Gale #2
Kindness was a shield that vicious people hid behind.
It masked their cruelty. It gave the illusion of friendship and compassion.
Enough to fool the outside world and protect them from exposure.
I’d been swept up in the illusion more times than I would ever admit, thinking I’d found a trusting companion, only to discover they harbored a rotten soul.
My short stint in the seminary had taught me that anyone could disguise their true nature—even the faithful who had chosen to pursue a path to God.
When given a blade and a reason, it empowered them to strike at the weak.
Felling enemies fed their twisted sense of authority.
Worse than individual spite was the influence of a group dynamic.
Evil sought evil, and together they shared a mission.
They preyed on the cowardly, feeding on their soft underbellies, while strengthening their resolve.
In the end, the meek did not inherit the earth. We inherited a closet full of secrets and a crate full of mental health problems that followed us for a lifetime.
The car jolted to a sudden stop, snapping everyone’s attention to the world beyond the windows. The chaotic rush from earlier picked up where it left off as Ozrik and his team spilled out of the car and gathered on the road.
I remained where I was. Numb and confused. Nauseous. I fumbled my phone from a pocket, but without a signal, I couldn’t call Olivia. Hearing her voice would fortify me.
How sad that I still looked to my sister for rescue, even after she’d abandoned me in a storm. She was my protector through high school. Savage in the face of those who bullied me. She was my voice when I had none. In college, I had suffered without her there to shield me.
Alone, I took the reprieve to thoroughly inspect the vehicle’s interior and assess my situation.
Twisted Fates’ entire setup was impressive.
A compact office on wheels. The laptops and their constantly refreshing screens gave me pause.
My university-trained brain urged me to lean forward and examine the output.
As I shifted, Ozrik poked his head inside the vehicle, startling me.
“Hey. Get out and stretch your legs. We’re going to be a minute. Got to find our probe. You should see this sky.” His dark and expressive eyes glittered with excitement.
Even after he’d rescued me from the field, I didn’t trust his intentions. Dozens of scenarios painted the inside of my brain.
Was this the part where they dumped me in the middle of nowhere without a phone signal and drove off laughing?
Where they kicked me and spat in my face and called me names?
Would they film my humiliation and post it to their channel?
“Gale.”
I snapped to attention.
Ozrik offered me his hand. When I didn’t take it, he shook it. “No static this time. I promise.”
Unsure what else to do, I exited on shaky legs, only grabbing Ozrik’s hand to gain my balance when my knees threatened to buckle.
He was wrong. The contact was short-lived, and there might not have been a static charge that time, but the connection buzzed under my skin regardless, raising the hairs on my arms and burning hot in my low belly.
My fingers had turned to ice, and Ozrik radiated intense heat. I let go like I’d been singed, fearing that he would somehow be able to read my mind or feel the way my body reacted.
Ozrik must have felt the invisible zap, too. He scrutinized me for a beat before staring at his fingers.
A shout from one of his friends broke the spell, and Ozrik angled his face to the sky. The wind caught his curls and made them dance around his forehead and ears. He glowed under the fading storm like part of it was trapped inside him.
I’d seen that look on his face several times while watching his channel. Shamefully, I’d paused the videos to admire every nuance of his face. Standing beside him, witnessing the expression in real life was staggering.
His joy was a thousand times more infectious in the flesh.
The man exuded a wild allure that coiled through my intestines and tugged at something deep in my core.
Ozrik seemed to reflect his environment.
The storm infused him with life and regenerated him.
It was like witnessing an otherworldly convergence of energy, and I couldn’t tell who fed off whom.
Reflexively, I stepped back a few feet, raised my camera, and took a picture. Then I took another, ensuring I captured the confluence of man and Mother Nature. Heart palpitating, I couldn’t stop. Click, click, click. One after another.
Realizing what I was doing, I startled. My cheeks flamed, and I tensed, prepared to flee, but neither Ozrik nor his friends seemed to notice where I had focused my lens or how absorbed I’d been in my task.
Either way, the consequences of my actions were too real.
Silently reprimanding myself, I followed Ozrik’s gaze and glanced skyward as though I’d done nothing wrong, as though these secret feelings inside me didn’t exist. A niggling voice inside my head whispered, what if he confiscates your camera and finds them? How would you explain yourself?
No. That was stupid. Ozrik wouldn’t take my camera. He had no reason. Besides, the photos were on film. Unless he processed the film, he would never see the images.
Regardless of the sound logic, fear pressed against my ribs and strangled my lungs. It had been a stupid, stupid thing to do.
Above, the racing clouds dispersed, breaking up in places, inviting thin rays of sunlight to bleed through. The roaring freight train from earlier was gone.
Unsettled, I took a few pictures of the broken clouds, all too aware of Ozrik a few feet away and the effect he had on my entire being. I was walking naked in class again, certain everyone saw what lived under my clothes, under my skin, inside my secret heart.
The guys searched for their probe. They talked and bantered and laughed. For a moment, I didn’t exist, and that was fine by me. Invisible was my preferred state of being.
When they returned to the vehicle and piled inside, Ozrik waved for me to go ahead of him. Vern and Elliott fit a device into a padded case. The device was covered in mud and bits of grass.
“Is that a turtle?” I asked.
“Yep. The EOS,” Vern said. “Isn’t she a beauty?”
I nodded, a gesture that did nothing to convey my amazement and mild jealousy.
An EOS, or Eye of Sauron, turtle probe was a scientific device used to collect data in the eye of a storm.
It had 360-degree recording capability and took a wide range of readings.
Data from these probes could be used to improve forecasting.
I wondered if Olivia knew Twisted Fates had something like that. I had so many questions, and if I was a different person, a braver person, I might have asked them, but my social skills were nonexistent.
Back in the vehicle, I hugged my camera with a sudden urge to be at home in the darkroom, developing photographs. Guilt and shame rode on its coattails.
At one point, I checked my phone again. Still no signal. Was Olivia looking for me? Had they gone home without me? Did anyone realize I’d been left behind? Was it on purpose?