once upon a storm, twisters (2024) (paused)

I

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Nala swiped the small pencil in her hand against the clipboard in the shape of a check mark before scanning the sheet of paper for the next item on the list. She was hired as an intern on the Storm Par team in order to accumulate service hours for her online meteorology degree. She had just turned twenty a few months ago and was working on completing her second year of college.

Nala was the little sister of Javier Rivera, the leader of Storm Par. He was really her step-brother, but her mother had married his father while she was pregnant with Nala, so Javi had always been her big brother. Javi was the one who hired her onto the team.

On this particular morning, she was given the task of doing the routine check of equipment before the afternoon of storm chasing. Since she was only an intern, she didn't have the same uniform as the rest of the team, so instead she wore a dark teal button up shirt that looked very pretty with her long, dark hair, a pair of loose khaki pants, and a pair of black flats. Her brother was the boss, so she didn't really need to dress up, but she liked to look nice and professional. She looked very pretty.

She studied the clipboard in her hands. Her eyebrows furrowed slightly when she found a row of letters and numbers she didn't recognize.

"Excuse me, Nala."

She recognized the voice as belonging to Scott, the second in command of the team.

She didn't have time to respond to him as she felt his large hands on her hips as he passed behind her, letting go as soon as he was on her other side. Her face was surely bright red, but her eyes stayed on the clipboard.

"Scott?"

She called quietly as she gained her composure. Her voice was sweet and melodic.

"Hm?"

He turned to look at her. He had to look down to see her face. He was at least a foot taller than her.

"What does this mean, here?"

She asked, pointing to the clipboard and finally looking up at him.

Nala was about the only person Scott showed abnormal kindness to. Maybe it was because she was the boss' baby sister, or maybe it was because she was practically an angel. He reached out to take the clipboard from her before looking down.

"Oh, it's the new radio."

He said and turned around to the equipment behind him.

"We didn't name it yet, that's why it's just letters and numbers."

He said as he reached for the radio. He made sure that the cord was plugged in and that it turned on before turning it off again.

"It's good. You can check it off."

He gave the clipboard back to her.

"Thank you."

She said with a sweet smile. Scott didn't return it, but he nodded in acknowledgement before returning to what he was doing before.

It didn't take long for Nala to finish her tasks. She hung the clipboard in it's place in the van and brushed her hair behind her ears. She took a deep breath of the Oklahoma air. She could tell it was going to be a good day.

Nala looked over as she heard a phone ring to see Scott answering it. He exchanged a few words before hanging up and putting his phone back in his pocket.

"Alright, that was Javi. Let's move out!"

He ordered. The team quickly obeyed, loading everything up and piling into the vehicles.

Nala stepped into the truck's passenger seat and gently closed the door behind her as Scott slid into the driver's seat. She retrieved the keys from the visor and handed them to him. Wordlessly, he took them and started the car.

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A short chapter to start off the story and introduce sweet Nala! I love her already hehe ♡