15. Lila
LILA
Wind is screaming in my ears. The sky is wrong, green and churning, and there’s nowhere to go. No car, no ditch, no shelter. Just open ground and a tornado bearing down on me, massive and unstoppable, chewing up everything in its path.
I can’t move.
Debris whips past me, sharp and fast, stinging my skin. The air feels like it’s being ripped out of my lungs. And through all of it, over the roar, I hear my dad’s voice.
Run, Lila. Now.
I try. My legs won’t listen.
Lila—
I come out of the nightmare gasping, the breath tearing out of my chest and turning into a scream. My heart is pounding so hard it feels like it’s trying to escape, and when I jerk upright, pain slices through my shoulder, hot and immediate.
For a second, I don’t know where I am. I’m half in it, feeling the wind, hearing him.
“Lila?” Jonah’s voice cuts through the noise, close and sharp with concern. The mattress shifts as he bolts upright beside me. “What’s wrong?”
I open my mouth, but before I can answer, the bed starts shaking.
Not subtly. Not gently. Violently.
The entire mattress jolts beneath us, a deep, rattling vibration that makes my teeth clack together.
The cheap lamp on the nightstand flickers like it’s about to die, throwing jerky shadows across the room.
And then, because apparently this night isn’t done with me yet, music blasts from somewhere above us.
Elvis Presley. Loud. Dramatic. Completely ridiculous.
“What the—” I choke out, trying to catch up with reality.
“The bed!” Jonah shouts over the music, already fumbling around like he’s trying to disarm a bomb. “It must be—I think there’s?—”
The vibration ramps up, the whole thing shaking like we’re in the middle of an earthquake.
I grab at the sheets with my good hand, trying to steady myself, which does absolutely nothing.
Max yelps and launches himself off the bed, nails skidding across the floor before he disappears under the table.
“Make it stop!” I snap, my pulse racing from the nightmare. My shoulder throbs with every jolt, sharp and relentless.
Jonah scrambles across the mattress, nearly face-planting as he reaches toward the floor. The movement sends me bouncing, which is exactly as painful as it sounds.
“I think it’s—” he grabs a small box with buttons, staring at it like it personally betrayed him. “There’s a timer or?—”
“Just unplug it!” I clutch my sling tighter, bracing my arm as Elvis croons about fools rushing in like that isn’t exactly what we just did.
Jonah dives between the bed and the wall, and suddenly the vibrations stop. The music cuts off mid-verse, plunging the room into blessed silence except for our heavy breathing and Max's concerned whining from under the table.
“What the hell was that?” I gasp.
“I was reaching for the light,” Jonah explains from his awkward position, half-wedged behind the bed. “I must’ve hit something to make it do whatever that was.”
Despite the pain, despite the lingering edge of the nightmare, a burst of laughter slips out. “You’re kidding me.”
“Unless I somehow took your pain meds in my sleep, I promise that’s what happened.”
Jonah pulls himself free from between the bed and the wall, his hair sticking up in every direction. He looks completely baffled, and that only makes me laugh harder, even as my shoulder protests.
“It has to be one of those vibrating beds from the seventies.”
“A what?” He sounds almost offended as he climbs back onto the mattress, careful to stay on his side.
“I thought they were extinct. Like phone booths and decent customer service.”
Max cautiously emerges from under the table, approaching the bed like it’s personally betrayed him. He sniffs the edge of the mattress, then gives us both a look that makes it very clear he’s questioning our judgment.
“Come here, buddy,” I pat the space beside me. “The earthquake is over.”
He hesitates, then jumps up, settling between Jonah and me like a furry chaperone. I scratch behind his ears, grateful for the distraction from the lingering images of my nightmare.
“Are you okay?” Jonah asks softly. “Before that happened. You screamed.”
I keep my focus on Max’s fur, suddenly unable to meet Jonah’s gaze.
“Just a bad dream,” I add, trying for casual. “Happens sometimes.”
He doesn’t look away. “About the tornado?”
I keep stroking Max, grounding myself in the steady rhythm. “Among other things.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” His tone is gentle.
“Not really.” I shift, trying to find a position that doesn’t make my shoulder scream. The painkillers have worn off, leaving everything sharp and exposed.
“I get them too,” Jonah offers after a moment. “Nightmares.”
That catches me off guard enough to finally look up. In the dim light filtering through the cheap motel curtains, he seems softer.
“You do?”
