Roe’s way more than once. He was too busy flirting with Becca from the film crew to care what was going on. Jazz bitched that the map wasn’t straight before Olivia told him to shut up.
Noah surveyed Charles’s team with his arms crossed as they mounted recording devices. No matter where we turned, someone had a camera in our face.
The room was not big enough for the crowd, and tempers frayed.
Gale never showed his face. When I asked Noah what his roommate was up to, he shrugged.
I wanted to slip away and check on him, but couldn’t come up with a reasonable excuse, and the last thing I wanted was Hugh or Arty to trail me. No one seemed concerned that Gale was missing. I suspected forcing him to be present would only make things worse.
When Olivia returned from her car with another box of gear, I pulled her aside. “Where’s Gale?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know. Why?”
“Haven’t seen him in a while. Aren’t you worried?”
She shrugged. “He’s probably hiding in his room. Leave him alone. He’s not hurting anyone.”
As the afternoon rolled on, the overcast sky darkened further. Thunderstorms were expected in the area come evening as warm fronts and cold fronts collided. I sensed they would be nasty. The smell of ozone was sharp in my nose. Tornado alerts were already popping up on all the news channels.
Someone had the local weather playing on their phone, keeping us abreast of the hourly forecast. Charles had taken off at some point, but not before reminding us that we were blending our teams. “That includes chases,” he’d said. If we didn’t diversify the occupants of our vehicles, he would be forced to do it for us.
No one seemed inclined to discuss what diversifying our cars might look like, and I feared we’d end up scrambling at the last minute. It was sure to turn into a fight.
Fucking Charles had ruined my favorite time of year. This show wasn’t worth it.
By five, tempers had simmered down. The calm before the storm, both inside and out. Our screens were a dynamic, shifting promise of activity, anticipated to peak sometime between six and eight. Olivia sat silently beside me, observing the Doppler and reading the NOAA updates aloud when they refreshed.
The air currents followed a familiar pattern, and I kept an eye on the wind velocity as the cool air from the north shifted toward us, mixing unpleasantly with the warmer mass from the south.
Vern and Maggie went to the restaurant to eat—Hugh on their tail. Jazz and Roe took off to get fresh batteries for headcams—Becca went with them. Noah announced he had a headache and was lying down for a bit. He asked to nap in my bed since Elliott had yet to arrive and Gale hadn’t left their room. I didn’t know where Lex had disappeared to, but I suspected he had a shadow in the form of Arty.
Since the command room was fixed with cameras, none of Charles’s crew had stayed with Olivia and me.
More than once, as Olivia sat in silence, my mind drifted to kissing Gale the previous night. I kept touching my lips, seeking that odd buzzing sensation that blistered my skin whenever we came together. Focusing on the screens was impossible. Gale was all I could think about, and it bugged me that I hadn’t seen him all afternoon.
“He can’t stay in there indefinitely,” I snapped after a time. “Charles will put cameras in our rooms, and we don’t want that.”
