Myka goes back to the news station with Steve, just like last year. She never expects to see Helena again, just like last year. She gets beers with Pete on Friday nights and texts Claudia and Leena sporadically to ask how Elphaba's doing. They've made some updates that Leena seems excited about and Claudia hasn't mentioned, so Myka guesses that whatever features they added do not have unanimous support.

Pete starts seeing a woman in January. She's a veterinarian named Kelly, and Myka has never seen Pete so serious about anyone.

"Of course, I'm still chasing with you this year," he assures her when she brings it up. "We've talked about it. She knows it's a done deal. She says to be careful."

Actually, Myka really likes her, which is more than she can say for Pete's previous girlfriends, all of which have been short-lived. It's just that Pete has someone else to spend Friday nights with now. They switch their standing plans to Thursday, and it should be fine.

It should be fine, but she still spends a lot more time alone these days. When she's by herself on her couch, she can still feel the phantom of Sam's arm around her shoulders, the anxiety and confusion and anger that always came with it. The guilt over his death and the guilt that came with realizing after he died that she would never have loved him the way he loved her.

When she's alone, there's no one to stop her from staring at her phone with her thumb hovering over Helena's number.

She really should delete it.


The next season gets off to a quick start. Myka meets Pete and Kelly for breakfast as the sun is first starting to peek over the horizon. Pete kisses Kelly goodbye, and then Myka gets in Pete's truck and Kelly drives Myka's car back to her apartment. Steve meets them at the warehouse, where Leena and Claudia are making some last minute adjustments to Elphaba. Claudia doesn't look like she's slept all night, but she helps them load Elphaba in to the bed of the truck and hugs Leena for longer than Myka expects her to before she climbs into the back seat.

"Okay, there's a string of supercells over northern Kansas," Myka says as they're buckling their seatbelts. "I'm focusing on one near Dresden. We can make it by three if we don't stop."

"Fine with me," Claudia mumbles, already half asleep with her head against the window.

They arrive in Dresden around 3:30. There's a little gas station just off 383 called Ed's Tire and Oil, and the parking lot is packed with chasers.

"I'll go grab us some sandwiches," Pete says, already halfway out of the car. In the seat behind Myka, Claudia is sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

"Are we here?"

"Congratulations, Sleeping Beauty. You were out for seven hours," Steve says, nudging her in the side.

"Fuck off," she groans as she swats at him halfheartedly. "You would be too if you'd just pulled two all-nighters in a row."

Myka notices some vaguely familiar faces ambling around the parking lot, but Zach and Jim aren't here. There's a promising pocket of storms around Oklahoma City. Most of the people who started yesterday or from farther south are probably down. Myka had been kicking herself at the NWS center this morning for not bumping their departure up a day so they could make it.

They sit on the back of the truck and eat their sandwiches. Claudia walks around the side of the building to make what's supposed to be a quick call to Leena, but it lasts half an hour and makes Steve raise his eyebrows at her when she comes back. They head up 383 to get into position at 4:30.

They pull off on a dirt road just west of Jennings, just north of a large wall cloud hanging over an empty field.. The sky is a dark, angry teal.

"Perfect," Myka says as the car slows to a stop. "Once it's on the ground, we'll go east to deploy and then we can get out of the way and let Steve do his thing."

"There it goes," Claudia points out her window. "Looks like it's going to be a big one."

A thin, ropelike funnel is stretching from the low-hanging wall cloud toward the ground about four hundred years from where the car is parked.

"And we have touchdown." Claudia claps her hands together. "God, look at that rotation."

"East," Myka tells Pete without turning away from the window. The funnel is already gaining size, starting to look more like a cone than a rope. "A little faster." She looks back down at her laptop. "I think just past 2300th should be good."

"Just tell me when," Pete answers.

"Whoa!" Claudia exclaims.

"What?" Steve asks. Myka can hear him shuffle in the back seat to look out Claudia's window.

"It's a second vortex," she answers.

"Holy shit." The Velcro on his bag makes a ripping sound as he rushes to get his camera out.

"Hey!" Pete protests as he knees the back of his seat. "I'm driving here."

"Myka, you've got to see this," Claudia says.

