16. Ozrik
Ozrik
Atorrential rainstorm pummeled Newton all day the following day, but the storm system we’d been tracking shifted and no longer looked as promising. Lex and Vern were glued to the computers, reading the Doppler, but they kept shaking their heads in disgust.
“It’s not going to happen,” Lex said. “The wind shifted.”
Elliott communicated NOAA updates as they came in, but so far, all we had was a wicked thunderstorm, high winds, and a risk of property damage and flooding.
My phone buzzed with another incoming text from Charles.
The guy might have been a fan of Twisted Fates, he might have been rooting for us from day one, he might have even given a few pointers to help us stay ahead of Olivia’s group, but he was getting on my last nerve.
As enticing as the show was, signing that damn contract with CineVision might have been a huge mistake.
Charles didn’t like that we were sitting at the hotel and not out in the weather, filming the storm.
He didn’t like it when I told him there was nothing to film, like I could pull a tornado out of a hat.
He wanted us wet and windswept and racing through muddy fields.
A storm is a storm, he’d said. Footage is footage.
His last message read, Everything is usable. Go stand in the fucking rain and fake it for all I care. I ignored it, hoping he would give up.
He didn’t. His most recent text informed me, I’m calling you. You’d better answer.
“Shit.” I raked fingers through my hair.
“What’s up?” Noah asked from behind the camera. He was filming the guys and their conversations as they monitored the storm.
“Nothing.” My phone rang. “I gotta take this.”
I hadn’t shared Charles’s recent demands with the team, so I motioned that I was stepping outside to take the call. For all anyone knew, it was my mother checking up on me, and those conversations were always private.
I connected the call once I was in the hallway. “Hello, Charles. You’re a pain in my ass, and not in a good way.”
“Are you at the hotel?”
“Where the fuck else would I be?”
“Do you realize Windrow and her team are on the road and filming?”
“Good for her. She’s chasing nothing. We don’t have a TVS. We don’t have a mesocyclone. We don’t have a hook echo. We have a nasty derecho brewing, but no tornado. When Mother Nature gives us a promising sign, we’ll give you front row seats. I promise. Until then—”
“Until then, you won’t get airtime. Do you hear me?
Does that register in your little brain, Devereaux?
No one will watch, let alone vote for, a team that is sitting around in a hotel room, staring at radar screens.
They want action. I don’t know what a derecho is, but go stand in it and keep the camera rolling.
Hell, tell the audience what it is. Get wet.
Show me destruction. Flooding. You yourself told me you can monitor radar from that fancy vehicle, so do it.
Get out in the thick of it, or it’s sayonara, motherfucker.
I’m fighting for you, but Dennis has a hard-on for your competition. ”
I saw Charles’s point. He was trying to help, and it irked me that Olivia and her team were out there recording this nonsense. It was an amateur move that an audience would incorrectly assume was superior to our inactive observation of data in a dry hotel room.
What was she doing? Gale would know this storm wasn’t showing signs of production. Hell, Olivia had been at it long enough that she should know it, too. Was this an act?
Fuck me. Of course it was. I’d outmaneuvered her last time, so this was payback.
“She’s out there to win screen time.”
“Yes, Devereaux. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Unlike you, she seems to possess half a brain cell.”
“All right. We’ll go.”
I had made it to the inn’s lobby and peered out the front window at the roiling dark sky as a crack of thunder rattled the pane and shook the world.
The rain was relentless, falling sideways in sheets, battering the side of the building, and ricocheting off cars.
The streets sported swollen puddles. High winds whipped the tree branches into a frenzy.
Across the street, a line of flags on high poles flapped wildly.
“Before you hang up. Another thing,” Charles said.
“What now?”
“Your rescue mission last week. That was golden. That will win you favor with the audience right out of the gate, but we don’t want to lose that momentum. It’s a great angle. We should keep that going so Windrow can’t steal the spotlight.”
“What do you mean?”
“You and I both know Twisted Fates is the superior team. You are my future cast for Stormz Rising. We need to play up the big brother role.”
“I’m not following.”
“Show the audience that you aren’t simply team players. You’re the type of people who lend a hand when needed because this is dangerous work. You offer advice. You keep an eye on the weaker player. Other people’s safety is more important than your ego or the game.”
