Sins In Twisters

by Blonkess

When Lincoln was destined to never have success like his family, after surviving the Royal Woods' Tornado, his future takes him on the path of becoming a renowned storm chaser. But as years pass since that day, his family tries to hold together after freak disasters put a halt to the sisters' lives when Lisa discovers a past family secret that tells Lincoln's time is running out.

24. A Knight's Duty

Sins In Twisters

Chapter 24: A Knight's Duty

---

"Liby, huh?" Liby nodded with a bit of a smile. Lincoln leaned back on the bench, pondering the odds of this whole situation back and forth in his mind like two people playing ping pong with anything but the usual paddles. "Isn't it usually spelled-"

"I know it is usually spelled with two bs, but we all felt the shorter version helped make it stand out better."

Lincoln chuckled, "Understandable. My family believed in the same thing when we were all named. Short and direct. Though I kinda got the exception at the time." They shared a little laugh. Just a moment where their ideas connected to the other in the oddity of names. It was a crack in the tension in the air, enough to help get the saddened look out of Liby's eyes, but as their laughter eased away, the feeling quickly flooded back in. The heart in the laugh gave way to a sigh-

*BOOM*

The entire hospital shook like it had just been bombed. Lights above flickering black bathed the hallway so dark he couldn't see the wall before him. He heard a cry, feeling something latch onto his arm so tightly he could feel fingernails through his shirt.

As fast as it all came, it went. The lights above flickered one by one, and machines started up again. The darkness faded to the usual glow, but it took him a second to readjust from the sudden light to dark.

Looking over to Liby, he saw a both comical yet sad sight. She had both arms wrapped tightly around his, head pressed against his shoulder so close she buried her face from view. He could barely see her eyes through the top edge of her hair, shut tight like she was expecting to get hit by something. He didn't have to see anymore to know what fear she felt. That blast was enough for him to feel the terror she had, and now she sought solace in whatever way she could.

Awkward? A little, considering the fact of strangers. But he couldn't push away someone who needed comfort in a time like this. He wished to have something similar, but it wasn't his place for that right now. Maybe once this day was over, he could find that in a dreamless sleep for ten hours, but that was a plan for later.

Instead, his focus was fully on the hurt girl beside him. Reaching over, he patted her back gently. "It's alright. It's over," he said soothly.

Opening her eyes, she eased her grip a little to look up. Seeing the assurance in his eyes and the heat in her cheeks from a growing blush, she let her grip go completely and shifted back. "Sorry…" She sheepishly muttered.

"It's okay. You're already on edge from today. Wouldn't be surprising to anyone to get spooked like that."

"What was that?"

Lincoln leaned back, looking towards the ceiling. "Thunderhead directly above us. There must have been a lightning strike somewhere really close by for it to generate a shockwave that strong," he answered. Though she nodded, understanding the explanation, it did little to nothing to quench her racing nerves.

He couldn't blame her for that either; God was playing Russian roulette with electricity. Some people get lucky to be just shocked by proximity, and some wonder if the world has a vendetta against them. He's had his own long list of close calls when out in the plains, and being the tallest thing around, he is second only to a fence post. It did not help standing on or near a nine-ton lightning rod with a high-frequency electrical storm.

A lot of memories from those adventures. Simpler times that both had them screaming to get their asses to cover or the thrills of being that close to danger. Yet, for many, it was a case of the wrong place and time.

Though his assurance had some affect, it was fleeting at best. Even as she moved a bit further back, bringing her boots up to hugged her legs close to trying to make herself smaller with her chin resting on her knees, the look in her eyes had shifted hard from that aurora moments ago that greeted him.

It didn't surprise him, he had seen it plenty of times in his own family life to prepare him for the larger world to tell what signs were there and knew full well where it was coming from. He had seen it in his sisters and friends years over and in the mirror more times than he would have liked to know.

But before she could even mutter a syllable, Lincoln beat her to the punch: "Whatever you're thinking right now, just know that it wasn't your fault in any way." That caught her off guard like a psychic reading someone's thoughts before they said them, "Things happen. We hope and pray and try it'll all be fine in the end until the world decides to throw something we can't dodge."

"But why her? Why my family? Why any of this?" She looked up at him pleadingly. "I know it's just what nature does. My dad told us that a lot when growing up. But just why…"

Lincoln weaved his hands together, looking down to the floor for a moment before looking into her eyes, seeing the signs that the waterworks were building up again. "I wish I knew the answer to that question. God knows how many times I and how many other people on this planet now and before have asked that question. All for the same or a thousand different other reasons…"

He quickly looked away. Not out of shame or fear of making her feel more saddened by his lack of an honest answer, but because the face he was looking at reminded him too much of what today could have happened. Like a glitch in the matrix, he could see himself back at the house, sitting on the couch in a quiet living room with Luan by his side and all the others gathered closely around. He could imagine the hundred questions they would all ask him. He could think of a thousand answers, reasons, and excuses for them all.

Yet in a glance, he didn't see Luan; he saw Liby, looking up at him with confusion and… remorse that didn't feel like it was towards others. He could read into her body language pretty well, years of practice with hundreds of people, yet as in the second she looked away, he could see gears turning in her mind.

"We were out enjoying what good weather we had. It was almost like a random family reunion, in a way." she said looking back into his eyes, "Once the storms started coming in, my dad got nervous and had us all pack up and head home early. We have a big family, so we had to take several cars."

"And then everyone in the city started to panic when it came faster than expected," he remarked, remembering how fast these storms were producing earlier.

Liby grimly nodded, "We tried going our usual way, but traffic was getting worse. They started closing roads when the first tornado happened, and my aunt tried to get us around the city. We got stuck for an hour before the other storm came through. We got all divided up trying to find a better route, but when the second tornado happened… my aunt tried to outrun it. She probably hit a dozen cars on the shoulder before we got stuck. We got maybe a few miles down the road, thinking we were safe…"

Her voice drifted off. Her legs quickly came back up, and she hugged them tighter than before. The light in her eyes dulled, replaced by a haunted look that suggested she had just become lost.

"We were still too close…" she whispered like they were dark words that could unleash a curse if said out loud, "All we saw behind us was just… black. Like fog was moving over us. We saw cars getting swallowed up and lights flashing… She got us off the highway. Down a side road that wasn't so packed, but we rear-ended someone. She told us to get to the side of the road by one of those concrete ditches to hide in. She had my sister and I curl against each other and just stood there over us."

She sucked in a deep breath, closing her eyes as the creeping images of that memory threatened to return. She was shaking her head, trying to force them away.

"The sounds… that never ending roar… It just… I could hear her scream but-" she stopped herself, not wishing to go back to that scene, "After it passed, we found her on the otherside of the road. The car wasn't completely wrecked, so my sister drove us there. After they got her in, my sis got taken to the side because of her face being cut up. I… got the least of it. They said I could wait with my sister if I wanted to, but when we returned to our aunt…"

At that point, she buried her head back in her arms. Ready to unleash the tears building up to the breaking point. But before more than one tear could fall, Lincoln reached out, snaking his hand over hers and clutching it tightly. Through blurred vision, Liby saw a look of not just empathy and remorse but understanding that took her back some.

"I know what you've experienced. I know how you feel…. Earlier this year, I had a similar experience that…." He looked away. Slowly retracting his hand as a sigh escaped him with his own bad memories popping up, "was the result of my clouded thinking in a critical moment. We both suffered for it. It's a sound that even over the hell around me, I couldn't stop hearing…" He could still hear it even now. Ronnie's cries over the winds of hell tearing through Shrieker without mercy—metal banging and ripping apart with things of all kinds smashing against the truck and his back.

The silence that followed was too unreal. Being out close to the middle of nowhere with a storm over you, you'd think after a deadly twister, you'd be overwhelmed by everything. When it's dead silent with not even a raging twister in the distance and falling rain, stumbling out of that truck feeling like you were on fire with every tiny move you made trying to get the others free before you went down too…

"Sometimes we just have to live with what life throws at us. Luck and prayers won't always be there to save us and the things we love. We're not immortal or invincible. If we were a place like this wouldn't have to exist." He quipped. Hoping to lighten the mood just that inch more. However, Liby's look made him abandon that approach immediately and try a more familiar one.

"What I'm getting at is that what your aunt did today was to protect you and your sister no matter what became of herself. Call it human or maternal instinct; call it a sudden idea in the heat of the moment, but what she did was to make sure you and your sister were safe."

