“Text us,” Mia calls out, but I’m already halfway down the hall. Shoving my feet into my shoes and hustling down the stairs of her porch to my car.
I’m only partly paying attention when I shove the keys in the ignition, too busy pulling up my favorite weather radar app that shows where the center of rotation is likely to be. I plug in the GPS coordinates of a nearby landmark, anticipation sitting low in my belly.
The weather was forecasted to be shitty tonight. It’s why we moved our dinner from an outdoor restaurant to Mia’s house, knowing if things got too bad, Harlow and I could share the guest room instead of driving home. Severe thunderstorm watches and warnings were issued earlier, but this kind of intensity is unexpected. A supercell is heading east toward the beaches, and based on the imagery, we’re going to have a tornado on our hands sooner rather than later.
I barely make it down the street before my phone rings. Sebastian’s name scrolls across the screen, and I snort when I slide my thumb to answer his call on speakerphone.
“Where are you chasing?” he asks before I have a chance to say hello. He’s breathless, and I imagine he’s moving as quickly as I am right now. We both know how fast these things pop up, how small a window we have to get to where we need to be, and we’re racing against borrowed time. “Looks like the rotation is going to be close to Oviedo.”
It is going to be close to Oviedo, but I make a split-second decision. I consider it payback for the nice guy he fended off at the chili cook-off all those weeks ago, for the way I haven’t had a second of peace since he’s been back in town. I don’t feel an ounce of guiltwhen I feign innocence and say, “Really? Radar shows more like the Casselberry area.”
“Casselberry?” There’s a lull on his end. His car beeps, and it’s followed by the shudder of an engine. “I thought it was moving due east.”
“Northeast now, and picking up speed.”
“Want to meet near Lake Kathryn? We had so much fun chasing together last time.”
“Sure.” I nod even though he can’t see me. I’m not driving anywhere near Lake Kathryn. “I’ll be there in about twenty.”
“Twenty-five for me. Hope I make it. This thing came out of nowhere.”
“Means it’s going to be a hell of a time. I’m hanging up so I can do a live stream.”
“I’ll see you soon. Be careful, Quinny baby,” Sebastian says, and the urgency in his voice makes my head fuzzy when I end the call.
A part of me is tempted to get him back on the line and tell him where I’m actually headed, but traffic is moving. I keep my eyes on the road instead of my phone screen. Conditions have a tendency to deteriorate quickly when a storm like this one forms, and I don’t want to end up under a falling tree before things get started.
I find a field near a nature preserve where I park my car a safe distance away from anything that could become potential projectiles. There’s not a ditch around, the preferred place to hide when there’s not a sturdy building nearby, so I need to be prepared to make a quick exit.
Satisfied with my location in proximity to the storm, I clip a microphone to my collar and swipe over to Instagram to start a live video, ten thousand people joining me within minutes.
“Hi, chasers, and welcome to a spontaneous nightly edition of The Rainy Day Show. I know it’s dark and might be hard to see,but I’m getting ready to track a cell capable of producing a tornado. Usually when you’re dealing with a system like this, you spend most of your time waiting. It’s a game of what-if. What if the conditions are perfect for tornadic activity? What if the area of rotation actually reaches the ground? What if nothing happens? How long are you willing to wait? I think this one is going to be good, and I’m bringing y’all with me.”
I don’t bother with a tripod, wanting to be able to move freely if needed. I switch my phone to my left hand, the sky filling in the frame behind me.
“When we’re studying supercells like this one, there’s not much time before rotation can occur. It’s just past sunset, and if you look over my shoulder, you’ll notice a greenish tint to the sky. There are also tall vertical clouds, both of which are meteorological indications of a storm that will likely produce a tornado.”
I take a minute to study the elements, to get a sense of what I’m working with. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. The temperature drops, and the quiet is unsettling.
The only sound is my ragged breathing, the noise magnified by the stillness around me. I swallow, steadying myself as the belated realization this is the first time I’ve chased a storm of this magnitude alone sinks in.
“Okay. There.There.” I point off into the distance. “Do y’all see that? We have a funnel cloud that’s trying to touch down.”
I watch, mesmerized. I can’t take my eyes off the cloud that stretches from the sky, pulled from a force beyond the earth. It starts small, barely a wisp of gray before it grows wider. Stronger and more menacing. The atmosphere changes around it, the green giving way to a nearly pitch-black sky that is as dark as night. Rain starts to fall in small drops that soak the ground and the top of my head, and I shiver, wishing I had brought a jacket.
“Let’s get closer. The storm appears to be moving east, and myposition is more to the northeast. Weather, as we all know, can be unpredictable, so we might need to make some alterations as we go. Stay with me.”
The tall grass brushes against my shins as I walk forward. I fill the time by sharing the conditions needed to create a storm of this size. I answer questions that pop up, sharing the most powerful tornado I’ve ever been in (an EF1) and explaining the Enhanced Fujita Scale to everyone tuning in. I stop when I’m nearly four football fields away from my car. A roll of thunder vibrates the ground, and I shiver again.
“The funnel cloud looks like it’s touching down now, so we need to—”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
Sebastian’s voice carries over the field, each syllable etched with carefully placed anger. I roll my eyes and spin, finding him jogging toward me with a soaked shirt and a piece of his hair falling in his eyes. The camera attached to his chest is already recording, evident by the flashing red light, and I give him a wave.
“It’s about time you showed up,” I call out.
“You sent me on a wild-goose chase, Monroe,” he says when he gets to me.