When she looks back out the window, the funnel is much closer than it was before. The edge of the wall cloud is nearly over them. The wind roars in her ears. The satellite tornado is spinning wildly around its parent. She remembers watching Helena speed into that storm in Rosalia last summer, the way she could hear her heart beat in her ears. The drop in her stomach, as if she knew even before she really knew. She remembers being picked up by a vortex none of them could see, back wheels first and then the front. She hears the echoes of screams that abruptly stop. She can feel the sting of glass across her cheek as the windows break.

"We have to get out of here," she gasps.

"What are you talking about?" Claudia asks at the same time as Pete says, "Mykes."

"We have to go," she repeats louder. "Take…" she can barely get her thoughts together enough to read the map on her screen. "Take this road coming up to the left."

"We have time to deploy," Claudia says. "It's still three hundred yards away. Everything's going according to plan."

"Go," she urges Pete, and he does without another word.

The road she they end up on is a dead end. Myka hadn't even noticed. If the storm had been closer, they could be dead right now. She can feel the truck being picked up. She can hear them screaming.

Claudia and Steve are silent as they climb out of the truck to set up Steve's camera. After a moment, Pete gets out too. She can hear them talking behind the truck, but she can't hear what they're saying. She drops her head in to her hands and tries to breathe, tries not to cry. Her heart is beating so fast that she could have sprinted all the way here.

A moment later, the driver's door opens again. She can hear the seat squeak as someone sits down, and then it slams closed.

"So," Pete says. "What happened?"

She sighs. "I didn't look at the map carefully enough," she answers. "I didn't see that the road was ending."

"I'm not talking about the road," Pete says. "What happened to you back there? One minute everything's fine and the next you're telling me to bail?"

"We were too close," she replies.

"Not any closer than usual," Pete says gently. "You know we have to cut it close when we deploy or we risk it changing directions before it even gets to Elphaba."

"I know, I know," she mutters.

"So what's up?"

She sighs again. "When we were in…" she nods toward him, "El Reno, a satellite vortex was what picked us up. We didn't know it was there until it was right on top of us."

"Are you…" he hesitates. "Was it a flashback?"

She shakes her head. "I knew where I was," she answers. "It was more like a… it was more like a forceful memory."

"How long's this been going on?" Pete asks.

"Since it happened," Myka admits without looking at him. "It's been worse the past year or two."

"Since Helena almost drove Steve into that twister?" Pete asks.

She nods. "Maybe. Listen, I know you don't like her—"

"This isn't about her," Pete says. "I want you to be happy. Have you given anymore thought to what I said? About seeing someone?"

She shakes her head. "You know I can probably count on one hand the number of female chasers I've met?"

"Mykes—"

"If I see someone about it, that means it messed me up." She pauses. A tear rolls down her cheek. Her throat hurts from trying to suppress the sob fighting its way out of her chest. "And maybe that means I shouldn't have been out there in the first place."

"Myka, no," Pete says sternly. "You belong out here. We all know that. But there's no… there's no shame in needing a little help recovering from something that traumatic. Hell, if that had happened to me, I'd probably be sitting at home watching all this on the Weather Channel."

"No, you wouldn't," she answers. "You did two tours."

She feels him rest his hand on her shoulder. "This team would be nothing without you. We all know that, but… we need you to keep yourself together before you try to keep us together, you know?"

She nods. She's trying to keep her face in her hands so Pete can't tell that she's crying, but he reaches across the console, opens the glove compartment, and takes out a packet of tissues.

"Here," he says as she takes them from him. "Take a minute, and when you're ready, we'll talk about what we're going to do about in-storm navigation for the rest of the season."


They strike out for almost two full weeks after that. On the twelfth day, they're in a McDonald's parking lot in Fairbury, Nebraska eating dollar menu burgers and chicken nuggets. They've been eating a steady diet of McDonald's and Burger King for the past five days because no touchdowns means that Steve hasn't been able to sell any footage, and they need to save money for gas and motels.

"Junction City's less than two hours away," Myka is saying. She's sitting in the bed of the truck, one leg swinging off the end, holding a cheeseburger in one hand and the data from the NWS office in Hastings in the other. The map is spread out in front of her. "It looks like there's something going on down there. Ponca City looks more promising, but that's twice as far. It would be close."

