Icy pain blossomed on Peter’s cheek. Something small pelted the arm of his coat and bounced off. Peter saw it on the ground, a ball of ice the size of a cherry. He picked it up and held it out in front of him.
“Hail,” Joe yelled over the thunder. His normally curly hair hung straight in his face. Rain ran in rivers down his cheeks and over his lips. He grabbed Peter’s hand and linked their fingers. “Keep moving.”
The hail changed the rhythm of the storm, drowned out the thunder until it was a lullaby melody under the high, energetic patter of the pounding ice. Peter covered his head with his backpack. He slipped a couple of times on the pavement, which had been made more uneven by the hail scattering like marbles on the hard wood floor of his old home, but Joe’s warm, strong hand in his kept Peter from falling.
The storm hounded them for long minutes. Then, with a shocking suddenness, it stopped. The rain, the hail, even the lightning and thunder. The only sound left was the lonesome whine of the wind. Peter breathed deep and savored the fresh, clean smell of the rain.
“Move. Now.” Joe’s strong grip turned painful as he dragged Peter toward the side of the road. “Get in the ditch.”
Peter tripped over a chunk of highway and fell to his hands and knees. Before he could even check to see if he had hurt anything, Joe gripped him under the arms and hoisted him to his feet. He got pushed toward the shallow ditch and toppled right in, landing on his face.
“That wasn’t necessary.” Peter lifted his head to finish thumping on Joe for being so rude, but Joe’s hand clamped onto the back of his neck and held him down.
“Stay.”
Peter jerked against Joe’s grasp but couldn’t move. He opened his mouth to tell Joe all the curse words he’d learned, but his voice was drowned out by the roar of the wind. What was that? He tried to free himself so he could look, only to have Joe scramble around and lie right on top of him.
He was cold and wet and uncomfortable, and that horrible whine of the wind kept ratcheting higher. Even as he started to move, Peter knew he shouldn’t, knew something was wrong or Joe wouldn’t be doing this to him, but he still shoved hard into the sloppy mud and managed to throw Joe slightly off his back.
He barely heard Joe’s surprised “oh,” but he had no trouble hearing the horrible, resonant collision of solid metal with Joe’s body. He spun around and saw a thin sheet of metal whirling through the air, tumbling on the wind. Joe lay a meter and a half away from the ditch, not moving.
“Shit shit fuck fuck damn.” He didn’t hear his own words, either, and he didn’t care, because he saw it then, undulating toward them like a fat, mesmerizing lie: all hypnotic, false laziness — a coiled black snake ready to strike.
Tornado.
His teeth chattered, and all he could do was stare. He remembered the earth scraped raw in Kansas City; the monster that had enough power to shatter the dome. He wanted Momma. Dad. He wanted Joe.
The snake was getting closer, headed right for them. Its tip hid in a field of dirt and garbage, and Peter watched it, frozen, until he saw a cow twist around the fat column of the storm. Joe had wanted them in the ditch; he’d known what was coming. Peter would be fine if he just lay down, kept his head down. That was what Joe had been forcing him to do.
Peter looked at Joe, then back at the tornado. It was so close now, one field away, and Joe wasn’t moving. He’d get up soon. He would.
Peter waited for Joe to come around. Seconds passed without any movement. Soon the tornado would be so close Peter wouldn’t have a choice. Now or never.
He scrambled out of the ditch and grabbed Joe’s ankles. The wind bit at his back and tore at his coat. He tugged and pulled so hard his muscles burned. The noise from the tornado sounded like it was inside his brain. His ears popped. He slipped and slid in the mud and cursed and begged and finally, finally, Joe’s body moved.
He dragged Joe into the ditch and covered him with his own weight. He didn’t dare look again at what was coming for them. Instead he thought of his Momma and his father and Sadie. He felt the steady pulse in Joe’s neck and cupped Joe’s head to keep his face out of the mud. He dragged his fingers through Joe’s hair and sang him lullabies, the way Momma had when he was little and had nightmares. He tried to be brave.
The tornado passed. It was there, coming for him, one moment, then it was like it had never existed at all. The noise died. The wind stilled. The world just...went on.
Peter sat up and peered over the edge of the ditch. Nothing. No scraped earth, no death and destruction, even the cow was gone. The thing that had hit Joe hadn’t stuck around either. The rain started again, slow and lazy, like the tornado had leached away all its energy.
Joe coughed, and Peter grabbed him by the shoulders and sat him upright. When Joe’s back touched the side of the ditch, he winced but still seemed out of it. After a few minutes, Joe shook his head and opened his eyes. “Peter. Hey.”
Peter let out a choked laugh and fell back against the other side of the ditch. He looked to the sky and saw that even the light