"But she's-"

"She did what she had to do." He stressed but tried not to be stern, "It might be a bit overrated or cliché, but your aunt was a hero in her own right. Not everyone can stand up in the face of a storm like that and come out unscathed, but regardless, your aunt did it for you two. I know it hurts to grieve for someone close or someone close to grieve for you, but I don't think she's going to leave this world. There is pain, but that means she's still alive. If a twister didn't stop her, I wouldn't doubt she'd pull through in no time."

"And how can you be so sure?" Liby half shouted, unsure if to yell or cry out her confusion.

He did feel like he was rambling a bit. There was a tiny part of his old life that, no matter what, never really changed, but he could see he wasn't hitting home the point.

"Experience." He grimly said, looking into her eyes and unconsciously feeling his back flare up again.

It took Liby a second to feel the power behind that one word to make that hint of frustration seep away. "I'm sorry…"

He waved it off, "It's fine. Like I said, my choices led to it, and I've had to live with those consequences. But since then, I haven't let it keep me down. I still have a long way to go, but I'm still moving forward. Heck, to some extent, both of you are heroes."

Liby perked up from that. A glimmer of confusion from being called such a name, and Lincoln could see her mauling over it to question it.

"She protected you from the storm, and you brought her here. If you hadn't, there was a greater chance of something wrong happening in the time you could have waited, but you took the moment and, despite your injuries, focused on getting her here and safe. A person who saves a hero is a hero in themselves. We always hope we never have to be a hero for anyone. Cause it means bad things happen to good people, and who would want that?"

He saw some thoughts form behind those eyes. Letting his words seep through her mind until he saw her crack a tiny smile and even let out a little laugh that she tried to hide, but he saw clear as day.

"Thought of something funny?"

She shook her head. "No. It's just…" She looked up at him, and that feeling from earlier returned almost more potent than before as if she was about to tell an inside joke, "You remind me a lot of my dad. He always talked about how when he was a kid, he always wanted to be a hero and got to be to some extent until he realized what it meant for everyone. I guess you can say, like my aunt, he's my and my family's hero.

Lincoln took a moment to think that over, a chuckle escaping his lips as he nodded, "Sounds like a respectable man. If we share the same kind of thought process, then it's good to know that the world has another person to look out for everyone." When he said that, he could have sworn he saw that glimmer in her eyes fade slightly. It was like watching a child starting to get excited about something until they realized the point was either missed or wasn't exactly what they were hoping for. But the smile remained. And in a moment of thought, he could see that glimmer brighten just a bit more again.

"I should go and find my family." she slid off the bench, dusting herself off what she could.

Subconsciously, Lincoln stood up, too, wondering why he didn't know. What he didn't expect was for Liby to launch herself forward. Wrapping her arms around his back, her head turned to the side against his chest, and she had a big smile on her face. The height difference was laughable at best, but the action made the man stop briefly when he felt an ungodly warmth suddenly wrap around him.

Though she made sure to avoid touching any of the bloody spots, still dressed in completely soaked clothes and looking like he had just crawled out of the river, the cold feeling that had utterly covered him felt like it was instantly evaporated in that briefest touch.

He didn't know how to feel. The instinct to wrap his arms around her and return the gesture was there, and he had no idea why it was there and getting stronger. It felt so weird, not unlike being touched by a random stranger, but that was outweighed enormously by the warmth that felt like he had experienced it before so many times over.

He hesitated to move a muscle when Liby turned her head enough to look up at him for a moment before tightening her hug. "Thank you, Lincoln," she said softly, smiling. "For just being here."

Lincoln could not resist how that smile broke through years' worth of barriers in a second. His hands raised to avoid contact, and he slowly lowered them to her back, not giving the same kind of squeeze but enough that the feeling was returned.

"You're welcome." He spoke softly.

They lingered for a moment, but Liby was the one to pull away first. Looking up at him with a smile that spoke her words earlier, he gave her a smile of his own and nodded. He had to admit, the separation had kind of felt like it was more. The reality of how warm that hug was became evident when he realized how much colder the rest of his soaked clothes were in comparison.

Standing there like watching his child head off to parts unknown but with the reassurance that they were safe, Lincoln stood there still watching Liby head further down the hallway till she was roughly past the halfway point between him and the end wall. With a sigh, he rubbed a hand through his hair. Feeling his body enjoy the brief moment of comfort that it hadn't felt in a long time, he figured now wouldn't be such a wrong moment to sit down and try to think over what today and his whole plan so far had amounted to.

Crouching back to use the side armrest to steady himself to drop down and maybe put his legs up, they suddenly felt like concrete and jelly when a thought suddenly bubbled into his mind and exploded like someone tossing a filled gas can into a pit to set off a volcano.

'I never told her or said my name at all…'

Abandoning any previous thoughts, he looked for wherever the teen went—wanting to know how she somehow figured out his name. But looking down the hallway, there was no sign of her. Trying not to make more sound, his voice echoed in the hallway. Lincoln almost stumbled, picking up speed and hoping to catch up to her before she was too far away.

"Liby?" he yelled out. He increased his speed when there was no response, not even the sound of footsteps, voices, or a door closing, as he had hooked onto the wall railing to slow himself down enough.

Yet all at the end of the hallway was a wall lined with spare wheelchairs, a trio of vending machines, and a security-locked door. He spun around, looking down the hallway that branched towards the ward where another pair of those large split doors stood still, closed with no sign of the girl. In a near panic, he rushed to the door, smashing a fist onto the little square button on the wall to make it open. A click and hiss came as they opened opposite ways, but Lincoln didn't hesitate to squeeze through what gap was already there.

Half expecting to see Liby or even an active hallway of doctors, the path before him until the next set of doors was empty. Doors to rooms along the walls were all closed with lights out, and all he heard aside from the doors behind him closing was distant activity and his breathing becoming faster and faster.

There was no one.

The ticking of a clock somewhere gave him a sense of time, and it was impossible. If she ran, he might have seen her get through the doors, but at the time, he would have seen either them reach the point of fully opening or starting to close. He would have seen how her bright colors would be a massively stark contrast to the sterile white and blues that the corridor stood with. But there was just… no one.

"What…?" he breathed. Trying to think of what had just…

Lemy. The voice, the name, and the face all came rushing back to his mind, and he could not help but wonder how that all occurred. The whole sneaking into a truck was palpable at best, but the disappearing act—not even a sound or little flicker of light—just gone with no possible way of not seeing where he went. And now it happened again.

He brought his hands to his head, feeling a raging pulse in his skull, trying to contain the storm of thoughts that were exploding like a hurricane. He closed his eyes, trying to keep standing. He could reach out to support himself on the wall with a free hand. Dragging the closest chair he could find before positioning around and crumbling into. If anyone could see him now, they would think he was grieving, angry that he couldn't do something to change the outcome of someone's fate and was now facing the consequences.

But Lincoln didn't feel his mind going down that route. It was too clouded by thoughts that were making his heart race to the point he felt like the chance of a panic attack was moments away.

Was she just another figment of his imagination? Maybe. Sometimes, people look at themselves and picture their state as something different but familiar to give themselves an 'outside' perspective. Why Luan, he didn't know. Maye from past thoughts on how she would be the one to come to his side when he was feeling broken down like that.

But that feeling—that warmth—couldn't be just some hallucination. It felt too real. He felt her arms around his torso. He could feel the weight she had given into that hug and held it tightly.

And those thoughts… it had been such a long time since he felt anything like that even spark inside him. He felt it grow so much during his later years back at home when he had taken the full role of Big Brother into something borderline fatherly to his younger sisters. It flared up a little after he helped Bobby with Gracia, but it never really came up again between and after that. No situation really came to be that would trigger it.

Yet that did. And yet, even more so, looking back, it wasn't just Liby who caused it today. Looking into Lemy's eyes this morning, that familiar connection felt like a two-way split bridge. He recognized it but didn't remember.

But why?

Where was this coming from? Why today of all times? Something like this could have happened before or after all this. When he didn't know, but that it would probably have been better than today. Too many coincides were hitting one after another, and the day kept descending further into another circle of hell. Something happened. He knew something had happened. That damned curse had some eye for an eye system, but what had caused all this?

If he ever gets to speak with him again, plenty of questions better be answered.

Lincoln leaned forward with his head in his hands. Elbows on knees facing the floor, trying, forcing all those thoughts to clear away. He didn't want a nosebleed from stressing so much again; right now, he wanted some peace.

