I awoke to the blaring sound of tornado sirens. Hunter too.

We both rose from our shitty sleeping arrangements -- he from the rusting couch, and me from the mattress with a spring poking me in the back each night -- and meet each other at the window, looking to see what could be happening right now. A tornado, obviously, but unluckily for us (both as storm chasers and civilians), there's no tornado in sight, but it looks as though twenty miles north there isn't a tree in sight, just broken buildings and disarray.

"Shit." Hunter says beneath his breath, while I quickly grab the truck keys and open the creaking door to our motel room, just to see Javi and Lilly racing out of their rooms as well. Javi, somehow, in his Storm Par outfit still, even at 10 o'clock at night.

"Lilly," I call out, grabbing her attention, my brows furrowed as I approach her at the top of the flight of stairs. "What the hell's going on?"

She shakes her head. "A tornado passed through a few minutes ago. We're going to get Tyler now."

Tyler.

My words get caught in my throat and I feel my entire body get hot with panic.

Hunter asks the questions he knows I want the answers to. "Where is he?"

"Don't know." She shrugs, jogging down the rusting staircase. "Said he was going to the rodeo, but..."

She opens her car door and Hunter and I follow behind her. "Can we ride with you?"

She nods like it isn't even a question and before I know it, my leg is anxiously bouncing up and down as I sit in the passenger seat of Lilly's SUV.

I listen to the car engine start and die down as she pulls out of the parking lot, and I try to avert my attention from my trembling hands to the sights outside -- the buildings that have been ruined by the weather.

Fire trucks and ambulances pass us in the lane as soon as we're on the main road and it only intensifies that burning feeling in my heart.

I fear that Tyler has somehow finally gotten his life taken by the same thing that orphaned me -- the thing that I once called my only friend. And the thought alone sends a chill down my spine.

"How big was it?" I ask, referencing the tornado. And God, I wish my voice didn't shake so much.

Lilly looks at me briefly, and I don't have to see the look in her eye to know it's laced wth sympathy. "He's fine, Dal."

Why the fuck am I so easy to read?

"How big was it?" I ask again, this time, my voice calmer, steadier.

She sighs. "EF5."

Fuck.

"Jesus Christ." Hunter voices my own thoughts, but even him being worried makes me question everything.

"Calm down, you guys." Lilly isn't helping at all either -- she speaks with uncertainty and sounds as though she's only trying to convince herself.

Another ambulance passes by us, blue and red lights painting all the dashboard of Lilly's car as well as all of our worried faces, and I've never yet noticed how the siren sounds like a song of sorrow. It's terrifying, it's like a scream. Or a cry. I wonder if that ambulance will be the one to take Tyler to the hospital.

The further down the road we go, just after our final turn, the worse it gets. Everything is demolished.

Three Storm Par vehicles pull into the parking lot ahead of us and my eyes scan the entire lot -- looking for even a hint of Tyler in the piles of structure and debris.

My heartbeat in my ear, drowning everything else out -- I don't hesitate when Lilly puts the car into park. I open the door and Hell, I don't even think I shut it.

But my eyes land on Tyler. And that's enough.

I can feel every muscle in my body relax but I still can't breathe.

His eyes find mine amidst the chaos and ruin and I watch them soften at the sight of me. I can see the way his shoulders drop when I'm just a few short steps from him.

Neither of us say anything, but as soon as my body will let me, I wrap my arms around him, the side of my face to his chest, and I can finally breathe.

And I guess he can too, because I feel the rise and fall of his chest against me. I let the sound of his rapid heartbeat drown everything else out and I let the mixed scent of rain and whiskey surround me and envelope me in a world of my own -- our own.

"Should've gone on that date with me, Texas." He says, apparently not able to stop himself from one remark.

My fingers wrap tighter around the red flannel he's wearing -- the one I used to always steal and wear around each time I had the chance -- and shake my head against him. "Shut up."