"That's more than a half a tank of gas," Pete adds.

Claudia nods. "Hard to justify going all the way down there if we might miss it." She takes a bite of a chicken nugget. "Especially with our little green problem."

The "little green problem" is the twenty dollar bill in Myka's wallet. It's all they have left of the payout Steve got for the footage he took in Dresden their first day out. He'd have gotten more for it if they'd been closer. No one has brought it up, but that doesn't stop Myka from blaming herself.

"Junction City it is," she agrees. She takes a bite of her cheeseburger as another car parks in the spot behind her. She hears the engine cut off. "We've got a little time then, if anyone has some pocket change for an apple pie."

Claudia chuckles and shakes her head, but Pete says, "I think there's some coins in the CD tray," and climbs out of the bed of the truck over the side.

Myka is folding up the map and watching Claudia nibble on her last chicken nugget when he returns.

"What did you find?" Claudia asks.

"Ninety-nine cents." He dumps a pile of nickels and dimes into her outstretched hands. "Knock yourself out."

Claudia does an excited hop-skip and shoves the coins into the pocket of her cargo shorts. Pete turns to Myka as she sprints toward the little brick building.

"You should take a look at the car behind us," he says, his voice low.

Myka furrows her brow at him. She hops off the back hatch and walks around the side of the truck to put the map back into the compartment in the passenger-side door.

The car parked beside them is a dark blue Honda Accord that looks at least fifteen years old. There's a middle-aged man sitting in the driver's seat studying a map. Myka is about to turn back to Pete to ask him what the deal is when she hears the door of the McDonald's open and close. She looks up, expecting to see Claudia with her apple pie.

Instead, Helena is standing there staring at her as the door swings shut.

"Helena," she breathes.

Helena nods at her, pulls her face into a tight smile. She stands there for what feels like at least a minute, and then she glances down at the bag in her hand and over at the car to Myka's right.

"Well, I'd best be off—"

"Wait," Myka says. She takes a deep breath. This is probably a bad idea. They had a clean break. There's no use complicating it almost a year later. "Do you have a second?"

Helena hesitates and then nods at her. She follows her around to the other side of the building where a sidewalk runs along the side of the drive thru lane.

When they've reached the edge of the sidewalk just in front of the second window, Myka stops and whirls around to look at her.

"You were just going to pretend I wasn't there?"

"I didn't think you'd want to see me." Helena shrugs. She has a small scar on the side of her neck, but that is the only indicator Myka can see of last year's accident. "You made that rather clear last year."

Myka forces herself to take another breath and exhale slowly before answering. "Fair enough. I didn't think you'd be out here this season."

"Why?" she asks.

"To be honest?" Myka pauses. "With all the medical bills, I didn't think you could afford to replace another car."

Helena laughs, and it sounds just like she remembers it. "Right you are. That's Nate's car."

"Nate?" Myka raises her eyebrows.

"Nate." Helena gestures towards the car. "We work together. He's agreed to come out with me this year."

"Are you…" Myka trails off and looks away.

"I'm not sure how that's any of your business any longer," Helena says. "But no, we're not. He's still quite broken up over the recent death of his wife, and even if he was available…" she shakes her head, "Not my type. No, I brought him here to be my driver because I needed someone with their priorities in order to prevent me from—"

"From driving directly into another tornado?" Myka supplies.

"From taking unnecessary risks," Helena answers. "One could say that the six-month recovery period from a broken tibia came as a sort of wakeup call. Or you walking out on me in the hospital came as a sort of wakeup call. I'm still not entirely clear about which it actually was."

"Oh." Myka nods. She reaches out and squeezes Helena's arm. "That's great, Helena. I'm glad to hear that you've realized your life has value."

She furrows her brow, and god, Myka wishes she didn't still find it so adorable. "I feel as though I owe you an explanation."

"You don't have to—"

"No, I do," Helena says. "We've known each other long enough and after all I've put you through… it's time for someone to know." She points towards the door. "Would you like to sit down?"

Myka sighs. "We have to get going."

"Come in," Helena pushes. "I won't be long."

Myka hesitates, and then she nods. They go into the restaurant and sit across from each other at a table behind the trashcans. Someone has painted two initials with a heart around them in purple nail polish on the corner of the table closest to the wall. Helena takes a sip of her drink and then sets down in front of her.

