The grit thrown wild by the wind cut my cheeks, but it wasn’t grit. Rain fell. Icy rain. Hail.
Squinting at the heavens, I lowered my camera, closed my eyes, and prayed. He brought me here. He wanted to show me His greatness. He was with me. Around me. Inside me.
You are not alone, He whispered.
Even as the violent wind threatened to blow me away, I felt tethered. Tears and rain burned my eyes when I opened them.
A vortex had formed, like the eye of God staring down at me. Was He here to save me from this life? Did He want to take me home?
This was more than a promised tornado. It was the reassurance I sought daily. It was the hope I looked for in the woods and by the streams. It was the comfort I longed for on cold, lonely nights when I remembered my mother and cried. It was the shelter and protection I craved when no one understood what lived in my heart.
I remembered my camera and snapped pictures as the wind whipped my hair and hail sliced my forehead and bare knuckles. The roar of the wind was ferocious, louder than a freight train.
This was beauty. It was art. It was love.
It was the worst time for a revelation. Fear had escaped me, and I didn’t recognize the danger of a growing vortex or how close it was until a large branch came out of nowhere and flew like a missile within a foot of my head.
The shock sent me tumbling to my ass. Where had that come from?
Only then did I realize how far I’d wandered from the road.
Only then did I realize the intensity of the wind and hail.
Only then did I realize that a tornado was trying to form within a few hundred yards of me.
Before I could get to my feet and orient myself, a hand gripped my collar and yanked me upright. A humored voice hit my ears. “Come on, Dorothy. Time to split before someone drops a tornado on you.”
The person turned me toward the road, shoving so hard I stumbled and staggered before they caught my arm, stabilizing me once again, and urged me to keep going.
“Run,” he barked. The person kept one hand knotted in my T-shirt.
I glanced back, expecting Roe. Jazz wouldn’t rescue me. He’d leave me to die. But it wasn’t Roe.
The devilish smile on my rescuer’s face belonged to none other than Ozrik Devereaux.
10
Ozrik
“Are you kidding me?”
I pressed my face to Black Bug’s side window as we screamed down the country road, zeroing in on the intensifying rotation of clouds in the near distance that had been teasing us with a funnel for the past ten minutes. Anticipating where it might produce was the trickiest part of chasing, but we always tried to get as close as possible in the hopes of intercepting with a strategically placed probe so we could gather data.
How was Olivia’s group already on location?Ahead of us.In the years since the Wind Riders had started chasing, we had never crossed paths with their team. Having obsessed over their channel recently, I reckoned that they were either too afraid to get as close as us or weren’t as lucky when reading the sky.
Go figure—the day they finally figured their shit out or grew some balls was the day we ended up picking the exact same spot on the exact same side road.
“I can’t believe your girlfriend’s here. How is that possible?” Vern teased as Lex pulled over and came to a stop about fifty yards from the other group.
Noah, who had been hanging out the window, recording the sky, withdrew, offering a quizzically raised eyebrow. “I’m sorry. Did he say girlfriend? When did that happen?”
“It’s not official.” Vern grinned. “But Oz has a boner for the competition.”
I didn’t, but any denial would be met with further ribbing, and we didn’t have time for dicking around. I shot Vern a dirty look and ignored Noah’s inquiry as I scrambled to gear up. Tugging a headcam from the bin, I put it on and adjusted the strap while fretting over how we were going to mitigate the damage caused by Olivia’s sudden stroke of luck. We had been counting on handing CineVision superior footage, hoping it would give us a leg up in this stupid competition.
“Are we staying here?” Lex glanced in the rearview, the car idling.
Face squished to the window, peering at the sky, Vern said, “She wants to funnel. Might as well stay here and see what happens.”