⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 ASKING FOR IT      ╱     OLD FRIENDS.𖥔˚
the PROLOGUE

          New York City is nothing like Oklahoma. It's loud and busy and packed to the brim with people, and no space for the grass to grow and the wind to whip. The spaces instead, fill with white noise so insistent you're a victim to being unable to hear your own thoughts.

It's no surprise it was Kate Carter's choice of escape. It was nothing like Oklahoma.

As Carmen Gossett continues to stare out the floor-to-ceiling windows of the conference room she and Javier Rivera had been ushered into while waiting for Kate, she feels her skin tighten between her knuckles as she clenches and unclenches her fists time and time again. It's not as satisfying as the biting sting of ripping her cuticles with porcelain-like teeth, but Javi would hassle her if he saw it.

During the third pull of skin against bone, her eyes are pulled away from bustling bodies━━━unaware of the fact that they're even being watched━━━and toward a soft and familiar voice behind the two.

"Hi. I'm Kate."

Javi's eyes land on her first, an old habit of falling into Kate Carter's orbit clearly not completely devoid of his system. Carmen's are quick to follow, the brim of her trucker hat obscuring her vision just so. Deft fingers push it up quickly.

"Hey, Kate."

"Hey." Shock fills familiar eyes even as she chuckles. Carmen's arms drop from their place crossed against her chest in favor of swooping in behind Javi to take Kate in her arms next. "Umm..."

"It's been a while."

The once-unspoken words carry a heavier weight than such a simple combination of letters should, but there's no denying the chest-pressing feeling they bring with them. It's become a common pressure for the Gossett girl ever since Javi approached her with his idea to recruit Kate. All because she had no idea how to explain to the man that Carmen never let Kate slip through her fingers━━━she had refused.

After that day, when Kate pulled from them like a riptide had swept her away━━━fiercely and unexpectedly━━━Carmen had held on with an iron grip. Her knuckles turned white and her cheeks puffed red with exertion, but she clung. She refused to lose Kate.

Refused to lose another.

Thankfully, it seemed to have worked. Somewhere along the way of shoving and pushing in hopes of breaking out into a run, Kate seemed to realize Carmen's nails were already embedded so deep in her soul they were impossible to move.

Carmen told Javi none of this when he first brought Kate's name into conversation because she knew they didn't share the same fate. Instead, she watched from the sidelines as Kate disappeared from Javi's life━━━leaving nothing but a footnote to check back to━━━and took with her the part of him she never knew she had in her hands.

"Yeah," Kate agrees quietly, eyes flicking to Carmen so quickly one could almost believe they missed it. But Carmen didn't. She never did. "What're you two doing here?"

Javi opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a sputtering cough after Carmen elbows him in the side.

"Why don't we go somewhere else? Do you have a break coming up?"

Narrowing chocolate-colored orbs, Kate nods slowly. "Sure. I can take my lunch early."

"Perfect," Javi cheers, going as far as to clap his together.

Kate blinks, eyes flickering between two foreign yet familiar faces before nodding. "Right, okay. Let's go. I know a place."

And just like they always had before, Javi and Carmen follow Kate with a confidence that knows no bounds.

          Along packed sidewalks, Javi fills impossible silence with talk of trivial things. Things Kate would have known if she hadn't fled from him like a woman on the run from the law.

"After graduation, I went back to Miami. Felt like I needed to regroup. Shit, you wouldn't believe it. I joined the military."

"You joined the military?" Kate doesn't stumble per se at the words, but there's a clear fumble in her hands that almost transfers to her feet as her head lifts to look at Javi again. Almost as if she's working it around in her mind, the image of the Javi she left━━━always halfway to the next party, pimple-faced, and oh so young━━━risking his life day in and day out with a discipline that seeps into one's marrow.

"Yeah. I was just feeling kind of lost." Javi shrugs, pauses, and takes Kate in one more time. Carmen can't help if he's seeing the same things she is. The blonder hair, the blazer jacket, the hunched shoulders. All stark contrasts of the girl who fled Oklahoma half a decade ago. "I tried reaching out to you a few times."

"Yeah, I'm not great with communication."

Carmen thanks every voice listening Kate and Javi are ahead of her━━━New York sidewalks don't leave a lot to be desired━━━so guilty eyes can't flick to her.

"Yeah, I mean, you know, I figured. You know, life and all." Once again, an invisible force makes its home on Carmen's chest, taking up space for all that's unsaid. "But I hadn't heard from you, so, you know, I stopped by your mom's in Sapulpa to check-in. She said... she said you don't come home anymore."

Javi turns back to the straggler of their group, but Carmen's eyes are watching the street fly by next to them in an attempt to avoid it.

"I knew you moved, but I didn't expect you to move somewhere like New York."

"New York's great," she tells them, sounding just as much like she's convincing herself and them. "I like it here. People are nice."

At the start of a crosswalk's painted white lines, tires squeal beside them as a taxi attempts to run a red light and subsequently almost runs them over. The driver sticks a hand out of the window and a horn blares. "Get your ass out of the street!"

"Watch where you're going!" Carmen counters, moving forward to usher her friends with a hand to each of their backs. The stiff material of their blazers scratches against her fingertips, and she rolls her eyes at them both.