"I had a daughter."

"Oh." Myka raises her eyebrows in surprise.

"I was young and foolish and I thought I was in love, and I'm sure you're familiar with the state of abortion laws in Kansas and Missouri, especially when one is a minor, so I ended up with my Christina. I graduated from high school with a one-year-old child in my arms. University was quite out of the question. And now… well, now I can't imagine ever leaving the place where she lived. Going back to London or Paris or Berlin and pretending none of it ever happened? That holds no appeal for me whatsoever. So I stayed, alone and quite filled with regret."

"But you're a meteorologist," Myka says. "You have a degree."

"That I got after…" she trails off, looks out the window for a moment, and takes a deep breath. "That I got after she died." She looks back at Myka. "The outbreak in May, 2003, when it hit Kansas City. She was eight."

"Your daughter died in a tornado," Myka says. She leans back in her chair and turns the revelation over in her mind for a moment. "I'm so sorry."

Helena shakes her head. "Nothing you could have done. I, on the other hand, left her with my sister for no reason other than that I was twenty-five years old and wanted a night to myself."

Myka reaches over to rest a hand on her arm before thinking better of it and balling it into a fist instead. "You have to know that wasn't your fault."

Helena doesn't answer her. "I threw myself into meteorology," she says. "I thought if I could only find a way to increase warning times, I could prevent what happened to Christina from happening to other children. And, I suppose, as a way to atone. I truly believe my life to be less significant than the children my research could save but… I've come to see the value in being alive to actually do something with my data."

She sighs and pauses, like she might be giving Myka a chance to speak, but she says nothing—she's not sure what to say—so Helena continues.

"I don't expect much in the way of additional chances when I've already squandered two, but I wanted you to know that. I did love the time we spent together. I miss your company."

"Yeah." Myka nods. "Yeah, I do too."

Helena looks at her watch. She's the only person Myka knows other than herself and Steve who still wears one, but Helena has always seemed a little timeless somehow.

"Well, I don't want to keep you. I imagine you're headed down to Junction City."

"Yeah," Myka answers as she stands up. "You're going there too?"

Helena nods. "Perhaps we'll see each other out and about."

She stands beside the table toying with the straw in her cup like she isn't sure whether to expect anything but she's hoping for it. Myka pulls her into a hug.

"Thank you for telling me," she whispers. "I'll see you soon."


Myka and Claudia switch seats in a Shell parking lot once they reach Junction City. Claudia has been doing most of the navigating during chases this season. It makes Myka feel useless, but she won't risk directing Pete down another dead end with a tornado on their tail.

God, she hates it.

They head south on US-77 and pull off on State Lake Drive across from a decrepit looking fishing pond. A dark blue wall cloud is already hanging over a field northwest of them rotating ominously.

"Look at the left edge on that thing," Myka murmurs. She turns to Pete and Claudia. "This is going to be our day."

"Does it look big?" Pete asks.

"Mmm." Myka shakes her head. "I don't think we're looking at anything too violent, but I think we've got a tornado-producer."

"There is goes! There it goes!" Steve says. He grabs his camera and climbs out of the car as a section of the cloud peels off and folds down towards the wheat field.

"It's on the ground," she says as she watches it move right along the horizon collecting the wisps of cloud hanging around it. "Looks like a stovepipe."

"Okay, let's get ahead of it." She leans out her window and yells, "Get in the car!"

Steve runs toward the car and jumps into the back seat without ever lowering his camera. He slams the door shut and hangs out the window.

Myka leans forward and looks at the map on the computer over Claudia's shoulder. "Keep going east," she says. "The road's going to turn north up here. That should put us in the right spot."

There's not a building in sight as they drive down State Lake Road and round the bend. Myka likes chasing when the only things around them are wheat and corn. Watching a tornado pull apart a neighborhood is odd. It never hits her until after the chase is over, but she lays in bed that night stewing in guilt over the fact that she loves her work.

"Myka, north or east on Otter Creek?" Claudia asks.

Myka leans across the seat to look out Steve's window, and then twists around to look out the back, looking for the great brown stovepipe.

"East. It's about to cross the road behind us."