He nods. “Since I was a kid. After the tornado that nearly hit our house. I dream I'm trapped in our basement while the house disappears above me, piece by piece. Any time I get stressed out or the world seems to be crumbling around me, I get the tornado dream. In a way, it’s a part of a self-check system.”
“Mine are about Dad,” I admit, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. “Not always the actual accident. Sometimes it's just him disappearing. The tornado taking him while I watch, unable to do anything.”
Jonah's hand finds mine in the darkness, his touch warm and steady. “I'm sorry.”
“Yeah, well.” I clear my throat, uncomfortable with the vulnerability hanging between us. “At least tonight we got a literal wake-up call before it got too bad.”
“Courtesy of the Honeymoon Suite's finest feature,” he says dryly.
Max shifts between us, his warm weight pressing against my good side. His presence is anchoring, reminding me that I'm here, not trapped in the nightmare.
“What time is it anyway?” I ask, suddenly aware of how dark it is outside.
Jonah fumbles for his phone on the nightstand. “3:17 AM.”
“Great.” I sigh, knowing from experience that sleep won't return easily now. “Sorry I woke you.”
“I’m more worried about you.”
“I'm fine,” I insist, though the tremors in my hands betray me. I flex my fingers, trying to stop the shaking. “The nightmares come with the territory.”
Jonah studies me in the half-light, his expression thoughtful. He hasn't let go of my hand, and I haven't pulled away. His thumb traces small circles against my skin, a gesture so gentle it makes my throat tight.
“That roar,” he continues softly. “The one that seems to swallow everything around you.”
A shiver works through me. Because yes. God, yes.
People always think tornadoes are silent until they’re right on top of you. They aren’t. They scream. The sound is massive and wrong and alive in a way nothing else should be. It crawls beneath your skin and settles in your bones long after the storm is gone.
“It is,” I whisper finally.
“It’s not just loud,” I continue, staring down at our joined hands. “It’s physical. You feel it before you hear it. Like the whole world starts vibrating around you.” I press my free hand lightly against my chest. “Right here.”
Jonah nods slowly. His fingers tighten around mine just .
“I know.”
Something in the way he says it makes me look up. His eyes are already on me.
Jonah’s thumb goes still against my hand. “I’ve only heard that roar one other time when there wasn’t a storm.”
I wait.
“Yesterday,” he says. “When I kissed you.”
He watches me carefully after that. The tension around his mouth is the only thing that gives him away—like the words cost him something, like he’s waiting to find out if they were worth it.
I know what he’s really asking. Not just about the kiss. About what comes after it.
“Lila.”
Something about the way he says it—quiet, like he’s handling something that could break—makes it hard to breathe.
I should look away. I should say something deflecting and funny and safe.
Instead I close the inch between us without deciding to.
Jonah notices immediately. His breathing shifts—barely anything, just a catch—but I’ve spent years reading the sky for subtler changes than that. The space between us feels different now. Pressurized.
“You have no idea how many times I talked myself out of doing that.”
Something pulls tight in my chest.
Because I do know. I’ve been keeping the same tally.
Every time he found a reason to stand closer than necessary at the hood of the truck, shoulder almost touching mine over the maps.
Every argument I picked just to have something to do with the charge that built between us like a sky about to drop.
Every time I caught him watching the road instead of me—too deliberately, too carefully, the way you don’t look at something you’re trying not to think about.
“You weren’t subtle,” I tell him.
“No,” he agrees. “I really wasn’t.”
His eyes drop to my mouth for just a moment before he pulls them back up. Like he caught himself. Like he’s waiting for some signal I haven’t given yet—green on the radar, all clear, safe to proceed.
That small, careful hesitation does more damage than the kiss did.
Jonah will walk toward a wedge tornado without breaking stride, call out its rotation while the sky turns green around him.
But right now, in this dim room, with Max’s warm weight between us and the curtains glowing faintly orange from the parking lot lights outside, I’m what’s scaring him. I find that I don’t mind at all.
I shift carefully onto my side despite the pull in my injured shoulder, closing some of the distance between us. Jonah’s eyes track the movement immediately, something shifting in them when my knee finds his beneath the blankets.
His breath snags.
“Tell me if I’m crossing a line,” he says.
I look down at our joined hands. Thread my fingers more firmly through his.
“You crossed it yesterday,” I say. “Out in the field.”
The corner of his mouth moves. “And?”
One long beat.
“And I haven’t wanted you to step back since.”