Kate splutters, "Most people."

"Right," Carmen scoffs, shaking her head as they duck into the café the blonde had been leading them to. "I'm sure."

Neither of them counters her jab and instead, they shuffle awkwardly to a table when it becomes clear just what distance and time do to one's bonds.

Finally, after they've gained drinks and the air between them is stretched on a side just too thin, Javi clears his throat and pulls his phone out. "My job in the military was operating one of these."

As she lifted her mocha to her lips, she could only assume Javi's showing Kate the same picture he showed her when he first pitched his idea and his crew to her.

The two had stayed in contact as best as they could in the years that followed, and Javi said she was one of her first calls, par Kate, when the idea came to him. She knew he had to be lying in some capacity because when he brought the idea to her, it was alongside a crew so big and money with so many zeroes she felt sticky.

"Phased Array Radar... PAR. You know, scanning for missiles."

"Leveled up from Dorothy."

Javi chuckles. "Many levels. This thing was so powerful and so fast, I could watch a moth fly from, like, a mile away." He stops, eyes falling on Carmen before back to Kate. Maybe because he knows the truth deep down he's yet to voice. The girl who walked away that day all those years ago is not going to just agree to what he's asking. "But I kept asking myself...What if we point this thing at a tornado?"

"Well, Javi, it's the size of a building." Kate frowns and shakes her head at him. "You'd never be able to get it close enough."

"Until now." Tanned fingers tap on the table once, twice. An outlet for pent-up energy and poorly concealed nerves. "The military, they came up with portable units, and they're small. I got my hands on a few prototypes."

As the blonde across the table continues to look more and more unmoved, he becomes more restless. Carmen nudges his ankle, and he's up like a shot toward the counter.

"Yo, my man, can... can I borrow this real quick?" He asks, already grabbing whatever it was he was reaching for. "Thanks. Appreciate it."

Joining them again, he sighs as he starts placing cups of jam around the table in a display. "Um...All right, look. Let's say this... this is a tornado, right?" Taking Kate's untouched water, he spins a spoon in it to create a funnel. It clicks harshly, pressing against the ears uncomfortably. "My team drives up. We place a portable PAR here." He moves one of the jams.

"It's giving me incredible high-resolution images, but th... but they're still kind of flat. So what do we do?"

He places the last two jams, Carmen raises an eyebrow slowly. She didn't get a display. "My team sets up two more, here and here. Now we have a..."

"A three-dimensional scan."

Leaning toward the table, Kate displays every trait of being the tornado tamer she used to be. The girl she shoved to the bottom of his core. Impressed, intrigued, and most of all, just the tiniest bit hopeful. Yet, all of it is drenched in a layer of melancholy that reads to be suffocating.

"The most perfect scan of a tornado ever."

Carmen hits the table with her knuckle once, watching as the water tornado and the mocha in her mug ripples. "You and your science."

The blonde cracks a hesitant smile━━━the main goal━━━while Javi ignores her. "Kate, we can use this data to save lives back home."

"I mean, this is incredible," she admits.

"I know." Javi swallows harshly, and Carmen rolls her shoulders. There's only one more thing left to say in this conversation, and it's a can of worms so tightly shut their fingers bleed from tearing it open. "And you're the only person that can get me close enough to a tornado to do this."

"Javi, I..." All the light that might've been in Kate's eyes staring at the water and jam model cracks and fades, disappearing into her ever-present cloud as she leans away. Forcing herself away from not only the model but also them. "No, I... I don't chase anymore."

"Come on, Kate."

"Javi," Carmen warns lowly, looking at the man through narrowed eyes. She'd warned him not to push, not to force her too far that her way home was forever lost. He doesn't care.

"What have you been doing here? Uh, sitting behind a computer screen? Like...The girl I know," knew, Carmen thinks bitterly. The girl you knew. "She'd be going into the storms while everyone else was running away."

He looks at their mostly silent third party. "I mean come on, you two were a match made in heaven because of it."

Kate doesn't look back at the water glass, eyes jumping around it like it's wronged her. "Well, I'm not that person anymore."

"You have a gift."

"Javi," Carmen insists again, skin itching and knuckles taunt.

"Look." His eyes bounce between them both, pleading. "I... I can't do this without you."

The blonde says nothing for long stretched-out moments, until finally, she scans the watch on her write and sighs. "Look, I... I... should really be getting back." Throwing crumpled bills on the table, Kate glances up one more time. "But, um...it was good seeing you." Her eyes land on Carmen. "Both of you. You be careful out there?"

She stands before either of them can answer, but Carmen snags her arm when she passes, squeezing once, twice. Only then, does she let it go.

"Kate," Javi calls from his spot next to her, and she doesn't even have to lift her eyes to see the look on his face. Instead, she crosses her arms against her chest and continues to look down. "Javi, don't."

But one thing about Javi is, he's never known when to quit.

"You ever wonder...why it was us that made it out of there?"

The door slams shut.

▬▬ mads speaks     ╱     welcome in!!! not much for a prologue that wasn't in the movie, but i wanted to give you a taste of carmen + her relationship with javi & kate. hopefully, you were able to see at least a little of that in this hehe

ALSO the little opening set-up is inspired by twsters so that is all her 🫶🏻

until next time xx