The patter of rain begins against the roof of the car, and Pete flips on the windshield wipers.

"Look at that," Claudia says as they come up on Hartel Road.

As they pass, Myka sees a ribbon of headlights stalled in the road.

"Chasers?" Steve calls without looking. He's still hanging out the window, camera aimed behind them.

"Looks like it," Myka answers. "They're going to have to move. They're too far north. Right in its path."

"Hey, the road's ending up here," Pete says. "Right or left?"

"Right," Myka and Claudia answer at the same time.

"It's heading almost due west," Myka says. "Just go south until we're in front of it and we'll drop Elphaba."

They turn onto Skiddy, and Claudia says, "Left up here. I don't think we're far enough in front of it yet. You agree, Myka?"

"Yep," she answers.

"Left on Hoff, and then we'll have to catch it on Clarks Creek," Claudia says. "That's going to be last road that goes south. If we miss that turn, we lose it."

"Got it," Pete says.

They finally come to a stop on Clarks Creek Road with only a few minutes to spare, but Myka takes a second to squint at the tornado when she gets out of the car.

"Looks like it's over Hartel right now," she says.

"Hope everyone got out of there," Pete says. He claps his hands together. "Okay, guys. Let's go."

They unload Elphaba and set her in the grass beside the road. The wind is blowing in Myka's face, howling around her. The tornado isn't very big, but it is close.

"Hail!" Steve calls to her left as something his the road with a thud.

She can hear the sound of a window breaking. A scream that increases in volume, like it's coming towards her.

"Hey, I have to get back in the car!" she calls to Pete over the wind. "Can you guys handle this?"

"Yeah, we got it!" he calls back. "Do your thing,"

She passes her hammer off to Claudia and climbs back into the backseat of the truck. Three of the doors are open, so she can still hear the wind howling, but she can't feel it anymore.

She jumps when something hard hits the roof of the car.

"Golf ball-sized hail!" she hears Steve call. The car shakes as Pete and Claudia dive into the front seat from either side. A moment later, Steve is in the seat next to her, sheltering his camera with his body. His shirt is soaked.

"Is it hammered in?" Myka asks.

"It's all good," Pete answers.

"Keep heading south," Claudia tells him as he starts the truck back up. "Just enough to get out of the way, and then Steve can set up."

"I'll keep him close," Pete says. He leans toward the back seat. "That okay, Mykes?"

She nods weakly. "Yeah. Yeah, it's fine."

Pete pulls over just short of A Avenue when the tornado is almost on top of where their deployment position. Steve pulls his tripod out of the car, and Claudia gets out to help him.

"You coming?" Pete asks as he opens his door.

"No." She presses her head into her hands. "I need to stay here for a minute."

"Everything okay?" he asks. She can hear the concern in his voice.

"I'll be fine," she answers. "Just… make sure you close your door behind you."

He's silent for a moment, and then she hears the seat squeak and the door slam shut a moment later.

She can't catch her breath. She climbs over the console and takes one of the bottles of water rolling around on the floor of the truck and drinks the entire thing. She opens the glove compartment. The Nutrigrain bars she left last season are still here. She takes one out and tries to open it, but her hands are still shaking to hard. She tosses it against the windshield, takes a deep breath, and climbs out of the truck.

She hates feeling so weak.

Her team is standing about ten feet behind the truck. The rain has lightened. Steve is still filming the tornado, which is comfortably northeast of them now and is starting to rope out.

"You good?" Pete asks, glancing at her over his shoulder as she approaches them.

"Yeah," she answers as he wraps his arm around her shoulders.

"Good," he says. "Check it out." He points at the dissipating storm. "This is my favorite part."

"Why?" Myka asks. "It's almost gone."

"Just look at it," Pete says. "Something so destructive, and it's over. Just like that, everything's fine. Soon the sun will even come out. Sure some fields are messed up. Sure it's going to take some work. But even when there's total devastation, the sun comes back out. Things always look better when the sun's out."


They drive back towards Junction City along A Avenue. Claudia is the first to see it.

"Holy shit!" she exclaims. "Turn here!"

They turn onto Skiddy Road, and then Myka sees it too, out Steve's window. The field is full of dented up cars laying on their sides and roofs. Myka only sees one that's right-side-up, and it has a driver's side door that's so crumpled that she doubts it's drivable.