But like so many things today, the universe didn't want to give him peace.

If his nerves weren't already shot to the point little could make him jump, the sound of the doors further down the hall swinging open got his attention. Groups of nurses with a literal train of beds quickly started working their way down, splitting off into the side rooms with lights coming to life, voices and cries destroying the silence as they got closer and closer.

One of the nurses shouting orders to the others came down the hallway with three more. She opened up the rooms and shoved items aside, yelling out where to place who. When she got closer, Lincoln asked, "What's going on?"

"ICU is getting flooded with bodies coming in." She quickly responded, dashing into the room beside him. Disappearing with the sound of stuff being moved for a second before popping out, "We're getting transfers from across the city that can't reach other places or don't have power…" Her explanation started to less as she looked at the cracked man.

"I'm fine…" Lincoln assured, seeing the look in her eyes ready to pop the question he repeated against.

"If so, I'll have to ask you to please vacate. We need all the space we can right now," she said, brushing past and hitting the button for the doors to open back up.

He didn't need to be told twice. Lifting out of his chair like an elderly man with a stiff back, he doddered through as the nurse was busy grabbing every wheelchair along the wall and dragging them through. He turned the corner, heading for the previously occupied bench, but stopped roughly halfway. Staring at the spot where he had the previous conversation replaying in his mind as an old film stuck on a loop, the hallway became silent the second he heard the hiss of the doors being pulled back before a heavy thunk, and lock told him that he was once more alone.

But the hallway he was in just two minutes ago didn't feel the same. It looked the same, but something just was so different.

It was silence.

And it was getting louder…

It's like feeling the pressure drop suddenly when you're so close to the core of a twister, hiding somewhere underground, and all the air is rapidly being pulled through every crack and seam. When your ears are about to pop, you just want the pressure to stop.

He tried to focus, tried to either figure out why it was there or force it away.

Something else did.

Like it was following him through the building, he heard the cries of voices once more. Getting closer and closer like a flood trying to breach the doors. The feeling was fading, but stepping back around the corner to see through the small window slits, he could see the same chaos filling the hall as it was when he first walked into the building. He did wonder if Sam was among them. She might have already been wheeled into one of the rooms or was on her way any second from appearing. She might have been in surgery or somehow already out and somewhere else in the building.

Lincoln knew that by the end of the day, come the next dawn, the count would be high—not just from that last tornado, not just from within the Nashville limits, but from the sheer scope of this outbreak. If the atmosphere was unstable enough to cook up that last monster, God knows what else had or is touching down. What those people back there and in this hospital now all had to face was the consequences of being on the blind path of monsters. You can't control it, but you can stop it. Try to predict it, and nature will find a way to prove you wrong. Be at the wrong place at the right time…

"Change the outcome of someone's fate…" he spoke his thoughts from earlier. Looking down at his hands, to the stains that hadn't faded away no matter how much he had washed it away. How many had he helped get a step further in their lives, he had no idea. The numbers to when he started could be small enough to fit in a house or to fill a city.

Lincoln knew that his future was unclear. What lay beyond today and into tomorrow was as gray as the sky now, with a storm making it hard to see what it was like in the distance.

But since when has that ever really stopped him?

---

Though he looked like he came out of a horror movie set in a swamp, Lincoln didn't let anyone stop him as he marched through the hospital. Weaving around and dodging people and objects like he did with his sisters to make it to the bathroom, he didn't speak, wait, or stop.

Stepping back outside, I felt a conflict between night and day. The clouds were thick, yet sunlight gave them a gray glow—enough to see the world but enough to let the shadows grow. The light rain did nothing to dissuade him from his mission.

Grabbing the keys out of his pocket, he ran a mental checklist of everything he could think of that needed to be done within the next half hour at most. He needed new clothes; everything waterlogged would only make him feel colder as it tried, and rain kept coming, and he couldn't afford to waste time getting early stages of hypothermia. He had two more sets of spare clothes packed in his supply bags and what he could assume was his 'Disaster Suit' with all the protection and parts needed for search and rescue. Shrieker needed fuel and one hell of a deep cleaning. Given the mess to come, he could rip the mats out, hose them down and bleach them, scrub off the wheel, and just let it air out.

He needed to check reports and see where the damage path had gone. Anything close to downtown Nashville would be impossible to reach, and trying to get back across the river into the East side of the city would mean circling through the entire north side. He would roll back the radar to see what path the storm had taken, work his way across the damage path, and go from there.

Even with the rain holding steady and light fading away, he had maybe just a handful of hours at most before the early night took over. With so much to cover, he prayed that the storm had significantly weakened following his last encounter with the twister. Trying to dig through EF2-level damage was much easier than anything over EF4.

Hoping in the tank, he hesitated to drive the wheel. Seeing just how red it was in the cab light, the blood almost looked like it was literally glowing. His thoughts drifted back to whose blood this possibly could be, but he looked away. Forcing those thoughts away as he started the truck, he let it check its breath as he turned to the laptop. Flipping it on to get another blast of light that stung the eyes, he pulled up maps for the nearest gas station to where the closest road crossed the path.

A Shell station just over a mile up north Old Hickory, and from there, the closest estimated path crossed the same road just over four miles from that. A bleak thought of what if the storms had been traveling southward instead of north came to mind, but it fizzled out fast as he shifted gear and sent the tank rolling.

Zipping out of the parking lot onto First Boulevard, weaving down the hill to Old Hickory, and beating the yellow light halfway into the intersection before flooring it north, the mile distance was covered in not even three minutes. With barely any traffic on the northbound side, areas around the road remained dark. A ping of hope was raised when he sped into the parking lot of a Home Depot to see the lot still had power, with the gas station somewhat packed by numerous vehicles trying to huddle under the pumps.

Flicking the lights on and blaring the horn for a second, the tank made an entrance to the only free diesel unit clear with all ten wheels screaming rubber to bring it to a stop. The second he killed the engine again, he jumped out and got to work. Snapping off the gas cap and shoving in the nozzle before running around to the backside, ripping the door open. Grabbing a fist full of the mat used for padding the floor, he kicked off the rear bumper to pull it out as hard as possible. Feeling the weight of everything on it coming with it or sliding off until it was hanging out the back like a horror scene.

What almost came out, he shoved back in further. Running back around to the front to climb over his seat and the glove box to grab everything he could to toss on the backseats. If he was going to carry anyone else, he couldn't waste time trying to get them in and out of the awkward seats and needed to free up as much of the back as he could. He grabbed a supply back before slipping out, making a complete break for the station store, and almost ripped the front door hard off its hinges, startling some 15 people gathered inside.

It probably did look like a crime scene to some of them, watching someone like Lincoln move through the aisles, grabbing every bottle of bleach, spill wipes, and medical supplies he could. He was loaded by the armload and dumped it all in front of an unsettled clerk. The sounds of the items ringing individually acted as a timer; he bolted to the bathrooms. Shoes and clothes went flying with the bag thrown onto the sink. His red shirt went straight for the trash along with the grim-coated undershirt.

In his haste to rip the garment off, he took another look in the mirror. Seeing his reflection so many times today, it felt like he was trying to tell himself something. In the light of the bathroom, despite having more color than back in the hospital, looking at himself more bare made him put a hand to his stomach and see if what was in front of him was real.

With so much downtime and the meds keeping him with it, he had lost a sensible amount of weight. Months of low-end irregular eating would do that to anyone. For someone who was outdoors so much, he was paler than if his goth sister hadn't seen daylight in years. Little dinks of scar tissue peppered his arms and chest with some old cuts here and there that were taking an eternity to heal.

Then there was 'it'. The thing that was less a scar and more like a giant patch put on his body when nothing else could have been done. Though his left shoulder from the side and front seemed just a bit scarred, it turned just a bit to the backside, and it was like the skin had been ripped away. Clear down his lower back from his left side, moving across to the right under his neck. It was ironic in its shape, like a twister that had torn its own image out of his skin with claws. The edging jagged all around that three surgeries couldn't fix.

Lincoln had to look over his shoulder to get a full view of what was left of the damage. He rubbed his left shoulder, where the texture of his skin vastly changed, and ran over the little grove that marked the threshold of old and new.

Like any place hit by a storm, it left scars that could last years. Sometimes, they healed quickly, and others did not. They were a reminder of the day that had changed a lot of things. People come home from years of war or escaping the clutches of torture with damage to a similar degree. But this mark was caused by nature to prove what it could do at its worst.

