He met her eyes, and his face dropped. “You didn’t know your folks?”
She pursed her lips. “It wasn’t like that where I grew up . . . parents didn’t raise their kids.”
He squinted in the sunlight. “I see. You’re from one of the city centers?”
She thought about how Rowan said he could be trusted. “Yes.”
“Rough break. Of course, it’s no picnic out here either.”
“Picnic?”
He smiled. “It’s when you eat outside.”
“Oh. I see.” She didn’t see.
“Anyway, I’d say having parents is one of the most comforting feelings in the world. You always have a home to go to, no matter what. You have people who love you unconditionally. When I was young, I struck out on my own to open my first airfield. Back in those days, more people lived outside the city centers, and I actually made a decent living at it. But I always knew that if I failed, I could go back to my parents, and they would welcome me. It’s a damn shame you didn’t know that feeling growing up.”
She remained silent.
“So who raised you?” he asked.
She stared out at a scattering of clouds, imagining that they were a family of opossums. “Different people. We call them caregivers. They’re workers like me, only with different assignments. They were always changing shifts, and I didn’t know any of them too well. When I was six, they put me up in a living pod and gave me my first job.”
“Not much of a childhood. What was your job?”
“Cleaning places, mainly. Toilets, sinks, that kind of thing.”
“Doesn’t sound like a very fun life for a little kid.”
Fun? She’d never thought about that before. “No, it wasn’t, but it was a lot better than my later job.”
“And what was that?”
She stared down at the parched ground, watching waves of dust flowing over the surface like gauzy sheets. “I, uh . . . removed corpses from buildings and incinerated them.”
He whistled. “Wow.” He went quiet then, stealing looks at her now and again. She felt awkward about her upbringing, so she just kept staring out.
As they flew, the clouds grew menacing. Billowing gray soon gave way to strange green, balls of fluff. They flew under the thick cloud layer, beyond which the blue sky was completely obscured.
“Cotton ball clouds,” Gordon said.
“What are those?”
“Dangerous. That’s a tornado sky.”
“What’s a tornado?”
“Let’s hope you don’t find out.” He looked at his fuel gauge. “Unfortunately, we need to land soon. We’re going to have to put down in this.”
They started to descend, the now-familiar dip making her a little sick. The wind pushed the plane from side to side, but Gordon did his best to keep it righted. “Strong winds,” he said, pursing his lips. It was the most worried she’d seen him.
Another gust hit them so powerfully that they surged down. Her stomach dipped wildly, and for a moment she hovered weightlessly above her seat. Then he regained control, and her butt met the seat again. She seized the grab bar.
“This is going to be rough.” He glanced over at her. “You’re still buckled in, right?”
“Yes.” Another sickening drop.
Sudden rain poured from the clouds, pummeling the plane. The downpour slapped against the windows, drowning out the sound of the propeller. The plane swept back and forth, lurching up and down in violent gusts that robbed the breath from her chest. As a fresh wind pushed the plane to the left, she slammed against the door, slapping her hand to the glass as she tried to stay in her seat. The belt dug into her shoulders.
“Hold on.”
Lightning flashed around them, while the thunder boomed and rumbled. Before them, a portion of the cloud started to funnel downward. She was fascinated by its spiral, twisting in midair, dipping ever lower. Then another cloud funneled up from the ground, arcing toward its earthbound twin. “Let’s just hope those two don’t touch,” Gordon said. He veered the plane off to the right, giving the strange clouds a wide berth.
It looked like the clouds might vanish back where they’d come from. The one on the ground wound down and vanished, as the one in the sky lifted back toward the parent cloud. Then suddenly both returned with renewed strength, meeting in the middle. They churned and danced, growing thicker and stronger. She could see dirt and other objects rising from the ground, spiraling within the funnel.
“Damn it!” Gordon cursed. He looked back at the fuel gauge. “We’re going to have to take our chances on the ground. We can’t stay up in this, and we can’t turn back. We’d be stranded with no fuel and a hell of a long way to walk through some dangerous country.”
She gripped her seat. “So we put down?”
“We put down.” He banked sharply to the north, steering away from the funnel cloud. “We’re about twenty miles from the fuel outpost. I think we can skirt around this thing a little and still make it.”
She stared out at the raging storm, the lightning flashes burning her retina. She had to trust in Gordon, trust that he knew what he was doing.
She held on tight and gritted her teeth.
Chapter 25
The tornado changed directions, shifting northward toward them. They’d almost skirted around it now, dipping low toward the ground. The plane whipped around in the gale-force winds, and H124 felt so sick she didn’t think she’d ever be able to eat again. Below them the ground raced past, the plane plunging so low she felt as if she could stick her legs out of its bottom and run along the dirt.
“Almost there.” Gordon gripped the controls, leaning forward as he made adjustments.
Then an old airfield came into view, its ancient markings barely visible on the cracked pavement. A tattered flag hung from a rusted pole, and a few collapsed hangars lay in piles along the northern side of the runway.
She craned her neck to the south, seeing the monstrous tornado gyrating in a furious storm of dust, rain and other things
