11. Ryker
Chapter eleven
Ryker
“You’re not live streaming this chase?” Finley asks as she fiddles with the laptop Joey handed her once we got into Thor—it has live radar and maps on it.
“A camera in the dash is recording.” I point to it. “And Ezra is recording footage from the truck. We’ll splice it together and put it on social media later. It makes chases easier, and I didn’t want any distractions for the launch.”
Joey waves at the dash cam and shoots finger guns at it. “Hey, beautiful people!”
I push his hands away. “It’s not live, Joseph. It’s just recording.”
“I know that, Dad. I’m just giving you footage for later.” He winks at it then puts his attention on Finley. “Wave to the camera, Fin. We can’t starve the people of such a hottie.”
She huffs to herself but waves like Joey asked. The pesky jealousy that I have no right to feel bubbles up. Finley is hot—more than hot—and my possessive side doesn’t want Joey to comment on it. But I can’t say shit about it. If Joey wants to pursue Finley and she’s interested, I can’t say shit about that, either. I also can’t say shit about him flirting with her. If Finley wants him to stop, I know she’ll tell him.
Joey slaps my shoulder. “Make sure your editing team gets my good side.”
My jaw twitches. “I’ll be sure to tell Ezra.”
“Keep going down this highway,” Finley interjects calmly .
Joey sits back in his seat, and I exhale a breath, thankful for the change of subject—back to the storm—so I don’t say something stupid.
“Looks like we have a lot of options to chase if this current supercell doesn’t touch down,” she adds.
I glance at her from the side of my vision. She’s not comfortable like she was yesterday on our chase together, and I’m positive it’s because of my actions. Or maybe it’s a combination of being on her first chase with TT, nerves after our chase went wrong, and what happened between us. She also wasn’t happy about the new camera now secured around her neck with a nylon strap, even if I could see in her eyes that she wanted it.
Knowing her, I figured she’d object to the replacement and try to give it back. I’ve learned enough about Finley in the last year to know that she wouldn’t want to accept such a large gift, that she’d prefer to have paid for a new one on her own. But she works too hard already, and I’m the reason her camera is gone in the first place. No way in hell was I going to let her buy a new one.
I’m grateful the storm and Joey intervened so we had to jump into action. Had she been able to fight more, I was prepared to tell her that the meteorology department would pay for it. I even had a whole speech planned about how her photographs, as well as Joey’s drone footage, is as important as the rockets we’ll launch. Capturing good visuals of storms helps us see a lot of things that, in the moment, we can’t see when we’re chasing.
Most importantly, she’s too talented, and her photography means too much to her. I’d be a fool not to notice how she lights up when she talks about it or shows me her photos. I wasn’t going to let what happened yesterday ruin that part of the chase for her or impact her livelihood. A fact about her I probably shouldn’t know but do.
After she first showed me her photos and told me she sold them online, I found her website and ordered several of her largest prints under a friend’s name and hung them proudly on the walls of my home office. Is it a little creepy? Maybe. But I like having a piece of her in my home. And like I said, she’s an incredible photographer. That’s how I justify it. Not even Hawk knows they’re hers.
“Look at that sky!” Joey cheers.
I turn off my thoughts and scold myself for losing focus. If I don’t want what happened yesterday to happen again, I need to keep myself together. So I lean over the wheel and look out at the sky through the windshield.
“We need to get east of that fluff a little bit,” I say, opening the double windows to get a better look at the clouds. They’re part of the storm system we’re chasing, but they’re not dangerous. By getting east of it, we can position ourselves away from the lighter precipitation to give us a clearer view of the storm’s more active, dangerous parts.
I take one of my hands off the wheel and stick it outside. Wind flows through my fingers, and the feeling of the air gives me a sense of peace. The kind of peace I only get from chasing.
Sane people would assume peace is the last thing you’d feel doing this, but I thrive here. Chasing, being inside a storm, it’s where I’ve known I belonged since I was eight years old, the first time I experienced an EF5 tornado that nearly killed me and my family. It’s a fact I don’t tell many people—not for any particular reason, but my community lost a lot that day, and so did my family. We got out with our lives, but our farm’s livelihood was threatened, and our home was nearly gone.
Instead of turning to fear over storms after that, I went in the opposite direction. I became obsessed, wanting to know anything and everything about tornadoes. I wanted better warning systems, more data collected on how tornadoes work, and why they become so destructive. I wanted to stop what happened to my family and my community from happening to anyone else .
That obsession eventually led me to an obsession about all things extreme weather. Over the years, I’ve embraced the name Twister Tamer and have become the most respected chaser in North America, if not the world. I’ve not only chased tornados, but in the last few years, TT has also chased hurricanes, winter storms, and even bizarre anomalies like the derecho that hit Iowa last year.
Yesterday’s tornado, while a close call, is not something that usually fazes me. I live for extreme weather, extreme situations, and the science of it all. If Finley hadn’t been with me, with her life on the line, I’d be bragging about the insanity we survived until the cows came home.
I swirl my hand through the air and smile. “We hit warm air.” I scoot further over the wheel and smile at what I see: long narrow bands of clouds streaking toward the storm. “Look at this inflow band.”
When I sit back in my chair, I glance at Finley to witness a giddy smile overtaking her lips as she looks out the window to where I’ve pointed.
Joey’s practically jumping up and down in the backseat. “Well, shit! Check out that spin.”
“Incredible,” I say. “The storm’s got great rotation.”
“You can see it on radar, too!” Finley chirps, adding to the excitement growing between the three of us.
This could really be it. If a tornado touches down like I think it will, we could launch a rocket successfully and get data from both the base and the heart of the tornado on our first day out.
Joey’s phone rings in the back, and he picks it up, putting it on speaker. “What’ve you got for us, Hawk-man?”
“Ezra got some good intel from locals on social media,” Hawk says over the speaker. “If we stay on this course, I think we’ll have a much better view of the supercell.”
As he speaks, my eyes catch an elongated cloud, an indicator of a developing tornado. “We got a little cigarette cloud!” I call, the level of my voice rising as the thrill of the chase builds .
Hawk continues. “If Finley agrees, turn right up here. I think the storm is going to line up on this north/south boundary.”
I glance at Finley as I keep driving, Joey’s eyes on her now, too. I see her nerves spike at being put on the spot. She leans forward in her seat to watch the storm through the windshield while nibbling on her bottom lip.
Normally, Finley is not so reserved with her opinions and thoughts, which is why I put her in the spotter and navigator position to begin with. I noticed she hesitated when I asked her which storm we should chase before, too. I’d thought it was because I called her Ms. Buckley and she’d been thrown, but maybe not.
Her teeth dig into her bottom lip harder, and the urge to reach across the seat and soothe the skin is strong. But I hold the wheel, wishing I could sit on my hands. Instead, I use my words.
“Take a look at the radar for the hook echo.” I smile softly, using what I’d call my professor tone. Encouraging, friendly. “Then watch for the visual cues the storm is giving you.”
Finley’s shoulders tense, and for a moment, I think she’s angry at my help. Then she nods and studies the radar before looking back out at the storm.
“The storm we’re currently chasing still has good rotation on it. I think if we go all the way east to Red Rock Junction, we can keep this storm as well as the other cells in play if this one fizzles. That way, we eliminate all risk.”
My smile is soft as pride swells in my chest. The desire to praise her sparks in me, but Joey beats me to it. “Fuck yeah!” Joey shouts. “I like the way you think, Fin.”
I clear my throat, the words I like it, too on the tip of my tongue, but I keep my mouth shut and hit the gas, taking Finley’s direction.