Page 35 of Whirlwind

“Here we go, here we go!” Ryker yells louder. “It’s spiraling all the way up the base.”

“Oh my god,” I whisper, eyes wide with wonder. The tornado rolls south. It should cross the road in front of us, if not on top of us. But that’s what we want.

“We got it, we got it!” Ryker chants.

I snap another picture of the howling beast as the debris field around the tornado gets larger. “Pull off here,” I say.

Ryker doesn’t question me, and I won’t deny that it makes my stomach contract that he’s listened to me again, especially at this intense moment.

“I’m pulling back the drone so I don’t lose it!” Joey yells as we come to a stop.

“Heard,” Ryker says as he unbuckles his seatbelt. He pushes a button, and the lift system activates the doors, popping them open. Ryker is out of the car before I can blink, and I quickly follow.

Rain pours down on us, but it’s not enough to soak our clothes, and wind whips my hair across my face. I snap several more photos as I stand in reverence of the phenomena that almost took my life yesterday. I should probably be scared—a normal person would be—but I’m not. I’m pumped and know I’m going to remember this moment for the rest of my life.

A car door slamming turns my head in the direction of Hawk and Ezra, who have pulled up behind us. They get out of Ryker’s truck with full-faced smiles on and approach us through the whipping wind.

Ezra has his phone held up in front of him, talking to it as if he’s live on social media, and Hawk clutches one of the rockets Ryker showed us earlier in his hands.

“We’ve got a clear spot coming around!” Ryker yells over the roaring sound of the tornado nearing closer, less than a mile away now. My ears start to pop from the changing pressure, and the wind becomes stronger.

“We should launch,” Hawk says, handing the rocket he’s holding to Ryker. “I took one from the back of Thor earlier; I had something I wanted to tweak. It should do what we need it to do if the inflow band takes it up.”

The two men, longtime friends and colleagues, share a look that’s hard to put into words—one filled with joy, love, thrill, and maybe even relief. As Ryker said, this moment has been a long time coming. If it works, it won’t only be significant for them but for the entire field of meteorology.

I understand the weight of it, and I send a silent prayer that everything goes smoothly. And that I didn’t pick the wrong storm to chase or placement to put us in, though I’m sure Ryker knew this was the right choice, too, or he wouldn’t have agreed or pulled over.

A moment later, Joey steps out of Thor sans goggles and drone, but he’s wearing the goofiest of grins, like he just came down from the best high of his life.

“Holy hell!” he hollers. “That was great! Now, let’s shoot that rocket—fuck shit up right outta the gate!”

Ryker steps away from a laughing Hawk after he pats him once more on the shoulder. Then he points at me.

“Ms. Buckley, you’re with me,” Ryker commands before going to the back door of Thor, the rocket now in hand.

I frown and turn to Hawk, yelling over the noise. “Don’t you want to, Hawk? It’s your baby.”

He smiles at me gently, his weathered tan cheeks lifting. “I’m the science guy—you both do your thing.”

“Come on, Ms. Buckley!” Ryker yells from inside Thor now.

My pulse skips as I call out a thank you to Hawk and rush to Ryker.

He’s in the back where Joey was before, his head and torso coming through the top of the open hatch as he starts to load the rocket onto the launch pad they’ve built on the side of the roof.

“Hawk, Ezra,” he commands loudly, his voice carrying to where they stand a foot or so from the massive vehicle’s trunk. “After we launch, you’ll both stay here with the truck to start receiving data, and the rest of us will drive in for a direct intercept to get more data from the subsonic sensors we have with us. If needed, move back a quarter mile so you’re completely in the clear.”

The men yell their agreement as Ryker’s comment reminds me I’m going to be inside another tornado in a matter of minutes.

“Step up here, and hold the shaft,” he says to me.

I attempt to stop my cheeks from turning pink at his comment and get up on the edge of the door where there’s a lip, gripping the rocket shaft. Our fingers brush as wind swirls around us, and that zap of electricity passes between us again. I’d growl at that sensation if I could. My body needs to understand that Ryker and I are no longer involved. He’s my platonic professor.

His jaw tenses for a moment as if he’s thinking the same thing before he looks up at the sky. “It’s coming fast—we gotta launch before we lose our chance.”

We stare at each other for a brief second, and in his eyes, I see a million things he wants to say. None of which I’m sure I want to even hear, nor is this the appropriate time.

“Launch it now, Ryker!” Hawk yells.

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