‘May.’ Jordan regards her best friend with pursed lips, and May doesn’t seem to need explanation. She presses a fisted hand to her mouth. That same fear I saw on her face in the basement, the absolute terror, starts to creep back. That’s how I realize that the state of the field we’re looking at right now is just the beginning.

‘We,’ May finally chokes out, ‘need to go home.’

Jordan pockets her phone and looks to me. ‘Do you still have your car keys?’

This drive to Eagle Rock is nothing like the first. Everywhere we look, signs have been blown to the ground, front-yard trinkets lie scattered and broken, plants have been uprooted. When we hit the town itself, it becomes evident that Prosperity was fortunate.

I remember well enough that tornados leave giant gashes in the ground when they plough through, quite literally, and the gash starts to show right away. The Eagle Rock sign is split in two, and from there a massive wound cuts through the earth, raking its way through houses, shops, and storefronts that are carved open so wide you can see the bones of the structures. The church is completely destroyed, and part of its spire lies across the street.

In the passenger seat, May looks out of the window, stony-faced, unreadable. Shutting down.

I pull past what’s left of the feed store, and around towards the road that leads down to the ranch. I can’t even bring the truck up the driveway.

The minute I hit the brakes, May flings the door open and runs straight across the shingle-littered grass, her lacrosse cleats pounding straight into the muddy dirt. ‘PAPA!’ she yells. ‘MUMMA!’

Jordan, in the back seat, looks like someone’s sucked the life from her face. She’s pale as a sheet as she takes it all in. ‘My parents texted,’ she says quietly. ‘Spared our place. It’s so twisted. The paths these things take.’

The knots that form in the pit of my stomach agree. For your home to be standing, to have four walls and a roof, running water, electricity, it feels gut-wrenching when you see something like this.