He yanked his hand away when it felt like something was tingling. The medication was doing everything it could to keep the damaged nerves from causing insane levels of pain and trouble. Still, the phantom pain of that day, of even trying to move after the storm had passed to get out of the truck, felt like it was enough that it should have killed him that day.

He didn't know how and why it didn't, after everything people told him, the photos of before and after, and what it took to break him and his creation, whether he wanted to find that out was a matter for when he was better again and able to make sense of it at all.

Before going any further, he ripped a shirt and hastily put it on. Keeping something like what memories came with those scars out of sight and out of mind was something he could use less of to focus on the rest of today.

Anything bloody went straight for the trash. Anything worth salvaging was stuffed into a separate pocket in the bag as he straightened himself out, a light blue T-shirt tossed over a thicker gray long sleeve to help keep the body warmth inside. Less soggy pants helped make it feel like he wasn't weighed down as he grabbed the bag and stormed out of the bathroom.

Just in time to watch as the overhead lights above go black. Plunging the store into a darkness that was only broken by the few backup lights on the walls and headlights from cars outside blasting in. Some people inside cried out in surprise, but he paid little mind.

Straight up to the counter, the bemused clerk looked at him, tired and confused, as if he had to stand here all day while the storm raged. Lincoln didn't wait a second before fishing out his soaked wallet. Taking out the last of his cash in some soaked two hundred dollar bills, the clerk said nothing as Lincoln gathered all the supplies and reached the door.

Grabbing the center of one door to force it open, stepping back out into the rain felt somehow colder now that he was in fresher clothes that didn't reek of the last couple of hours. He chucked the bag and supplies into the passenger seat along with a bottle of bleach and paper towels in the driver. Grabbing the squeegee without pause, ripping away the gas nozzle, coming to the back, snapping off the caps of two more bottles, and pouring over the mat like a waterfall. Watching blood, dirt, and anything else started to hiss and bubble away.

It wasn't exactly the best method of cleaning off blood, but he didn't have the mentality to care. Scraping line after line as more of it oozed off into the parking lot behind and washed away with disinfectant, he felt his lungs burn each time he got a deep whiff of the chemicals and flicked away the extra. After a few whips and coughs that burned his throat later, he tossed everything to the trash and forced the mat back inside.

Climbing aboard to get it further in and shut the door, he crawled over the seats, bringing the rest with him and shoveling things into whatever space he could afford to take up.

Checking to see if his 'work' clothes were ready, he crawled up into the front, snatching the towels and another bottle. Having to shove everything already just to make enough space to move around, part of his mind reminded him to check to see if he had everything still with him. A quick pat down made him panic that his phone was gone until he saw it staring at him in the face in the cupholder.

With that brief percent of self-dignity gone, he went to make a call but found his phone refusing to turn on. "The hell is it now…" he muttered,

giving it the tried and true method of giving it a good old wack and holding the power button as hard as possible with no response.

"Dead, maybe?" he asked himself, opening the glovebox to find a power cable. Dropping the phone in the cup holder to give it some charge time, he returned to cleaning off the steering wheel.

Not two minutes later did the second all the logos pass by and reboot, notifications exploded one after the other with texts from Rex, Erin, Clyde, and Shay with some 30 missed calls in the last hour alone on top of a literal hundred-plus alerts for the storm, tornado, and flash flood warnings, traffic alerts and people sending him links to photos and videos streams.

Dropping his work to unlock and scroll through the digital mess, he got as far down as up 20 minutes ago until it started buzzing again from an incoming call by Erin. With all the radio silence, he knew to expect three possible outcomes and held the phone a reasonable distance away before pressing answers.

"Eri-"

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!" Her voice blasted from the phone like a bullhorn was in the cab. Even with the phone three feet away Lincoln cringed at how his ears were once again abused today.

"WE'VE TRYING TO CALL YOU ON THE RADIO, PHONE, NOTHING! WE THOUGHT YOU GOT HIT AGAIN!"

"S-Sorry." He stuttered out, bringing the phone back close. "After that twister crossed, I had to go into rescue mode. A car overshot and went airborne and dropped in a pond."

"How close were you?"

He looked off into space, thinking, "A Couple hundred yards initially. After it crossed the river, I thought it dissipated before it reached 155. Bastard reform intensified right on top and grew in size."

"Radar had a debris ball nearly half a mile wide at that location."

"With how close it got to me, I deployed shields and almost deployed the spikes when the pods started breaking over 200. Think the max peak they got was 240 something…"

"…"

"Erin?" He looked down to check if the call was still connected. Hearing someone talking in the background with a thick silence and more chatter.

"Contacted the Nashville office radar site. They said at a minimum tilt, they got upwards of 270 from eight miles away." Lincoln nodded slowly, but his mind felt like it was just rolling around, making him do it.

He smirked, a crazed laugh escaping with a cough as he held a hand to his head, feeling like he was one step closer to insanity.

It's a rare feat to get something that does achieve true EF5 ranking. OKC took over 12 years to end that drought in the worst way possible, repeating history a third time, and Kingman was its own event that anyone who was still on the road would be focused on. 2013 came close to two within 11 days, and while between those two was just 20 days, the odds of getting intercepted by a third, even if you could call it luck or an accident or just an act of God, the odds were so astronomical…

Part of him was ironically proud. Proximity wise, it wasn't really a hit, more of a passing glance. But that part of him considered that his now 20th intercepted twister within a year. A new record on top of being the only person so far to actually intercept three EF5s within a single year in over 15 years. Any chaser would dream of having this kind of luck on top of the dozens of other twisters and storms he got this year.

It was just so ironic that he couldn't help but laugh.

To achieve this kind of success, so many moments you put a fist to the sky and cheer on celebrating with others meant witnessing so many acts of destruction and death. Would this storm get that maximum rank? It was up to those who had to comb through the damage to be the judge of that. But it didn't matter if it was an F5, a 4 or a 2, just from five out of a city of two million, it was hard for some not to imagine just how much had happened before and after he even set eyes on the storm itself.

"Christ, is this day ever going to- '' His words were cut short by another feeling in his throat rapidly forming. With what little warning and time he had tried to suppress it, he leaned out the door as far as he could before feeling whatever material was in his gut suddenly get ejected out. Hard coughs like he was struggling to breathe until a wad of saliva came flying to the ground with his throat burning.

"Lincoln?" he heard from the phone, "What's happening?"

Spitting out whatever lingered, he slowly leaned back into his seat, "Sorry. Zoned out there for a- *Cough* a second."

"When was the last time you took your medicine?"

He shrugged, "Couple hours ago? I've been busy all day."

"Lincoln…"

"I'm fine," he stressed, feeling his patience drop every time he had to repeat himself. "Anything else?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Well, get ready 'cause this day isn't over yet."

"What else is new?"

"NWS Nash has two linear cells approaching from Lexington and Savannah moving about 50." His rubbing paused as any feeling of illness or exhaustion was mentally and physically forgotten at once.

"You can't be serious." he staggered, turning to his laptop as he dragged the maps away from Nashville until clicking on a marker for one of the towns. Giving it a route distance from his location, minus all the cause in delays it gave, "That's still 120 miles away. When's the estimated impact?"

"Current estimate says it may be two, two and a half hours. But watch the loop."

Dropping the phone, he quickly closed out the maps to bring up the Nashville radar. Staring at the current scan from not even three minutes ago, he saw the entire area under a mixing blob of blue, green, and yellow lingering over the city like a bad stink.

Pulling back nearly the last two hours of radar, he watched the supercell tighten its hook. A debris ball was clear as day in pink form exploded over the downtown area and tracked towards where he had crossed paths. The storm became more northeast, carving its path for another ten miles before the hook seemed to split off. Velocity couplet was tight all the way through until it crossed the Cumberland River the eighth time. Eventually, the storm moved out of the city limits, but in its trail was a cluster of shattered cells acting like vultures trying to eat up whatever energy was still in the area.

Seeing how far the storm had traveled, layered over the map with the names of towns and subdivisions, he shut his eyes, shaking his head at the memory of the destruction in May. Slowly, he moved the view away from the metro area further west. Watching the loop showed how far the storm had traveled beforehand, how much ground it had covered in the hour before with a hook echo recycling to drop the monster he saw after something before.

