Based on the glum faces of Olivia’s team, I seemed to be the only one who hadn’t connected the dots.
“They take bigger risks.” Roe took the tablet from Olivia.
“No.” Jazz shuffled over to view the part my sister had highlighted. “It’s not about risks. Look at where they are. We’ve never gone that close to a tornado. Fuck me. They’re practically beside it. We think we’re hot shit when we park a mile off. These guys…” Jazz huffed derisively as though it explained what he didn’t say.
“We could get closer, but we don’t have the same vehicle they do, so it’s riskier.” Maggie confiscated the tablet and offered it to me.
I didn’t want to have it. I didn’t want to look at Ozrik’s devilish smile again, especially with so many people watching. With such weak self-control, anything might show on my face. The fires of hell already burned my cheeks.
But, God help me, my hand had a mind of its own, and I accepted the tablet from Maggie.
Deep down, I harbored an irresistible desire to commit Ozrik’s features to memory so I might conjure them later when I was alone. My fantasy could use a proper hero.
Lead me not into temptation…Alas, I was drawn by the hand of the devil himself.
Yes, Jazz, heisthat good-looking.
I stared at the screen as Ozrik and his cameraman ran down a dirt-packed country road. The wind roared around them. Ozrik looked so wild and free. So alive. Untouched by the turmoil of life. He shouted something and laughed, and I pretended I could hear it. Another guy from his team appeared. Vern. Vern didlandscaping for the city. I’d seen him around. I didn’t know him personally, but I knew of him.
I fought the urge to raise the volume. Instead, I privately noted which video Maggie had selected so I could return to it later and watch it through from beginning to end. Hear Ozrik’s laughter. Feed off his energy. Pretend, for a moment, I had the courage to be who I was meant to be. The confidence to let go and fall.
Olivia’s voice was a distant hum. I vaguely registered her words. Although I understood the team’s dilemma, I was too distracted to care. It wasn’t my problem. As much as I loved my sister, if we failed, so be it. I didn’t want to do this anyway. If I had known this was how it would turn out, I never would have let Cormac follow through.
“It won’t matter how great our chemistry or how personable we are with our audience,” Olivia said to her friends. “People want up close and personal. They want to think they can reach out and touch the vortex. Feel its power. They want to believe we’re in real danger. If we keep a distance and hand in our typical footage and Twisted Fates hands in their far superior footage, and CineVision has to compile it for a thirty-minute show slot, who do you think will get more airtime? Less time means fewer opportunities to win over an audience and a much higher chance of getting voted off. If people don’t remember us, they won’t vote for us.”
“So, we get closer,” Jazz said. “It’s risky.”
“It’s also a guessing game,” Roe said. “Mother Nature doesn’t exactly give us a blueprint of where she plans to drop a tornado.”
“Except, she kind of does,” Maggie added. “We’ve played it safe to this point.”
Ozrik on the screen lifted his face to the sky. Wonder and awe radiated from his eyes as he absorbed the show. He and his buddy conversed with the person behind the camera. Anotherchaser appeared in the frame. Elliott? He was the one who missed the meeting.
The three radiated excitement. The forming vortex was nearly above them.
The photographer in me wanted to stop time and capture the moment. I wanted to eject Vern and Elliott from the frame and take a wide-angle shot of the only person that mattered. Ozrik and the storm were a confluence of beauty, and I couldn’t look away. It was as though one couldn’t exist without the other. As though they fed each other, growing more powerful with each passing second.
As though they belonged to one another.
Only when Olivia said, “Gale can do it,” did I snap to attention, realizing I’d long ago stopped listening to the conversation.
I glanced up from the tablet, heart pounding, flushed with embarrassment and shame, and burning with lust. “I can do what?”
“You can read the sky better than we can,” Maggie said. “We want to be where the tornado lands. You can be the navigator.”
7
Gale
The following weekend, Olivia got a call from Charles, who informed her that a small camera crew was coming to conduct introduction interviews. A profile clip or something to that effect. She wasn’t pleased but didn’t have a choice since the contract specifically outlined that Charles could send in a camera crew at any point if he wasn’t getting the footage he wanted.
For whatever reason, my sister had decided that Dad’s house was the perfect location for filming. Again, I figured it was to ensure my participation since I had gotten good at shirking responsibilities. I’d spent the week camping to avoid getting together with the group, something that infuriated my sister.
Thirty minutes before Charles’s crew was due to arrive, I slipped out the back door with my camera and a full backpack and aimed for the field. Olivia was busy entertaining her friends in thebasement, so my escape went unnoticed.
Until it didn’t.
Dad was repairing the riding lawn mower outside the barn. It had gone on the fritz a few weeks ago, and being the frugal man he was, he refused to call a mechanic until he’d tried everything in his power to fix it himself.