18. Jonah
JONAH
The cold nose returns, insistent this time, jabbing at my cheek with more purpose.
“Max,” I mutter, half-trapped in the dream I was having—Lila beneath me, her hands fisted in my shirt, that sound she made when I slid my fingers inside her playing on a loop in my sleep-addled brain.
My cock is painfully hard against the mattress, and I press my hips down just slightly, chasing the ghost of the fantasy before it evaporates entirely. “Not now.”
A wet tongue drags across my jaw.
I groan, squeezing my eyes shut tighter. The dream was so vivid I can still feel the phantom weight of her thighs around my hips, the exact way her breath hitched when I?—
Max whines. Low. Close to my ear.
“Buddy. Please.”
Another nudge.
I crack one eye open. Max’s golden face fills my entire field of vision, his brown eyes wide and earnest, tail thumping once against the comforter in greeting. His nose is literally touching mine.
“Go away.”
He doesn’t go away. He sits. Patient. Staring.
I turn my head toward the clock again, as if the numbers might have changed in the last twenty seconds. They haven’t. 4:36 AM continues to mock me from the nightstand.
The wet nose returns, this time accompanied by a whine that escalates into an urgent huff.
Instead of listening, he paws at my shoulder, his nails digging in with surprising force. When I don’t respond, he lets out a single, sharp bark that seems to echo through our motel room.
I push myself up, suddenly more alert. Max has hardly barked in the time he’s been with us. Something’s wrong. I find Lila’s sleeping form on the other side of the bed, her injured arm cradled protectively against her chest. She doesn’t stir. I can rule her out as the source of his concern.
“What is it, boy?” I whisper, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.
Max dances backward, then hurries to the window, placing his paws on the sill.
The curtains are drawn, but now I can hear it—the unmistakable patter of rain against the glass, growing more insistent by the second.
A flash of light momentarily illuminates the edges of the curtain, followed several seconds later by a distant rumble of thunder.
“It’s just a thunderstorm,” I tell him.
Max lets out another whine, more urgent this time. He turns in a tight circle before returning to the window, his whole body tense.
“It’s okay, boy,” I try again, but he’s not having it. Was this the PTSD the sheriff had warned me about when I decided to take him in? He’d been around a couple of different sets of storms so statistically it should have happened long before now.
“It’ll be over soon, Max,” I try to reassure him, but he’s having none of it. I briefly consider waking up Lila to help me figure out what to do, but Max grabs the hem of my t-shirt between his teeth and pulls, growling softly.
“Okay, okay,” I mutter, walking back towards the bed, reaching for my phone on the bedside table.
I pull up the radar app I downloaded after our first chase, the one Lila insisted was “the only one worth having.” At first, I don’t see anything unusual. Just a typical thunderstorm system moving through. A pop-up before the main line comes through later today.
I start to put my phone down just as a new scan comes in. That’s when I notice it. The distinctive hook shape on the southwestern edge of the storm. The rotation signature is unmistakable, and it’s heading straight for us. This one has the classic hook echo that often precedes?—
“Tornado,” I whisper, my blood running cold.
I zoom out, checking the storm path’s trajectory. It’s moving fast, the rotation intensifying with each sweep of the radar. We have minutes, not hours.
Max whines again, more urgently this time, and suddenly I understand. He sensed it before any of our technology could warn us. The change in air pressure, something imperceptible to humans but crystal clear to him.
I don’t hesitate. Moving quickly to our bed, I shake her good shoulder. “Lila, wake up.”
She mumbles something unintelligible, her eyes closed. The medication has her in a deep sleep, and I don’t have time for gentle coaxing.
“Tornado,” I say directly into her ear. “Heading straight for us.”
Her eyelids flutter, but she’s not fully conscious. Max barks again, louder this time, as another flash of lightning illuminates the room. The thunder follows almost immediately—the storm barreling down on us fast.
I make a split-second decision. Pulling back her covers, I slide one arm under her knees and the other behind her back, careful of her injured shoulder. She’s lighter than I expected, or maybe it’s the adrenaline coursing through me. Either way, I lift her from the bed in one fluid motion.
“Wha—?” she mumbles against my chest.
I don’t answer her, instead I beeline for the bathroom. It’s small but windowless, with solid walls—the safest place in our flimsy room. I navigate the narrow doorway, Lila half-conscious in my arms. Max follows at my heels, his nails clicking frantically on the linoleum.