Yet as the radar continued past those hours and into the future, in its wake was a blob of storms, maybe ten miles deep, reaching from the northern edge of Mississippi to the edge of southern Kentucky. There was a view of separate cells that tried to form up at a kind of third wave, but they had broken apart and collapsed to the point the front itself was sling-shotting them across the country.

Watching the future loop for the next three hours, the line continued marching east until a second, much thinner but concentrated line formed ahead of it. Dragging some of the others further east than it was until a line nearly a mile wide was on top of Nashville before 5 p.m.

Watching the loop four times over, Lincoln reached back for his phone, "That puts it just under an hour and a half. Maybe less if it does get pushed harder by the front."

"And that all depends if there aren't embedded supercells firing up by that point."

Looking away from the radar and towards the sky through his windshield, he could see the clouds moving steadily away, which confirmed that more was on the way. Half the city, if not more, was out of power, and damage was everywhere. It'd probably take him the rest of an hour to get through all the reports of what's happening, but any sane person could say that what was coming was overkill.

Completely rain-wrapped cells moving in a squall line; if any of them had strong enough concentrations of rotation, they could easily spin up a swarm of twisters and rake across the place. That would at least mean the damage would be concentrated in those areas. At worst, it's a continuous straight-line wind event that could rival the strength of some derechos and act like one giant tornado blowing in the same direction. Places that weren't touched by either storm would experience precisely that.

It meant that for Lincoln, there wasn't a time limit to when night made it harder to see, but before a land hurricane reached the city limits, it was impossible to get anywhere and be trapped.

Either way he saw any path he took in the next 20 minutes at most; he knew he would be in for a very long and grueling night. "Keep me posted, Erin. I gotta get something done."

"Be careful out there, Lincoln. I know what you said, but call this your voice of reason not to become part of the body count, too."

"I'll try not to…" he muttered as he pressed the end. Dropping his phone back in its spot, he felt like any adrenaline he was trying to keep built up since he left the hospital was fading faster than it had before.

He couldn't say he hadn't done his job today. He saved a couple of lives on the ground and was there in time to warn them from going out the same way. His day as a storm chaser was over, and there was no point in chasing a gust front on its way towards him now. People would see the sky changing a third time and know to stay sheltered wherever possible until it finally blew over. Shrieker was so large it couldn't navigate clogged streets and was already out of his significant supplies. Handing over his medikit was probably a stupid and smart idea at the same time, but it was the only practical option he had.

What good could he do with boxes of bandages, rubbing alcohol, and some wrapping that was meant for more minor injuries that could be waved off compared to what he had already seen?

"It could be something…" He thought out loud. Looking towards the rearview to look at his reflection one more time. He locked eyes with himself even as a cough came up, making him turn his head away but not break contact. "Could be something…"

He reached over and grabbed the cleaning rag, orange smeared with grim and blood- an odd mix of color that was beginning to feel a little too familiar as he returned to his task.

---

With its siren blaring a slow hum, it would peak and fall silent before repeating again and again, and ambers flashing double time. Though the inside smelled clean, its armor still stained with blood, Storm Shrieker roared down the Boulevard like a runaway train.

Jumping over a railroad crossing that rocked the vehicle into the air but a fraction of a second as Lincoln laid on the horn through a green light in a large intersection. Dozens of cars, all waiting at barely working lights with two police cars preventing anyone from turning north, packed the intersection. It was like rush hour in a blackout. The sight of such a bright and loud display caught the attention of many, yet despite some reasonable doubt, the officer trying to direct traffic with a glow stick stepped away and swung the wand to let the tank let loose its name and go through the place in a blind of an eye.

Though he would have given a nod of thanks for passage, though also thinking he was on thin ice of possibly getting a speeding ticket later, he pressed on north. Passing more darkened businesses and homes, with the road ahead only visible in the light he had and those traveling oppositely. A few miles up the road, it became almost like a rural highway, and unit after unit, ambulances raced by in a similar manner as he did. Each one, he watched one approach and disappear into the haze in the mirrors until out of sight.

Between the station and where the path had crossed through the Old Hickory neighborhood between Rayon City and Lakewood, evidence of the tornado's power and size became increasingly evident, with trees all falling in one direction and debris from places unknown scattered about like they had just been dropped off by the hand of God. Even as he ran what he thought was a piece of sheet metal, getting utterly eaten by the weight of the tires, he winced at hearing the metal scraping against the shields and spikes underneath but shook his head to stay focused.

His target area was towards the northern zone of the Neely's Bend subdivision close to Heron Walk and Candlewood. The area was in the center where the path continued north from Old Hickory, straight from where he had seen it reform and explode in intensity. The sheer magnitude of the destruction he saw around Sutherland Heights in his race after Sam, just seeing the ungodly amount of flying debris being lofted as buildings disappeared so quickly, a storm with enough life to last for a long time with that much power meant anything afterward was bound to have seen something equal or even worse.

The big issue he saw was getting to the peninsula itself. Nothing in the way of roads and bridges would give anyone direct access if they came up from the south. Suppose reports that the 155 Parkway was at a standstill in both directions at the intercept point; the only other road that didn't go into gridlocked Nashville or circle an extra 30 miles was up the Boulevard.

But to what degree that helped anyone on the north side of the river, he didn't know. He could go that 30 miles towards where the path had ended by Gallatin and work his way south. Still, his biggest fear was that if the storm had spiked into that high-end EF4 into EF5 threshold and grew in size, there was a massive chance that so much attention would be stuck trying to get through roads that were already in the damage path and work those before moving on.

Listening to the radio scan over the many local channels, his thoughts were confirmed by reports of parts of neighborhoods blocked off by debris too thick to cut through, forcing rescue personnel to spend time trying to get through or find a route around.

Just the Google map view of what the area looked like gave him the picture that despite being seven miles from downtown; the area had a lot more farmland than most but with pockets of housing clustered together. It resembled more of what he would find in urban Kansas or Oklahoma, somewhere where there was less density. Still, given the limited access, it meant a less likely chance of anyone being able to reach them immediately.

It was the best he could do with what he had. He could walk the some two square miles around the core and work his way through. If Old Hickory could be opened up completely, then that meant he had almost a direct shot straight back to the hospital. Twelve miles, sure, but it was better than nothing at all.

Yet, with that plan in mind, he didn't know what to expect.

Coming up within a mile from Old Hickory itself, he was quickly getting the idea.

In stark contrast to the dark sky, a sea of flashing reds, blues, and ambers stood among the scene of catastrophic damage that stretched for all directions. Home after home went from a few blown windows and roof damage to having no roof. What looked like some school had its entire western side caved in, with the roof peeled back like an open can.

To his left was another sight that gave credence to the storm's strength. Following along the southbound rail tracks before paralleling for some time, a grain train stood idle. It blocked him from seeing what was behind the rails like a wall, but the closer he got into Old Hickory, the more he saw why traffic had been cut off. Freight car after freight car became more and more warped and crooked. Passing a Dollar General, the cars became more tipped over. They were pushed off the tracks and collided with each other or ripped apart in their crash.

But what made him slowly come to a stop and turn his turret to film was how much further off the tracks they went, with what he could only describe as the devastated remains of houses smashed up against the train. Maps showed a whole neighborhood beyond the tracks, and the number of masses of wood over the tracks made him feel that the core path was extremely close by.

A twister knocking over a train wasn't uncommon. Wind on the flat broadside of anything could tip it over. Ones loaded to weigh 100 tons each showed intense sustained winds. While a 200 mph gust was a powerful force against anything, 200 sustained meant anything getting hit by that force for a constant duration would be utterly decimated.

200, possibly 210, was what Lincoln would consider Shrieker's maximum limit now for raw wind speeds—the significant differences from a flat broadside of a railcar to angled armor to stop it from tipping. But in the absolute steel and wood blender that this and many storms before could get, he didn't want to risk getting intercepts. His numbers might have doubled if he did, but even with the truck built to handle the impacts, it was too much of a stupid risk for anyone driving a vehicle like this. The fact that getting hit by maybe an empty airborne oil barrel going 100 could take out a car or semi, the better part of a whole house going airborne and only partially slowing down when it hits a blocked train and still keeps going, wasn't something anyone could truly brace for.

What little traffic that did come this way came to a grinding halt once he reached a little business strip split by the tracks. Whatever force was enough to derail so many cars to knock off three locomotives close to a crossing. The middle unit seemed fine, yet the forward looked like its nose was smashed on, with the rear unit being pushed off by some dozen more cars piled into a heap.

