Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
It starts as a snagged thread, ripped from the heavens. An opaque cord of spinning cloud.
“You got your tornado, Charlie!” I cry. “There it is!”
But Charlie’s absorbed. He holds the camera at his chest as he stares intently, muttering, “C’mon. Give me a little more.”
He must’ve photographed hundreds of tornados like this before. This one’s better than nothing, but it won’t be winning any grant money. My leg bounces, teeth worrying my bottom lip, willing the storm to kick things into gear. This is the make-or-break moment.
The narrow thread bends and bows as it winds clumsily across the horizon, unsettled and searching.
“Don’t rope out on me, dammit,” Charlie grits.
But the storm regains its footing. The clouds build again. Low hanging tatters tighten around the core, and it’s clear to me now how this system feeds into the whirling column, as if the tornado itself is breathing it in. Feeding off of it as it grows.
Like a burst of writhing smoke, the crown of the storm gathers, widening at the cloud base. Then all at once, the structure fills out and fattens. A solid mass of twisting sky descending to swallow the world.
Charlie lets out a sharp, electrified laugh, punctuating it with a whoop. “Holy shit! It’s stunning! Look at that thing!”
His exhilaration is contagious, and a shrill laugh bubbles in my chest too as he snaps a flurry of photos. “It’s incredible!”
Lightning arcs above, a rippling staccato through the thunderhead like radioactive veins, and casts an unsettling green glow. Thunder cracks right behind it. This storm is showing off.
But then another funnel starts to dip from the seething sky, stretching all the way to the ground. My brows pull taut as I gape, utterly amazed.
“You’re kidding me!” Charlie hollers.
“There’s two?” I cry.
“No! It’s multi-vortex! Like a tornado made up of smaller tornados! Jesus, that’s one violent circulation!”
It’s like watching a dance as the funnels orbit each other, sweeping through an open field and stirring up more debris—a twisting, whipping fouetté. A chill races down my spine.
For the space of a heartbeat, it looks like the heavens are striding across the earth, a looming titan walking among us. A blood-curdling eldritch horror, a humanoid monster made of soil and storm.
“Did you see that?” I cry, pointing just as the twisters collide, coiling into one.
“We call that a Dead Man Walking!” Charlie shouts over the howling wind.
I laugh in disbelief and swat his shoulder. “The dead man came out to play with the ghost hunter? You’re making that up!”
“I’m serious!” His grin is all-consuming, pupils blown wide. “I can’t believe I caught that on video! That was crazy! Garrett’s going to lose his mind!”
My giggles overflow, the thrill spilling out of me. I’m high off my own adrenaline, mind reeling at the sheer scale of nature’s power.
But Charlie’s grin slips, brow pulling low over his eyes as he stares out ahead. His levity burns off, cooling into tension. Fist bracing on the desk, he zooms in on the iPad, flicking rapidly through different radar layers.
“What’s—” I start to ask.
But I turn back to the sky and—I stop breathing. The ferocious mass of swirling air is seemingly stationary on the horizon.
I grew up in Kansas. I know what that means.
The tornado is headed right for us.
“Charlie?” My pitch leaps and I clutch his arm, digging my fingers into muscle.
“I know.” A muscle in his jaw feathers and he slides the iPad into his backpack, already moving to break down the tripod. “Wind shear shifted. Doesn’t happen often, but neither does a Dead Man Walking.”
The name sounds more like a foreboding omen than a tease this time.
“You have all your stuff?” he asks.
“Yeah, I—”
Outside, the winds pick up, howling as the trees sway and my heart lodges in my throat. I grab the headphones and the Spirit Box off the table, before rushing to my backpack slumped on the floor.
“We’re going to head back toward the atrium.
” Charlie’s voice is calm and controlled, but it’s erring too far in the opposite direction.
Beneath this collected facade, he’s nervous.
“There’s an interior cell block on the east side of the building I scoped out earlier when we were looking for the cafeteria.
That’s where we’ll go. Find a cell with a bunk still attached. Keep your head covered.”
A burst of air forces through the open window, rushing around us.
Crack. Something hits a window, busting through the aging glass.
I shriek, lurching forward, as my shaking hands try to make space for the equipment in my bag.
Stupid things won’t fit. The door to the tower springs loose from its jamb, clapping open and closed.
“Let’s go!” Charlie cries, tugging on my shoulder. He pulls me to my feet.
I pivot to snatch my bag, but something flickers in my peripheral.
James’s journal. The wild wind sends its pages wheeling open on the table.
I scramble to grab it, but something goes flying.
A square. A folded piece of paper, spinning upwards.
I hurtle forward, snatching it. As I rush to tuck it back in the binding, I catch a few scrawled words. My mouth falls open.
Warden Rhymes, you have the wrong man.
My body numbs out, tingling with shock. Oh my god. This is it! This is James’s confession! This will prove his innocence beyond a shadow of doubt, giving me the answers I crave. I unfold it, desperate for more.
“Winona!”
The Page name was a good name. The Milton name was a good name. The Dewhurst name was not.
God dammit—I just need to know! Why did he do it? Why? I skim faster.
The wind roars. “WE HAVE TO GO!”
—if I ever said a word, he would see to it my sister met the same fate as Edith. If I kept quiet, he would make sure she was provided for until her death.
Hot tears bead in my eyes.
