He looked over his shoulder as the plane came to a stop next to the fuel pumps. “Can you see if that thing’s changed directions?”
She looked through his window at the funneling black cloud. She watched it wind and spit its way across the terrain, trying to judge its distance and course. Using a small hill in the backdrop as a frame of reference, she realized with a sinking feeling that it had shifted north. “It’s headed this way.”
Gordon jumped out of the plane. “We have to be quick. Can you help me?”
“Of course!” She unbuckled her belt and climbed out, instantly feeling the heat rising in waves off the old runway. The air hung heavy and humid, blistering around her. Sweat beaded on her back and forehead as she hurried around to the fuel pumps. The rain soaked her. Gordon opened the plane’s tank, and she pulled off the hose, hurrying toward him. But when he tried to fill the tank, nothing happened. He pressed the lever again. Nothing. “It’s empty,” he said.
She had a delayed reaction. “What?”
He hurried back to the plane. “We have to try the airfield’s backup tank!” The wind picked up speed. “Get back in!”
She ran around to the other side of the plane, and he started it up again. They taxied down the runway, stopping in front of the last collapsed building. Jumping out, he raced over to the ruined edifice, got down on all fours, and shimmied through a hole in the rubble. She watched his legs and boots disappear, then she climbed out of the plane. The wind whipped around her, plastering her hair to her face. She brushed it back, and gazed into the horror of the funnel cloud. Churning ever nearer, it plowed toward them, kicking up debris. A low rumble sounded forth.
She ran over to the hole in the rubble and knelt down, staring into the dark. She couldn’t see him. “Gordon?” She could barely hear herself above the roar of the approaching tornado. “Gordon!”
His face appeared then, framed in the dim filtering light of the afternoon. He crawled back through the debris, and she stood to aside as he got out. He held up a small key, then jogged over to a rectangle in the runway. “Give me a hand!”
He pulled up a chunk of pavement, which flipped open on a set of groaning hinges, revealing a metal door with a lock. He slid the key in, then pulled up on the handle. Beneath lay a series of secondary tanks. She allowed herself to breathe again. “Are they full?”
He reached inside, pulling out a hose. “We’re about to find out!”
She rushed over to the plane’s tank and opened the fuel door for him. Behind them the tornado chugged inexorably closer. Now she could really see the debris cloud around it, a revolving mass of heavy objects that would kill them instantly if it got close enough.
“That thing still headed our way?” he asked as he filled the tank.
She watched the monstrous funnel tear up the terrain. “Yep!”
“Figured! Wouldn’t want the trip to be too easy!”
She laughed in spite of the situation, and that made him chuckle. A gust of wind hit her so hard she lost her balance and knocked against the side of the plane.
“Now don’t get blown away!” he said. “I’m starting to get attached!”
She braced herself against the tail of the plane. “I’ll do my best!” The tornado was deadly close now.
“Halfway there!” Gordon said, but she didn’t think they’d make it. The pump was filling the tank too slowly.
“Can we take off with what we have and fill it up somewhere else?” she yelled.
He shook his head. “There is nowhere else! It’s this or nothing!”
“We could go back!”
“Not with half a tank, we can’t!”
She bit her lip.
As he kept the hose in the plane, she watched the black cloud fill her view. She could hear its cacophonous roar.
Three-fourths full.
The howling wind tore off the roof of a building at the end of the runway. “Time to go!” Gordon shouted above the din. He unhooked the hose, and they jumped back in the plane.
Not bothering to strap in, he started it up and gunned down the runway. Wind tore at the wings, shuddering the plane. She gripped her seat, her teeth clenched. The little plane jerked side to side, and suddenly they were airborne, speeding away from the funnel cloud. He banked the plane sharply away from the storm. “You got nerves of steel,” he told her as they rose higher and higher.
The plane dipped beneath the heavy cloud layer, toward a section of sky that now shone clear in a few patches.
“Do we have enough fuel?” She leaned toward the fuel gauge. It was a little over three-fourths.
Gordon grimaced. “Not to get to the airfield I wanted to reach.”
“What do we do?”
“There’s another one, but . . .” His voice trailed off as he chanced a look back at the storm. The plane stopped shaking so violently. “Should be smoother now.”
“But?” she prompted.
He glanced over at her with worried eyes. “It’s a bad place. Bad people. It’s dangerous, and I wanted to avoid it.”
“PPC?”
“Badlanders. And not the ones like Firehawk belongs to. Dirty bastards who like to kill, who live for it. They’d tear us apart if we landed there. They’re called the Death Riders. I’ve heard stories . . .”
“About what?”
His eyes looked haunted. “I’d rather not say. Not to a young thing like you.”
“I can take it.”
“I’m sure you can, but I can’t. I have no interest in robbing you of any more innocence than you’ve already lost.”
“Can we land somewhere else?”
He shook his head. “Not with this little fuel. When we get there, we’ll have to fuel up fast.”
She tilted her head. “Faster than we just