Crews from places unknown used a bulldozer and loader to shove some of the damage out of the way while numerous others worked to try to untangle the mess of power lines still snapped in half and webbed across the tracks and trees into the distance. What he could only guess as parts of debris lying around a makeshift archway only a lane wide was all that kept the flow of traffic from driving over live wires.

Moving at best ten mph, trying not to hit opposition traffic, he slowly flicked the joystick to turn the camera around to face the road ahead.

Anything that was a recognizable place to anyone was shredded, gutted, or leveled. The decimated remains of what anyone could see as a Dollar Tree without any walls were mirrored by the twisted metal carcass of Mapco gas station across the street surrounded by dozens of EMS between it and a Hardees. When he reached the point of a Sonic Drive-In, everything changed in how it was blown over. More to the west than the east, things became more twisted until he saw a Life Care facility just a block down the road with half its roof smashed into a McDonald's and general store, completely leveled, mainly standing, and somehow still had its lights on.

Tents littered the parking lot as people brought in others on stretchers. At the same time, a plow truck meant for snow was trying to push away the remains of an AC unit. Ambulances circled the north side of the building into the street, worming their way to either drop off or pick up survivors.

A shiver and dark thought spurred in his mind, and he smacked it away just as quickly. A triage center meant he might not have to run the entire distance to the hospital, but images of the damage only painted the picture that the medical center was one of the lucky things to be spared. Just three more buildings south abs, he had little doubt it would have been completely leveled.

Yet beyond that, the damage tampered off back to the lower ends. More and more of the typical EF1 and EF2 range still meant places suffered but not outright destroyed. A rowhouse complex passing by was mostly unharmed, though he couldn't see what the opposite sides were like.

Following the bend of Robinson Road across the River Green Bridge, the scene quickly faded from destruction to being what the place would look like any other day of the year from no power in the rain. Traffic backed up as far as the eye could see in the other lanes, with two police cars blocking the bridge; the swarm of headlights ahead stood still, with some brave enough to risk trying to turn around through the grass or get on the side roads.

Lincoln sped by with only a passing glance. Those watching might get a glimpse of himself, but they all knew it was just the moment to look and turn away. A left turn onto Larkin Springs Road, squeezing through the gap people hastily made from an emergency vehicle blaring its lights and sirens, presented another somewhat welcoming sight: another medical facility untouched and still with its lights on. He zipped by it so fast he didn't have time to read, but it was another thing that helped ease his thoughts on how he was about to handle this mess and didn't have to go far.

Ahead of him stood a half-mile rising hill. As Shrieker put out that extra power to get its weight up to speed without stalling out, it got closer and closer. Instead of the sight of being up high enough to possibly see the city as far as the skyline, all that greeted him was more housing, trees, and hills that felt more like what he saw more driving in Kentucky earlier.

With the bit of light through the clouds and barely a sign of anyone else on this road, he reached to switch off the siren. Hearing its wails quickly fade away, leaving the sound of rain against the windows and the hum of the engine; even with the radio just barely a bar above being switched off, the feeling inside didn't have the same kind of mood as it was not some ten minutes ago when he left the gas station.

If it weren't for the fact that he was going into a rescue mission with a high chance of finding things that could make him utterly sick to the stomach, feeling the tank move up and down and sway as he went over the crests and dips of the hills would have felt almost too peaceful.

He had to shake his head to get those thoughts away, but unlike everything else, his physical exhaustion was holding the door wide open to come on in. He couldn't slam it shut and lock the deadbolt; each move he made was just like a conga line of people marching straight through, keeping it forced open. If his head weren't already pounding from him jumping from adrenaline to sick so much today, he would have gladly started the beat against the steering wheel.

Coming upon the intersection of Neelys Bend Road, those feelings seemed to take a moment to quiet down as he turned south. He went slower this time, barely above 30 the rest of the journey, with no sign of anyone ahead or behind. It wasn't until a mile over the hill that the signs of what happened began to be noticed. It is not full-on tornado damage, but more like the results of the outer wind field, places experiencing a burst of straight-line winds in the wrong direction outstretching from the northern side.

Rounding a curve and gunning up a hill to another dead light, the rain eased enough that a break in the clouds granted him some light to see what could be in the distance.

His foot slipped from the gas and stomped onto the brake, sending the tank fishtailing some distance as it came to an abrupt stop, and Lincoln quickly threw open his door to stand as tall as he possibly could. Expecting to see it like a buzz saw that had stopped from cutting too far beyond its blades, all that stood before him as far as the eye could see was utter carnage.

Slipping back inside, gut instinct would say to gun it. But what was left of the rational thinking department was still in partial control, reminding Lincoln not to go speeding into the damage at the risk of taking out someone or himself.

The hope that nobody was around here felt like a cold knife on fire. You hope no one was home or traveling around these parts in those critical minutes. Still, simultaneously, you can't help thinking they were there, trying to get home before the storm or already taking over, only for nature to sweep them away.

He wasn't qualified to rate any of it, but years and years of watching what these storms could do before his own eyes had let him build up a good understanding of what to look for in the signs of damage to strength. Just rolling down the hill, the gas station barely had its lights flickering on with some shattered windows, but across the street, just within throwing distance, a one-story brick house was practically carved in half. One-half of the house went from EF1 at minimum to straight up EF4. Maybe EF3, if you consider it, didn't take the entire house to the foundation, but the fact of the matter is that it was strong enough to survive to that level, and it painted a grim picture.

Rolling to a stop at the intersection of Joe Pyron and Martin Pass, down either side or forward, was a horror show like a war had marched through. House after house, either shredded or completely decimated, presented itself to Lincoln like an artist revealing its masterpiece.

The map said that this was the only road connecting what he saw as two affected areas, with the center estimated to be straight ahead across that very road. He didn't even have to look far to see how impassable the road was, with power lines woven into downed trees at the top of another hill. The damage was too thick for Shrieker to get through by itself, even if he cut away and towed the blockade or had the path to do some off-roading.

With the mental note to send out a request for services to bring in heavy equipment to bust through, a thought flipped a spiritual coin to decide heads or tails in going right or left. Tails won, and slowly, he moved down Pyron Drive.

Moving through a pair of walls that had the shredded remains of a 'Kimbo-' something, the road wasn't so blocked that he couldn't just ease over debris or move around it, but the fact that one after the other, it was that two-story brick homes, modern ones that could have been recent or as early as a decade or two were flattened. One could say it didn't look that bad, but when there was nothing left to compare, you can't get a complete picture of what was there before.

He didn't get two houses deep before stopping again.

Dread was making its presence known to him at the magnitude of the task he had given himself. High-EF3 to EF4 was everywhere he looked. No house, car, or tree was spared. If any home had a second floor in its existence, that and everything from the floor it stood upon was gone. Trees were uprooted entirely, one and the top half of a power line that went over him was imbedded into the front half of the house to his back-right with a sedan folded over itself laying sideways in the garage.

Rechecking the radar loop, he zoomed in as far as to show the street names; he watched as the TVS, tornado vortex signature, passed right above this spot. It didn't show a hundred percent where the tornado was exactly located at that second. Still, given the size of the debris signature on radar and velocity couplet, the core of the twister had to be no less than a tenth of a mile from where he was sitting now. A street further up extended to the point that he knew whatever home was at the end had been inside the core.

Pulling forward enough to point his nose toward the house to his immediate right, he turned his focus to the cul-de-sac that split off from this point. It was small, mostly six houses, close to the main road with space to turn around; it was as good as any to start.

Popping the door back open, he didn't have it within him to leap down like he used to. Holding onto the roll cage that lined the windshield, he swung himself to the street, taking a deep breath to get his mind in focus.

From how he looked all day, his attire was a stark contrast to the casual wear he had on all. On top of looking more in with the cold weather season, a bright yellow shirt covered around his torso with an even bright neon green and silver vest. Practically glowing in the light, it was cut across by a black tool vest utterly loaded with every piece of medical equipment he had on hand now with a spool of rope and a hammer strapped to one side, and a can of red spray paint accompanied by a lifeguard pass alarm a respirator.

With a radio and angled flashlight on the shoulder straps, his impact helmet and goggles with a headlamp resting above, and knee and elbow pads, without context, he looked like an amalgamation of a construction worker, rock climber, medic, and biker all in one, down to the gloves and steel-toed shoes. It was an outfit he hadn't used that often, but when he did, it was usually in times of serious disaster.