I snorted. “Except it’s not.”
“It is from now on. Think about it. I’ll find out where Olivia’s crew is. I want you to spontaneously land in the same vicinity again.”
“No.”
Charles talked over my protest. “I want you to check in on them. Maybe give a short lesson on the kind of storm that is taking place, but be careful you don’t come across as condescending. That’s a fine line we don’t want to cross. Offer a kind word. Educate, and Oz?”
“What?” I said through gritted teeth.
“Do you want to win? Do you want this spot on my show?”
“Of course I fucking do.” If I didn’t get a spot, I might never be able to leave home.
“Then you’re going to do as I say.”
“Yeah. I hear you.”
“Good. One last thing. Listen carefully.” He paused, and my patience thinned. When I was about to speak because the silence had gone on too long, he shouted, “Record every fucking minute! Don’t turn the goddamn camera off this time, no matter what that whiny brother of hers says.”
I tore the phone from my ear, startled at his abrupt command.
The bored lady at the desk must have heard too and glanced over where I stood near the lobby window. I shrugged, and she smiled, going back to her magazine.
By the time I returned the phone to my ear, Charles had hung up.
“Asshole.”
The text with Olivia’s location came through before I made it back to the room. No one was going to be happy. It wasn’t like I had agreed to Charles’s nonsense, but it wasn’t like he’d given me a choice either.
His angle made sense. Charles had called my rescue of Gale the previous week brilliant. His only complaint was that we’d turned the cameras off too soon and should have recorded the entire ride home. I’d done it at Gale’s request, and I didn’t care what Charles said. It was the right thing to do.
Lingering in the hallway for a minute to gather my thoughts, I came to a decision.
Why did the team have to know everything?
The reason for venturing out was sound, and no one would disagree that we should record raw footage of the storm.
If I told Lex where to drive and we happened to end up in the same spot as Olivia… again… such was luck.
I hated deceiving my friends, but we were tangled up in this show because of me. I needed to keep everyone happy or risk a rebellion. I couldn’t lose this opportunity.
With a sound plan, I barreled into the room and announced, “Pack up. Let’s hit the road.”
I earned a few odd looks. No one moved.
“Seriously. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.
” I clapped my hands. “The audience doesn’t want to see us staring at computers all fucking day.
They won’t find Doppler radar half as exciting as we do.
They want heart-thumping energy.” I pounded my chest. “So I say, we go dance in the rain and record this wicked thunderstorm while she’s roaring around out there.
She’s a doozy. Might as well show the audience her destruction, even if she doesn’t want to produce. ”
For a moment, I didn’t think they would take the bait.
Then Vern, thank God for Vern, whooped. “Yeah, baby. Daddy wants to play truth or dare with some fork lightning. Who’s with me?”
That was all it took. In under ten minutes, we piled into Black Bug and headed out.
Lex was used to leaving the navigating to the rest of us, so following instructions on where to go was second nature.
He wasn’t the one with his eyes on the radar, so he put his trust in us.
This run was different. We weren’t racing to a specific area or following tornadic activity, but I needed to get us to the same vicinity as Olivia so we could accidentally cross paths.
I checked with Charles to get her current location and pulled it up on my phone.
She was seven miles northeast of town. It made sense.
It was the direct path of the storm. Numerous systems were moving through the area, and they all seemed to converge on that one spot.
I suggested it as our destination. My reasons were valid, so no one disagreed.
Lightning flashed across the black horizon, illuminating the sky with several strobing pulses.
Day had turned to night under the charcoal clouds, washing the color from the sodden town.
Lex took us out of Newton. The bug’s tires sloshed through the growing puddles as the wind pummeled the side of the vehicle.
With her built so low to the ground, she didn’t do well with severe flooding.
Lex’s white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel suggested he struggled to keep us on the road.
I checked the rolling data on the storm screens and read that the wind gusts were reaching eighty-six miles per hour.
An earth-shattering crack of thunder boomed, and Vern cheered. “Let me out. The gods are calling.”
Elliott chuckled. “You’re an idiot.”
We weren’t far outside of town, but Lex shouted, “Should I pull over? I don’t want to flood the engine. Do you see these roads?”
“Not yet. We want to be in the thick of it.” I gave him directions, making excuses that an open country road would look better on film.