Pool ─ Twisters

3. First Time for Everything

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chapter three.
first time for everything.

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BY THE TIME they're back in the truck, StormPAR has already taken off to the west, and Frankie feels the glow of pride in her chest that she was right. The skies to the east are already clearing like she thought, but the west is getting angrier as the seconds go by.

With a start, they launch off onto the road, finally going live on their YouTube as Boone points the camera around the truck cabin, focusing on Tyler.

"What's up chat," Tyler beams at the camera, eyes flickering between it and the road. "We got my resident storm hound Boone behind the camera—"

"Booney baby!"

Frankie can't help but smile at the same flips the camera to himself. "We got Dani and Dexter in the camper behind us, and Lily in the van with Cairo. And of course we also got a mighty special guest with us today, miss Frankie Dupont with HazardTrack coming along for her first tornado!"

"You ain't seen nothing like this in Louisiana, have you?" Boone taunts as he flips the camera back to her, and Frankie settles on smiling and waving.

Boone sets the camera down on the dash as the wind starts to pick up, the rustling of them being off road only jostling the car more. They fly onto the paved road, narrowly missing one of the StormPAR trucks and making it swerve off the road. Ahead, Frankie can see a funnel touching down and it makes her stomach so flips, reaching back and clipping up her harness without a second thought.

With word from Dani that the tornado was moving, Tyler jerked the steering wheel and they went flying off the road again, just in time for Frankie to look out the window and see the blade of a turbine headed straight down for them. Her eyes wrenched shut as she felt Tyler swerve around it, hearing the loud clanks of metal being ripped off the roof as they drove under the wreckage.

"You alright, darlin'?" Boone called back to her, whipping around in his seat. The crazy ass didn't even have his harness on yet.

"Just peachy!" She tight lipped a smile, white knuckling the straps of her harness as they drove through hail that only seemed to get bigger the more they drove.

"Boone, are those golf balls?"

"Baseballs?" the man replied, looking to get a closer look.

Him and Tyler looked at each other at the same time, their excitement kin to a little kids as they shouted, "grapefruit!"

As they got closer and closer to the funnel, Frankie could feel her heart beating harder and harder. The rain was whipping against the windshield in a way that made her breathless, reminding her of the rain when they tried to evacuate all those years ago. She breathed, she counted, reminding herself time and time again that this was different. She's in Oklahoma, not Louisiana, and she isn't a little girl anymore.

Once they're in the path of the funnel, they stop and Tyler deploys the augers, Frankie feeling as they dig into the ground. It makes her feel just a bit safer. The truck rocks harder and harder as the wind gets stronger, and Tyler turns to the camera on the dashboard.

"Alright, for today's experiment, I believe we're gone let Frankie do the honors." He turns back to her, becoming her forward, and she loosens her harness just a bit to reach the center console. "Alright, Frankie, once we're in the eye of the storm, I want you to push this trigger right here."