There it is. That’s it. That’s why he did it. He did it for his sister—someone he was desperate to protect.
This was the love James destroyed himself for.
The person who mattered more to him than his freedom. The proof he wasn’t the villain everyone made him out to be. Nor the villain he believed himself to be.
James was innocent.
And if he wasn’t the bad guy in his story, maybe I’m not the bad guy in mine. Another burst of air ripples the letter in my hand. I clutch the yellowing paper to my chest, protecting it. James deserves his retribution.
Maybe I do too.
Charlie grabs my wrist, jerking me backward. “Come on!”
“This is it!” My voice breaks, snapping in half around the growing lump in my throat. “This is his letter!”
But he’s dragging me toward the exit, not even registering what I said. I peek over my shoulder and my stomach plummets. Storm, sky, it’s all one. The tornado is closing in. Fast.
Green light flashes somewhere in the distance, then as far as the eye can see, the world falls into darkness.
Another burst of lightning cracks overhead.
Outside, the platform is slick with rain, and Charlie’s pulling me so fast, I feel like I can’t find traction.
Nausea roils in my gut. God, we’re so high up.
“Hang on!” I cry, clamping the railing and resisting his tug. “Slow down! I—I’m slipping!”
Charlie whips around, threading his arm around my waist without a second’s hesitation, and reels me to him. “You’re okay. We have to go.”
“But I—” My whimper cracks in two.
“I’m right here, baby.” He crushes his arm around my ribs, grip solid as steel, and tucks me against his body. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you get hurt.”
I shove the letter in my pocket and knot both arms around his waist, clinging to him with every quivering muscle in my body. I have to trust him.
We descend the wet metal stairs so fast it feels like flying, my heart suspended in my throat as the wind surges and slams against us. He won’t let me fall.
“Wait!” I stiffen, slowing our momentum. “My backpack! It’s still up there!”
His head shakes as he keeps us moving. “Leave it.”
“But there’s hundreds of dollars of equipment in there! And—” My mouth pops with a gasp. “The journal!” I cry, wrenching backward. “I left it! Charlie, we have to go back—”
“We don’t—”
“But I—”
He heaves me forward, coolheaded composure finally wavering as he bellows, “Forget it, Winona!”
Rattled, I squeeze him tighter and nod. “I’m scared.”
“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay,” he soothes, echoing like a mantra. “We’re almost there.”
A piercing screech cuts through the air, and we both whip our heads in the direction it came from. The electrical fence at the far perimeter is folding under the force of the wind, bowing in surrender.
Time stops.
The commotion dials down to nothing.
My ears ring.
The rusted red paint.
Everything else fades away except my shitty old car barreling toward the prison, only a few hundred yards from the toppled fence.
And my little brother behind the wheel.
“What kind of idiot—”
“River!” I cry, ripping away from Charlie.
It’s almost supernatural, the way my fear dissipates. It leaves behind only a deep, carnal instinct: I have to protect him.
The tree line is so thick, what if he doesn’t even see the tornado? Thinks this is just a nasty thunderstorm? Is he driving with the music too loud? Ignoring emergency alerts on his phone, like I do? I have to warn him.
I tear down the stairs; they don’t intimidate me anymore. But Charlie catches my wrist, and I stumble.
“Wait! I need to get you somewhere safe!”
I twist out of his grip and run. “I have to get to him!”
Charlie follows. “It’s too dangerous!”
“I’m not leaving him!”
I clear the last flight and Charlie’s right on my heels as I charge through the door, taking off down the corridor to the atrium. My hip joint grinds into itself with every pump of my legs, but it no longer hurts.
“The door’s still jammed! Winnie, please!” Desperation tweaks his voice. “You’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’m letting you out of my sight!”
“And you’re out of yours if you think I’m not going after him!”
The prison moans and shivers as the wind howls louder and the last leak of light filtering through the cathedral windows dims to nothing.
“You won’t get to him in time!” Charlie’s words peal like a gunshot, ricochet off the stone walls.
It’s the same stuck tape that played in my head over and over as I raced down the interstate back to Kansas two Thanksgivings ago. I left my husband then, and I have to leave him now.
I know I should take cover and save myself. I know it’ll be impossible to outrun this storm. I know that, with every fiber of my being.
But I have to fight for my brother.
A guttural rumble, like the ground itself has come alive, stops my heart. The shrieking wind is deafening. My ears pop, like I’m sinking beneath the surface of the ocean. I clap my hands over the ache as glass shatters somewhere behind me.
“Winona!”
The rush of wind swallows Charlie’s cry as it swarms the building, flexing it, like the prison has a pulse of its own. More windows pop. Bare light floods the corridor and I look up. Horror strangles my scream. The roof’s gone.
Something solid crashes into my back, knocking the breath out of me. I slam down on my knees and catch myself with my hands. Charlie’s arms knot around my stomach, shielding my body with his own.
I scream his name but nothing comes out against the relentless roar of the world turning inside out.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I clutch my hands behind my head and tuck as low to the ground as possible.
My skin stings with the burn of a thousand tiny cuts as the surging wind blasts dirt and debris all around us.
My bones are quaking. The merciless atmosphere keeps churning.
A gasp snaps in my throat, my stomach dropping. For an infinite, sickening second, I’m weightless.
Then the arms around my stomach are gone.