The wind lifted Blair as if she weighed nothing, tearing her hands away from the door handle. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe.
Cover your head . . . But she couldn’t control her arms. Her whole body flailed wildly, gripped by different strands of the wind. She was hurtling through space, too fast for her brain to keep up.
I’m going to die, she realized. J.J. had said she was smart. Her dad had called her brave. She’d held on to that door with every ounce of strength she had. And she’d still gotten sucked into this tornado. She was still going to die. Because this wasn’t about being smart or brave or strong. It was about being lucky or unlucky.
Suddenly she was plummeting. The next thing she knew, her whole left side slammed into something incredibly hard. The ground.
She screamed from the pain. Curled up into a ball. Realized that she could control her limbs again, that the wind wasn’t fighting her.
The wind, in fact, was gone.
Everything was dead still. Blair looked up. Above her, she saw the tornado. Lifting silently off the ground as if it weighed nothing. As if it wasn’t carrying houses and cars in its air currents. It was just winding itself back up into the sky. Directly overhead, Blair could see straight up into the tornado—straight into the eye that Sam had talked about.
She saw sleek spinning walls of wind. Flickers of lightning darting out from the walls. Little baby funnels, twisting horizontally, delicate as pieces of string.
Blair couldn’t breathe. But she stared up into the eye of the tornado until the clouds closed over it.
She sat up—slowly, because it hurt. The tornado was gone. The air was motionless. Somewhere far away, she heard her family calling her name.
“Blair! Oh my g—Blair!”
That was when it hit her. I’m alive.
Awesome.
***
Blair ached all over. Her left wrist felt as if someone was hitting it repeatedly with a hammer. Probably broken—sprained at the very least. But she could walk. She could see. She wasn’t bleeding. Well, not seriously.
Absolutely everyone had hugged her. Her mom was sobbing with relief. Even Logan was crying. David gripped her by the shoulders and said she was out of her mind, and amazing, and out of her freaking mind.
Blair couldn’t help noticing the damage, though. Her mom’s house was pretty much fine, but all through the neighborhood, buildings were flattened. The tornado had chewed them up and spit them out. Piles and piles of wreckage stretched in a crooked line all the way to the edge of town.
And already, people were searching for survivors. Citizens of Hatchville waded through the rubble. Some called out names. Others just yelled, “Does anyone need help?” Nobody was just sitting around waiting for ambulances to show up.
Blair stood up slowly. No dizziness: good. And her feet held her weight. She should probably get checked out for a concussion, just to be safe. Not to mention sprained or broken bones. But there was plenty of time for that. According to her phone—still in her pocket, still working—it wasn’t even noon yet. She still had the whole day ahead of her.
***
It was a long day. Hours of going from house to house, helping to pull people out. Not everyone had made it. Blair suspected she would cry at some point. But by the time she had a chance to just sit and think and feel, she was exhausted. Too exhausted to think or feel. Which just left sitting.
Incredibly, she herself wasn’t badly hurt. Just a sprained wrist and the promise of a monstrous bruise on the whole left side of her body. David was basically all right too. The impact of the wooden beam had mashed up his right shoulder. So by now, his right arm could audition for a zombie movie. But all the important pieces were intact.
David sat down next to her in their mom’s kitchen. Everyone else was in the living room.
“I wonder if Sam and J.J. and Ron got to see this one,” said Blair.
“Probably,” said David dryly. “They seemed to be on a roll today.” He paused. “I know you think I was rude to them.”
“No. I think we were all scared and upset. And they were kind of insane. I understand why you didn’t, like, bond with them.”
David closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the ceiling. “That Sam guy. This is going to sound weird, but he reminded me of Mom.”
“Um . . . okay. I admit I didn’t see a resemblance.”
“You know the way Mom jumps into new things. The way she gets excited about what’s next—about what it means for her. And how she never thinks about the consequences.”
“I—don’t actually know if that’s true, Dave,” Blair said quietly. “That’s how it seemed to us, after she left. But—we didn’t know what was going on in her head. And I don’t think she ever forgot we existed. I think she’s always cared.”
David propped his elbows on the table and rested his head in his hands. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know.”
“You could try talking to her about it. We could all try having more honest talks, once in a while.”
“That’s fair,” he sighed. “But my point is, that’s why I was so tense with the chasers. It was like, these people take risks for fun, when everyone else needs help just staying alive. And at the same time, I felt . . .” He swallowed, dropped his arms, and straightened up. “I mean, there we were, depending on them. Because I messed up. I couldn’t get us out of that situation.”
“Dave—”
“After Mom left us, I had one goal. To always be there for my family. To keep you safe and never let you down.”
Blair swallowed. “You’ve never let us down, Dave.”
“But today—”
“No, not even today. You’re not letting anyone down.” She squeezed his good arm. “You can’t protect us from everything. That’s not your job. Not as a brother, not as a replacement parent. That’s not something anybody could do.”
He let out a laugh that was at least fifty percent sob. “I guess you don’t need me taking care of you, anyway. You took charge when I lost my grip. You’re the reason we survived.”
“Yeah,” said Logan, entering the kitchen. “We totally don’t need you around anymore, Dave. I’m calling the factory and sending you back.”
This time David’s laugh was steadier.
Logan grabbed a piece of banana bread. “Hey, I found Sam’s storm chaser web series. I’m watching it online right now. It’s epic.”
He left again. Blair snorted, “Guess he’s not traumatized.”
David shook his head. “Seriously, though, I couldn’t stand those guys. Storms like this—they’re not a game. They don’t exist to give people excitement. They destroy people’s lives.”
“I think most chasers get that. I think most of them really want to help save lives. They’re not just in it for the thrill. Even Sam’s crew.”
He nodded slowly. “What about you?”
She stared at him. “What about me?”
“I can tell it’s interesting to you. The way tornadoes work. The idea of staying one step ahead of them.”
Blair popped a piece of banana bread into her mouth and chewed for a minute. “I don’t know. Part of me did enjoy it, maybe. But a bigger part of me was just glad to make it out alive—glad that we’re all okay. I’ve never been that scared in my life. I’d be fine with never being that scared again.”
David put his arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him, feeling all the bruises and scars on her body. Finally, for just a moment, she closed her eyes.
The image of the tornado’s core danced behind her eyelids. Still terrifying and beautiful—half nightmare, half miracle.