It was hard to argue about how much more severe you could get right now, but choosing exactly which point to start directly was.

His focus lingered on one house that didn't feel normal. It was practically leveled, with barely the front walls of the living room and side of the garage still standing. Beside it and the house directly ahead, nose deep into a ditch, was a van, maybe an early 2000s model in a faded green color. All its windows shattered, and the rear gate crumpled inwards like someone had grabbed the rear axle and yanked it up over a storm drain to be where the taillights were. It was more intact towards the front, but even that had collapsed enough to push the hood and fenders out of place. Scattered like a shotgun blast were bits and pieces of speared wood embedded all over like a rabid porcupine attack that extended from the grass to the house behind him.

It was gruesome to see what the storm could do. It wasn't close to the utter insanity he had seen before, but something felt very off about this one.

Moving towards the van, it felt like he was approaching a faulty bomb, waiting for an unexpected victim to get within its blast radius before letting the wires suddenly reconnect. Stepping through the grass, the extent of how lethal the 'shotgun blast' of wood was seeing parts of the interior be impaled entirely. The back row had two splinter boards that cut through at an angle from below upwards towards the roof with half of another-

"OH, MY-" Lincoln had to bite hard into his glove to keep himself from finishing that sentence. He turned away, taking a couple of steps to an uprooted tree to support himself and shield his eyes, desperately trying to think that what he saw wasn't what he saw.

"...hello?"

In trying not just outright to vomit, he choked on his breath when he heard a voice coming from the van. Internally screaming at how was the person in the driver seat still alive, let alone conscious enough to even talk, made his skin crawl like thousands of bugs all over him.

He turned back towards the van, making a cross across his chest and forehead in an attempt to hope and pray that what was to happen wouldn't become something he imagined. He stepped up to within a foot of the driver's door.

"I…I can't move…" the man's words rasped. His breathing was like he had just been drowning and was only just getting small gulps of air.

His eyes were closed, and looking inside, Lincoln was glad that the man couldn't see the reason for his restricted movement. Seeing how streaks of blood coated half his face, it seemed almost like as much as when he was tending to the woman's head wound except for how much more painted the shard sticking out the back of the headrest. He could see his arms were free, but the dashboard had crumpled inward. Shoving the steering column straight up against his chest with the steering wheel stuck to his stomach.

Reaching for the door handle, his hand felt nothing. That whole portion had crumpled in and over itself from how the lower half of the car was buckled. With the window gone and now having to risk his knuckles again, Lincoln tried grabbing onto the edge. Trying to use his bodyweight to leverage the door, the most he was getting was barely rocking the whole car, with the edge of the door he was holding on slowly deforming but not breaking.

Cursing under his breath and with a sharp cough, feeling like he had just used up any of his reserves left, Lincoln let go and shook his head. "Hold on, sir. I'll get you out in a second!" he shouted, running to Shrieker and whipping around the side to the passenger side storage box and combing through a mess of tools before fishing out a beaten-up black crowbar.

Running back, he wasted no more time, shoving the flat end into the side where the hinges were. Intent on breaking the door off where it was most compromised, he felt his lungs starting to burn again as he put everything he could outright break off the bolts. He heard one set pop, and gritting his teeth, he put as much force in as possible till he felt the door physically pop outwards.

Tossing the crowbar back to the truck, Lincoln took the edge of the window and, in a fit of anger, tore the door backward, folding it opposite its normal way until the lock broke off and it fell to the grass. Seeing the carnage from outside was more preferred than seeing the utter disaster that was in this one van.

Any hope he had of trying to free the man evaporated faster than a cup of water in Death Valley.

He had to look away again. Hold his hand to his mouth and try not to unleash his stomach. He coughed a few times, wincing when it felt like he was about to go, but swallowed whatever was there to focus on the scene before him.

He slowly moved closer, crouching until he was at eye level with the man. Hearing all the commotion and possibly feeling how close he was, he tried to turn himself to face Lincoln, but in his struggle, Lincoln quickly moved up to hold him down.

"Sir, don't move. You're hurt very badly," he said, leaning closer to get an estimate of the damage.

"I… I can't…"

"You're pinned to the seat by debris," he reiterated, holding his hand to the man's shoulder to keep him from moving.

"... can't see…" he moaned. Trying to turn his head in that direction, he heard Lincoln beside him and raised his left arm to try to feel for his face in a panic. Lincoln quickly bit off his gloved hand and grasped it with the man's free arm. Holding it still so that he didn't move anymore or hit his wounds. But in the personal case, to let him know he was right here beside him.

"Sir, you're… it's because you're in shock. Your body is experiencing nerve overload," he explains, not wanting to go into the details of someone having half their head speared.

"Why… why it… doesn't it hurt…" he pleaded, almost on the verge of tears, but Lincoln didn't have it within to answer. He was too conflicted trying to figure out what to do.

This was on a scale that he RARELY encountered. Any ounce of medical experience he had was comparable to putting a bandaid on a broken leg. This was the kind of situation that Peter would have called in extra services to assist or have the entire team try to figure out a way to save someone.

How could he possibly work with this? Maybe, in some reality, he could use the chainsaw to cut out the steering column. That'd free up space to even try to figure out a way to remove him, but that one piece that he could see on top of the shotgun blast to the chest made it impossible for him even to try. He would be stupid in every definition to try to remove the shard; just trying to move the man forward enough to get it out of the headrest would be a death sentence from all the movement.

The fact he was even still alive and conscious enough to form words was a testament to how lucky he was that the shard hadn't instantly put his lights out. So many in the world from the past and future had suffered head injuries more significant and survived, or lesser, and died instantly. Had he been in his place during an intercept, the hope that had the windows broken and debris did come at him, the impact helmets were there to prevent or cushion the blow.

Could he have survived this? He wouldn't know, nor wanted to.

He was bleeding out, but the wood did a decent job stemming the flow. He was low on breath from the lousy angle he was sitting, skin sickly pale and growing by the second, and already on the level of blood loss, he knew there wasn't much time.

"Alright, Sir?"

"Gary…" the man, Gary, groaned hearing the question.

"Gary?" he moaned, squeezing Lincoln's hand as confirmation. "Okay, Gary, I'm Lincoln. Just sit tight and save your strength, alright? I'm going to make a quick call."

"Lincoln…" he groaned. Trying to keep a tight grip, Lincoln slowly stood up and pulled away.

"It's alright; I'll be right here and be back in a second." Lincoln gave him one more reassuring squeeze before slowly slipping his hand away. Taking a few steps back once more, he didn't let Gary out of his sight as he got out his phone again. Grimacing at how the charge was running low, he dialed the emergency services for what he felt would be just one of many times in the coming night.

In the few short rings he heard buzz in his ear, he briefly listened to a man's voice speak, "91-"

"My name is Lincoln Loud; I'm by the intersection of Neelys Bend and Joe Pyron Drive. I have an elder male trapped in his vehicle, unable to get him out. Excessive bleeding is visible with labored breaths and severe injury. I need medical support here, immediately!" He seethed, sucking in a deep breath from his speedy explanation and not wanting to let Gary overhear too much.

"You said by Neelys Bend and Joe Pyron Driver, correct?" he heard along with clicking from the other end.

"Correct." There was another pause that made him tap his foot impatiently—looking over to see if Gary was still breathing.

"They're sending a team from the Sun Crest facility. They should be at your location within the next six minutes."

For the first time in a while, Lincoln sighed in relief. While it was far from the near-instantaneous response everyone wished for, six minutes was stretching it in a situation like this. Given how much was going on, there was the hope that the emergency service was already in high gear, dispatching everyone.

"Thank you," he sighed, stuffing his phone away and darting back to Gary's side. "Gary?" he asked, snatching Gary's hand back into his. "I'm going to try and patch you up. The ambulance is on its way and will be here in a second, so stay calm and take in steady breaths, alright?"

"My eyes… please…." Gary pleaded, almost like he was about to cry.

Shaking his head, Lincoln complied, "Hang in there," he reached down to one of his pouches. Breaking open a wrapper of disinfectant wipes barely the size of his phone screen, holding it tight, he gently brushed it across Gary's left eye, clearing away the dirt and blood, "Just a second…"

Though complicated by the constant flow, he dug into another pouch, procuring a fist full of blue shop rags, just something to help wipe away the blood. Flipping the wipe to a good side, the dirt that coated Gary's visible face began to vanish. And though his movement was limited, Gary blinked and rolled his eye a few times, trying to reduce the blur in his vision.

