Chapter 2
When a storm is brewing, the air shifts.
I’ve snuffed out my cigarette, my team loitering around as we keep our eyes on the clouds and determine if we need to move or not as the wind picks up.
Storm chasing is one of my favorite pastimes, and since I have enough money to do what I want, I decided to seek out adventure with a different sort of hobby than some of my business associates.
I’ve always loved the chaos of storms, and this hobby just kind of fell into my lap thanks to my friendship with Beck.
This has now become more than just a run of the mill hobby and I’ve become well-versed in storm chasing.
It’s a passion, one I share with my group of friends who also storm chase.
We’ve formed a bond traveling around, and our adventures have taken us across Tornado Alley plenty of times over the years.
Every year when storm season rolls around the five of us meet up again, and even if we don’t travel around together for the whole season, it’s nice chasing storms here and there as a team and having that friendly bond.
So long as I manage investments every few days and ensure that my accounts are happy, I rarely have to leave my happy place out here in the middle of nowhere.
I have a few different houses that I’ve used depending on the weather and where my travels take me, but there’s one common strand among all of them: they stay off-grid.
“You ready to move, Keith?”
I glance over at Whitney, her arms crossed as she waits for my response.
She’s another avid storm chaser, but Whitney has a regular job and just does chasing for the rush when it fits into her schedule.
Of the five of us she probably does the least chasing because she has a regular life to attend to, but she likes to pop in anytime we head out to Oklahoma.
Whitney likes Beck, and I’m fairly certain that’s the reason she decided to join today’s chase.
If Beck was still back home in Tennessee, Whitney wouldn’t be here.
I’ve never really gotten along with her, and she has no problem telling me how she feels about me, either.
She could at least be respectful. We’re close to forty, and childish antics like mumbled insults just aren’t tolerated in the group.
We don’t have time for frivolous nonsense, especially when we need to focus on the storms.
With a nod I breeze past her, and she scoffs behind me. “Yeah, let’s head out. Ride with Drew and Dex.”
Whitney and Andrew don’t get along, so I’m screwing Dexter by saying that.
I just don’t think I can handle her flirting with Beck right now when we should be focusing on the weather.
Glancing up I can see the storm forming; it isn’t turning into a heavy downpour yet, but it likely will before the cumulonimbus clouds form to create a funnel.
We need to get moving so we can track the storm, and I’m itching to get back into the truck.
I still don’t see a point in the sky where the funnel is forming, but depending on how fast the storm develops will determine how close we’re going to get.
My ride is equipped to handle the elements, meaning that my truck has extra protection from the abrasive winds and any projectiles.
For the most part, we stay back from the thick of things.
My truck has some exterior armor to protect us from the dangers an F4 and up can produce.
That’s why it’s better to use the custom trucks for this type of mission.
Little cars and small projectiles are easily picked up and thrown in a severe storm and we aim to avoid that.
Storm chasing isn’t about getting sucked in, it’s about watching from the sides. Feeling the rush of life and all that shit.
“You and Whitney are getting along well,” Beck tells me as I hop into the driver seat and pull the door down.
It’s one of those fancy trucks, with a door that lifts up instead of pulling out.
Cost me a pretty penny, but it works better when I need to slip in around the elements.
Plus the additions I put into the design worked better if the door lifted. “She still in a mood?”
“Such a mood,” I groan, shooting him a look. I’m fairly certain it’s his fault as is. “Poor Dexter.”
“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 surround myself 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 we want to 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 on against 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.