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For some reason, Caroline couldn't stop her eyes from following the two Storm Par vans as they crested the horizon and gained on the storm in the distance. Something in her gut told her to look away—that something was wrong—but she couldn't stop staring.
"It is a big storm," she muttered, watching it slowly roar together just a bit further ahead of Tyler's truck than the Storm Par vans were. Caroline swallowed, her eyes following the updraft of the tornado, then drifting back down to its roots. She shook her head. "This better work. Otherwise I'm blamin' you, Ty."
"Me?" he said, affronted, though he was grinning. He shot her a roguish glance. "The hell did I do?"
She simpered in response. The screen on Tyler's dash began to flicker, and Caroline's eyes darted to it nervously. "You're lookin' for Asylum Road, should be the next exit. We'll be able to curb the storm and get around it so we end up in its path."
Over the speakers, Kate's voice crackled: "We got some company, you guys."
Caroline and Tyler shared a glance, then were struck with the explanation of Kate's ominous warning: the third and fourth Storm Par vans reared up next to Tyler's truck, swerving, nearly knocking Tyler off the road. He let out a challenging laugh, glancing out his window to watch as the high-tech vehicles raced off ahead of him.
Shouts of protest came over the radio from the trailer, but Tyler only laughed. He picked up his end of the monitor. "Alright, y'all, it's all good. They need the head start more than we do. We gotta get these babies in the air."
Caroline's lips turned up at the corners, a short sigh of relief leaving her. Tyler was right—everything was under control. She glanced down to the monitor in her lap where the storm was being tracked live-action on the Doppler radar; red, orange, and yellow blurbs of activity flickering across the screen. Suddenly they shifted to the right too quickly—a glitch. Caroline frowned, but before she could even say anything, the feed cut out entirely, her screen going black.
"The Doppler went dark," she told Tyler, worry creeping into her tone. "Ty, how big is this—"
The tires of the truck squeaked in protest, and Tyler clutched the wheel with all his might, fighting the drift. Caroline's eyes caught on a stop sign out the window. It shook violently in the wind, damn near uprooting itself straight from the ground.
"This isn't it," she said, unease darkening her tone. "Tyler, we have to—"
Just a few yards ahead of them, the Storm Par truck—Javi's truck—veered off road, caught in the furious winds and sheets of rain. Caroline let out a shout of alarm, clutching Tyler's arm, as the white truck was thrown onto its side like it weighed nothing.
"We gotta do something," she gasped, her throat tightening around the words. "We have to do something!"
Boone's voice screeched over the stereo, panicked and loud, and though his words were lost in translation, Caroline was pretty sure she got the gist: Her eyes widened in fear as she watched the twister demolish an entire factory floor, cement ceilings, hundred-feet-tall pipes, flaming smoke plumes, and all. The tornado only grew hungrier, now roaring with fire and smoke. It ripped down power lines, dug through solid rock.