Tossing the cloth away, as Lincoln started digging in for more supplies, Gary tilted his head as far as he could physically go. Seeing the young white-haired man standing there beside him would have been a very odd sight for anyone, but the man could not care less.

In a voice that spoke gratitude, he closed his eye and whispered, "... thank you…"

"It's no problem," Lincoln replied. Turning his attention to the ungodly wound, he tried developing a battle plan for this mess. Swapping hands to dig into another pouch on his side for a packet of gauzing, ripping off the top, he flared it out before leaning closer to Gary. Almost halfway into the crumbled car, nearly face to face, looking over the damage done, he didn't have it in him to remark about having to wear an eye patch for the rest of his time, but he was sure Gary already knew that.

Flicking his headlamp on revealed that he had to look away again to save his stomach. Looking back, he went to work wrapping some of the bandages around the wood itself; letting sit for a second, he got out another fistful of wipes, layering them around the edges until he reached around and alternated between over the wraps and around his head as tightly as possible to keep the object from shifting. He had no idea how much was inside; maybe it thinned it, was just big on his side, or all the way through. He couldn't risk it shifting a centimeter. A working theory was that once help arrived, they could break off the headrest and ease him out, but that was still a future idea.

"I… I was trying to get to my grandkids… I tried, but the storm…" Gary said, trying to keep his voice louder as Lincoln worked. Yet, Gary's lack of reaction was an odd thing that worried him. Sure, crying in pain was hard for anyone to watch when trying to help, but that meant they at least could still feel something.

"Was coming, stopped, and then disappeared to come out of nowhere." Lincoln summed up, and Gary hummed in agreement. "Weather has been a real tricky prick to everyone today."

Gary laughed or tried to as it came out as a raspy exhale. As Lincoln worked, Gary slowly dug around the side of his pants, almost like his arm was turning to stone. He searched for the seam until his hand found his pocket, and he pulled out a worn brown wallet. He worked his fingers around the fold until he slipped it into a folded photo paper.

His grip on the wallet fell as he held it up as high as he could. Heaving like he was fighting gravity to lift a hundred pounds the size of three dollar bills, he held it high enough that Lincoln saw it from the corner of his eye.

"Please… find them..." Gary begged, out of breath as he pushed the photo to Lincoln's shoulder. Pausing his work, Lincoln moved some to get out of the van and take the photo. Folding it open under the headlamp with a date from two years ago, it had a picture of what he could easily guess as a slightly younger Gary with three kids, a boy and two girls, possibly very early teens or younger, standing in a big arm hug in front of a house with what he guessed was their parents in the background.

Feeling a voice in his brain prepared to say don't make a promise, his heart spoke, "Where are they?"

"Sou-south Hendersonville."

At the mention of that town, Lincoln winced at its implications. Flashes of the radar track told him that the insane debris ball that started up in these parts quickly continued growing as it crossed the river from Old Hickory.

"I…" he thought hard, but depending on how the next hour went, he knew he'd be going in that direction to continue or join up with others. Part of him hoped that their home had been missed, maybe a glancing blow, but he knew at this point not to get his hopes up so much.

Placing the photo in his wallet pocket, he looked back up at Gary with a hardened look. "I'll try."

Gary sighed with an ever-so-visible smile as a massive weight had lightened from him."Thank you…"

"Don't thank me yet," Lincoln said as he heard the distant sounds of sirens growing closer. That little flame of hope that was within him slowly rising again. "Just a bit longer, and we'll get you out in no time. You'll see your grandkids by morning and have one hell of a story to tell them, huh, Gary?" He said with a smile and hope in his voice.

But looking back to Gary, he didn't see or hear any reaction to his remark.

"Gary?" He tapped his shoulder, but no response.

With his ungloved hand, his fingers snapped to the side of his neck, searching for any pulse or movement. Counting 30 seconds, his hope fell lower than the cloud base. After a full minute, he hung his head low. Slowly retracting his hand as he stepped back, Lincoln had to stay where he stood, fearing that breaking his concentration would send him down the route of anger or despair.

He leaned against the van, burying his head into his arm, trying not to let realization consume him.

Rationality was speaking in its defense. For those he saved, he was right there. He followed Sam to the lake; the woman came to him and the crowd minutes after the twister cut through. For how far he had traveled, for how much time he had been sitting in his truck, at the hospital or gas station, so much time was eaten up all the while; Gary could have been stuck here since the minute he was trying to winch Sam's car out.

What difference he could have made appearing here just a minute early or later wouldn't change the outcome. He could hear an ambulance coming. Several, along with the echoes of what he could guess, were police and fire engines close behind. That call for aid could have come sooner had he been here that minute. No matter what he did in that brief window, the odds of saving him weren't there to begin with. Just that fleeting hope that maybe he could.

Another feeling helped solidify his decision: the smile at someone being by his side and the thankfulness he spoke with when he cleaned his eye and, much to his reluctance, made the promise. He couldn't save Gary from fading, but he made sure to let him know that in his final moments, someone was there by his side.

But in that second, he realized he was doing just that.

There would be a time later to mourn those hurt and fallen by the storm when all the dark clouds and rain had passed them by in the dark of night to be under the sun of the tomorrow. Gary could have been the only one to fall in this event, but how could he know? There were homes all around him shredded apart that had the chance of no one being home or generations of whole families trapped and losing their own battles without help.

He couldn't waste any more time. Taking a can of spray paint, he stepped back around to paint a large red X across the back half of the van. Marking the date, time, who was here, and what was found. Shoving it back into his belt, he looked back to where Gary sat still for what he knew would be the last time he would see him and marched to the closest house to search.

Sending one last prayer to whoever above was listening to let him rest in peace.

---

(Note: These AN notes are written before, during, and afterhand to convey my thinking. Not based on what's changed, reviews, etc., and is borderline me ranting out loud my way of thinking.)

So, where to begin with this one.

In a sense of the current timeline: Chapter 23 was posted on June 4th after #24 was completed, and work on what was to be #25 was in full progress. After 5k words, I took a break than came back on the 10th to realize the initial idea wouldn't really work. So instead of this chapter being the previously mentioned "4 ideas into one" was thrown out in favor of basically having this chapter finish off the present, with Chapter 26 being the revised NSL that was finished before this split and after that the new Chapter 27 that was originally far back #20.

BUT, when feeling it didn't need the divide, I decided to combine 25 into 24, but that broke the word count over 20k and felt too much at once. So it got placed back as Chapter 25 meaning Lincoln's section just keeps getting so big it needs constantly broken up.

Confusing? Don't worry, I get lost a lot trying to keep track of a lot of these numbers.

One thing I am trying to keep track of is how things are changing in both the reality of the weather world and the show. As Season 8's first episode kinda skrewed the story's timeline as with Lori now back and 'living' with the family again, the beginning doesn't line up as much anymore. Even though I've taken the creative liberty to change the timeline, I am working on the basis that so far, the show has only covered about 2 and half years' worth of time (as MANY things can happen within just the timespan of an afternoon, day, or week.) But then there is 2 direct episodes on Christmas itself and yet 3 episodes for April Fool's Day, it's a hit or miss. Though given so far Season 8 has only had 1 major change (Lori living next door) I can work with the revised timeline. Given this story's timeline really doesn't kick off until Lincoln's "official" 13th birthday. Though some point to it just being a chunky show timeline.

On the other hand, this year say another record be set in the form of the Greenfield, Iowa EF4 on May 21 of this year with a recorded wind gusts up to 309 to 318mph but with recorded windspeeds of nearly 271. With that 318 it makes it the third strongest tornado in history back maximum possible winds inside the vortex. So it was a bit strong, but not as strong as the 1999 monster or the insanity inside El Reno with the former actually being upgraded to possibly having upwards of 321.

This does kinda pose a strange thought for both a future topic and mentions of the past, as Greenfield would easily be one of the many tornadoes Lincoln would have chased in 2024 and tried to get inside with Storm Shrieker. But given at the time, it wouldn't have its portable radars or his team have a radar truck, yet a Dow truck was close by during it all. I could forsee it being something like him telling the story of 'How we almost got hit by that 300mph drillbit in Iowa" or another idea involving Lincoln and Clyde's relationship being put to the test.

(Note: These AN notes are written before, during, and afterhand to convey my thinking. Not based on what's changed, reviews, etc., and is borderline me ranting out loud my way of thinking.)