“Fuck ‘em,” Beck says with a laugh, and we start to move. Since Dex is the only other driver today with a vehicle equipped for storm chasing, he was bound to end up with Drew and Whitney. They almost always ride together.
Inside my vehicle there’s a camera-view on the dash, highlighting the scene in front of us. A mounted camera to record the happenings of the storm the entire time we’re out driving. The system in the truck connects directly to our phones too so we can keep an eye on the storm from multiple angles.
“Those three are a walking nightmare,” Beck continues. “It’s not my fault Whitney slept around and found out what happens when she does that with the team.”
I chuckle to myself and eye the neighborhood as we head out. This is richland, but not the kind of rich I typically surroundmyself with. Beck is aware of my standing with the OGB—Off-Grid Billionaires—but I keep that a secret from everyone else. It’s part of the reason the two of us get along as a duo better than as a group of five.
My money lets me live the life I want while managing things in the background. Keeping the Off-Grid Billionaires in my back pocket is a failsafe. The OGB is a secret society, predominately used for sexual encounters to keep all parties safe without any strings attached, and I’ve used the society plenty of times over the years. Hell, I took a contract for a few members not that long ago, dispatching a ride-along that ended up in the crossfires of a pre-scheduled kill.
It’s not just about sex, although most of the members use it for that. Sometimes we hire different members across the society for secret projects, hired kills, or transfers. I only ever pick up people and deposit them elsewhere so they don’t turn into an issue. The guy I dropped off woke up just fine in someone else’s bed, and I really don’t think he’ll have anything to complain about.
“These rich kids,” Beck goes on, drawing me from my thoughts. “They never learn, do they?”
I shake my head. There’s a party happening someplace up the road, cars lining both sides of the street and lights flashing from the window. I think the music is bumping, but the wind is too loud to hear anything between that and the radio we have on in the car. “They are careless.”
Beck chuckles. “Rich kids with no problems. Think they’ll stay indoors? It’s dark now.”
I grit my teeth. It is dark, the lights of the trucks giving us a bit of visibility outside. Now that we’re in the truck following the exterior cameras and the news reports, it’s a different matter. I can see the puffy clouds against the night sky, the rapid movement of the wind shifting the sky around and hiding the stars. There’s no green tint or forming funnels, so we aren’t in the danger zone yet.
“College kids are dumb but drunk college kids are worse. If they stay far enough off the path of the storm they should be fine,” I reason.
The wind spirals past the truck, and we can hear the roar of it over the sound of my voice. We’ve got the windows cracked just a little, and as we drive the rain picks up. Could be a full-on downpour before we see this tornado.
“Does anything keep kids around here inside?” Beck grumbles.“I’ve seen idiots driving around with a twister in the background screaming and shouting about being so close to a tornado.”
“When they aren’t close at all,” I agree dryly, shooting him a smirk. It’s a good thing, too, since they usually don’t make smart decisions. It's better that fear keeps them from getting too close where they could be swept up in the wind. Or killed by flying debris and projectiles.
We lead the adventure, taking sharp turns down the winding road as the wind increases and Drew’s truck follows us. There’s alerts popping up on our phones about a tornado warning that we dismiss, because wewantto be here for the touchdown. The further we get from the suburb area, the emptier the fields become until we’re on a two-lane highway with a few scattered houses along the dark path. I can see windows with lights onagainst large houses and huge plots, but most are set a good ways back from the highway itself.
Up ahead, there’s another large house, and a car is parked carelessly in front of it—halfway in the road. It’s one of the nearest homes to the highway, and parking like that in the dark is downright dangerous. As we get closer, my headlights sweep over the small car with its trunk popped open and hanging ajar. I ease off the gas, slowing down. Cars are coming from the opposite direction, so we’ll need to wait our turn to carefully maneuver around the obstruction.
Looking to the side, I can see drunk college kids stumbling towards the impressive structure. I slow to a stop as two other cars race to escape the storm from the opposite direction.
“Road hazard,” Beck grunts. “Would it kill them to park a few feet further to the right?”
I hesitate, waiting for the cars to blow past us. The trunk is open, a little gap visible in the headlights.
I narrow my eyes, trying to decide if I’m seeing shit or not. My brights are on right now to see on the dark road, illuminating the damn car that’s in my way. But the trunk is popped, which looks like an accident since everyone ran inside. I’m pretty sure I’m seeing things—
Then the trunk moves up several inches, and it looks like someone is pushing it. Then they seem to either give up or fall back, and the trunk lingers open as the figure falls out of sight again.
“Son of a bitch,” I say, eyebrows shooting up when the trunkmoves. The door bounces up some, and I swear it looks like someone is pushing on it from inside. It shoots up beforebouncing down again, but doesn’t close. The trunk seems to be on a spring, so it won’t rise unless it’s purposefully moved, and whoever is inside is struggling. “That’s a person isn’t it?”
“Fucking looks like it,” Beck groans, already undoing the seatbelt harness. Putting my truck in park, I slap a hand down on the hazard button and get out of the vehicle. The rest of our team can wait for a minute while we check this out. We’re alone on the windy highway again with the house to the right our only company.
“What do you think?” Beck asks as we jog over. The trunk hasn’t moved again, but since he saw it too. At least I know I’m not seeing shit. I look towards the house, but none of the people who ran off are heading back out towards us. “Abduction or drunk college kids?”
I glare at him, grabbing the trunk door and ripping it upward. I’m not justifying that with a response, because if itisan abduction we don’t need to freak the person out. People get fucking wild when the weather turns to shit.
Glaring down into the trunk, a woman stares back. Her bright blue eyes peer up at me in surprise, dark hair tangled in the face mask of a football helmet. Tawny skin burns beneath her reddening cheeks, and she looks between us when Beck peers over.
She hiccups, pressing a hand to her mouth. Her eyes look between us again, and I’m betting she’s drunk over anything heinous happening here. She doesn’t look afraid, more confused than anything.
“Did her friends just leave her?” Beck mutters under his breath.
“Oh—” she hiccups again. “Whoops. Partied too hard and ended up with someone else.”
I reach down and grab her elbow to help her sit up. The helmet appears less tangled in her hair and more so justlayingin there with her. She presses her other hand down to the floor of the trunk as she looks between us, seeming more dazed than anything.