“Put me down,” Lila mumbles, starting to struggle as awareness returns. “What’s happening?”
I set her down carefully on the floor of the bathtub. “Stay here.”
I rush back into the main room, grabbing our bags, thankfully packed before we went to sleep, and Lila’s phone. The wind outside has intensified, whistling through the poor seals around the windows. I yank the comforter off the bed and Lila’s pillow, then hurry back to the bathroom.
She’s more alert now, sitting up straight, her good hand gripping the edge of the tub. “How close?”
“Minutes away. Maybe less.” Tossing the bags down, I wrap the comforter around her shoulders and shut the bathroom door behind us. The small space feels claustrophobic with all three of us crammed inside, but it’s our best option. “I saw the hook on my radar,”
Another flash of lightning, and this time the thunder doesn’t just rumble—it cracks like a whip directly overhead. The bathroom light flickers once, twice, then dies completely, plunging us into darkness.
I pull out my phone and show her the most recent radar scan. She sees it, too. “Why haven’t they issued a tornado warning?”
“It’s moving too fast,” I say, squinting at the radar image. “This development happened in the last few minutes. The warning system is probably just catching up.”
As if on cue, my phone blares with an emergency alert, the harsh tone filling our tiny bathroom sanctuary. I silence it quickly, though the message remains on the screen.
TORNADO WARNING. SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY.
“Perfect timing,” Lila mutters, more alert now. She shifts in the bathtub, wincing as her injured shoulder presses against the porcelain. “How did you know before the alert?”
I nod toward Max, who’s wedged himself against the tub, his body trembling. “He knew. Started acting strange, wouldn’t leave me alone until I checked the radar.”
Lila reaches out her good hand to stroke Max’s head. “Good boy,” she whispers. “Smart boy.”
The wind outside intensifies, a hollow moaning sound that makes my stomach clench. I’ve studied tornadoes my entire career, but being potentially in the path of one without means to escape feels entirely different. All that knowledge suddenly seems useless.
Then we hear it—that sound that haunts my dreams. Not just wind anymore, but a deep, otherworldly roar that seems to come from everywhere at once. The air pressure drops so suddenly my ears pop painfully.
“Get down!” I shout, diving into the tub with Lila. I grab Max by his collar, hauling him over the edge between us. He yelps but doesn’t resist as I position him in the small space.
I throw my body over both of them, one arm braced against the wall, the other wrapped around Lila’s good shoulder. The comforter bunches awkwardly beneath us. Max’s warm body trembles violently against my chest.
“It’s here,” Lila whispers, her voice barely audible over the roar that grows louder with each passing second.
The entire motel seems to shudder around us. Something crashes in the main room—the window giving way, maybe, or the lamp falling. I tighten my grip on them both, pressing my face into Lila’s hair, inhaling the faint scent of her shampoo beneath the smell of my own fear and sweat.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur, though I’m not sure she can hear me over the sound that fills every cubic inch of air around us. My heart is hammering so hard I wonder if she can feel it through my chest.
The bathroom door rattles violently in its frame. The roar becomes deafening—so loud I can feel it vibrating in my teeth, in my bones. I can’t even hear myself think as the pressure in my ears becomes almost unbearable.
Then something massive crashes against the outer wall of the bathroom—the sound of splintering wood and tearing metal fills the tiny space. Debris rains down outside our door, and the entire building shakes violently. Water pipes groan and screech somewhere above us as the structure twists.
“Hold on!” I shout, though my words are swallowed by the roar.
Lila’s fingers dig into my arm, her nails leaving half-moon impressions in my skin. Max is practically flattened between us, his golden body quivering. I press us deeper into the tub, using my body as a shield against whatever might come through that door.
The bathroom mirror shatters, sending glass shards tinkling across the floor.
The door buckles inward like it’s breathing, the cheap wood flexing against the pressure differential.
For a terrifying moment, I’m certain it’s going to tear off its hinges and expose us to the full fury of the storm.
I realize with sudden clarity that we might actually die here.
That the building might collapse around us, and we’ll be found broken in this bathtub, our bodies tangled together with Max between us.
I think about Lila’s sister, receiving the call.
About my colleagues at the university, wondering what happened to the professor who went chasing storms and never came back.