Endangered by Lamar Giles Page A

Tap-tap . . .
    I lower the music and say, “If you’re nervous, we could talk about it.”
    Her tapping increases. “You should concentrate on the road.”
    By “road” she means the thirty feet of visible asphalt fading into a torrential downpour that’s so bad some drivers angle their cars toward the shoulder, deciding to wait instead of persevere. Looking through my windshield is like looking into a pool, and my wipers fight the water like bad swimmers, breaking the surface long enough to gasp before going under again. One of those fifty-miles-per-hour wind gusts the weatherman warned about swats my car, and I grip the steering wheel with both hands so I don’t swerve.
    Lightning flashes. The bolt is a crooked electric finger pointing towardthe worst of the storm. I don’t need the directions, though. Already going that way.
    â€œWhen you said you needed my help,” Ocie says, “I didn’t think you meant with committing suicide.”
    â€œWe aren’t going to die.” I hope.
    Another gust bounces us in the lane.
    â€œI’m glad you’re so confident. What are we doing here?”
    â€œRemember that contest I told you about? The one I need a killer photo for?”
    I glance over for a reaction. Ocie’s jaw is slack. She stares at the roof of my car; I know this look. Really, she’s looking to God for a more satisfactory explanation.
    â€œYou’re effing crazy, Panda. Driving in this? For a photo? Of what?”
    I hesitate. She’s not going to take this well. “I’m—I’m not sure yet.”
    â€œJesus take the wheel. Like, seriously.”
    It’s true. I have some ideas—what I’d like to see when I’m looking through my viewfinder. You never know for sure, not until you’re in the moment.
    Rain patter and the thunk-squee, thunk-squee of my wipers are the only sounds. I need to say something, something that will sell Ocie on today’s mission. Something affirming.
    â€œI overreacted about you tutoring Taylor. I’m sorry.”
    â€œYou might want to apologize to him, since you made me cancel his session to go storm chasing.”
    That will never happen. “This is about us. I shouldn’t have been all bitchy about it.”
    â€œReally?”
    Maybe. A little. I shrug. “So, you and him are, like, real friends?”
    â€œNot like we are.”
    Thunk-squee, thunk-squee
    Ocie says, “There’s nothing going on between us or anything. If that’s what you’re thinking.”
    â€œIt never even crossed my mind.”
    She flinches.
    â€œI just mean you’d have to be pretty stupid to go there with him, O. You know what he’s like.”
    â€œAre you sure you do?”
    Gripping the wheel tight enough to make my hands ache, I say, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œIt means—” But Ocie’s phone spasms in her lap, emitting a long, aggravated groan that startles us both. She reads the screen. “Emergency alert! You know this mess is a Hurricane Watch now? Are you listening? Don’t you have anything to say?”
    I gasp, and catch the word rocketing up my throat before it passes my lips.
    I almost say, “Perfect.”
    If photographers were soldiers, storm photographers would be our Navy SEALs. The elite shooters who do the things most can’t, things most of us shouldn’t even try. Storm photography is dangerous for all sorts of reasons. Lightning strikes, flying debris, flash flooding. That stuff kills people who are trying to get away from storms; imagine the mortality rate for those going into them. Like we’re doing now.
    We make it to Atlantic Avenue in one piece, a tenuous state. Rain pelts us with greater frequency, peppering so hard I expect a thousand raindropdents in my ride when this thing is over. I pull into the empty lot of the Oceanview Inn, a dwarf building wedged between two