"They must have been stuck there," she murmurs.

"Probably stuck behind a bunch of hobbyists," Claudia groans. "Do you think they're okay?"

"Don't know," Pete answers. He pulls into the grass along the side of the road. "Grab the first aid kit," he tells Claudia. "Under the seat."

People are milling around the field dazed. Myka recognizes some of them, but many she doesn't. Claudia was probably right, local thrill-seekers who didn't know when to get out and blocked everyone else's escape route.

Pete jogs from group to group, Claudia trailing after him, asking if everyone is okay, but Myka feels just as dazed as they look.

She sees Zach and Jim framed by the undercarriage of Jim's Chevy Cobalt, and she wanders over to them.

"You guys okay?" she asks. Her voice sounds soft and raspy.

They look over at her in surprise.

"Myka," Zach says. "I didn't know you were here. Did you get caught in it too?"

"No," she answers. "We were over on Clarks Creek. We just… we were just headed back to town when we saw…" she gestures around them, "everything."

Jim furrows his brow at her. "You okay?"

She nods. "Everyone keeps asking me that."

He sighs and looks around. "Awfully familiar, isn't it? It touched down headed northwest, and by the time we realized it had leveled off…" he glances around the field. "We didn't all have time to get out. Plus, some asshole was parked in the road up there." He nods south. "Good thing it was a little one this time. We only rolled twice."

"Still," Zach glances over the side of the car. "Car's finished."

"I've got to go check on someone else," Mykes hears herself say. "I'm glad you're both okay."

Twenty yards north of Zach and Jim's car, Helena is helping Nate climb out the passenger-side window of his Honda.

"Guess you're destined to total a car every year, huh?" she says as she comes up behind her.

Helena guides Nate as he stands up, and then she looks at Myka, her hands still on his arms. "Through no recklessness of my own this time, I assure you."

"I know," Myka answers. "No core-punching or crazy races against mother nature today." She glances back towards Zach and Jim, and then over at Pete, who is helping someone bandage a wound on their shoulder. "You were right with everyone else."

"Our downfall, it seems," she agrees. "I suppose it pay sometimes to throw caution to the wind such that no one else wants near you."

"Your arm is bleeding." Myka points to a dark crimson stain across the bicep of Helena's shirt.

"Yes, it appears I'll have to go back to the emergency room," she sighs. "I'd hoped I'd seen the last of that place. The last time I was there, the experience was somewhat less than ideal."

"And you don't have any serious injuries this time," Myka says. "So they'll probably make you wait even longer."

"Myka." Helena crosses her arms and leans away as if she's studying her. "Would you be a dear and break my leg again?"

And Myka's laughing, just like that.

"Truth be told," Helena continues, "it wasn't the wait that made me so miserable last time."

"You had a broken leg," Myka replies. "You were in a lot of pain."

"You left me," Helena says.

"We've talked about why I ha—"

Helena holds up a hand to stop her. "I haven't said I didn't deserve it," she says. "But it was…" She pauses. "When I said I didn't know what it was that woke me up…" She sighs. "I lied."

Myka is silent.

"I mean, there may have been some… there may have been some therapy involved as well, but even doing that… I set foot in the office of a psychologist for the first time last August." She sighs. "Sometimes it takes…" She looks away, off to something on Myka's right. "It takes someone important to you walking out of your life to show you how far you've gone."

Myka hesitates. "I thought about you too. I kept trying to delete your number, but I just never could."

"It seems we're destined to be a part of each other's lives then," Helena says. "For better or for worse."

The urge to smile is tugging at the corner of Myka's lips. "I mean, if some force of nature is pushing us together, who are we to defy it?"

"We'd be fools to stand in the way of this sort of natural phenomenon," Helena agrees.

And Myka kisses her there in the field, surrounded by upturned cars and assorted scraps of wood and metal and emotional displays of relief as chase teams reunite. The kiss doesn't last long because they're surrounded by injured, and it occurs to Myka that this might not be the appropriate place and time for this to be happening. She's been there, wandering around a different field surrounded by different cars with the same dizzy breathlessness and a different broken heart.

But no one is dead this time, and even though the sun isn't out now, it will be.