Page 24 of Axel Martin

“Raven?” I barked into my radio.

“We’re good. Your tail’s gone. Meet at Rally Point Alpha.”

I exhaled, my jaw still tight. “On our way.”

We pushed forward, adrenaline burning under my skin, every step getting us closer to the bird. The doctor stumbled, but Nate caught her, never breaking pace.

When the evacuation chopper finally came into view, the kid on my back whispered the first word I’d heard from him: “Safe.”

God, I hoped he was right.

I handed him off to the medic inside the chopper and climbed in last, sweeping my eyes across the team.

Alive. Bruised. Dirty.

But all there.

We lifted off into the night sky, and for the first time in hours, I let myself feel the edge of fatigue. But it wasn’t the mission chewing at me.

It was the not knowing.

Lark was out there somewhere, chasing storms.

And I had a feeling… one of them might’ve caught her.

22

Lark

Somewhere in Rural Oklahoma

The sky turned green.

Not gray. Not silver. Not stormy blue.Green.

And that’s when I knew we were in trouble.

Jake’s voice echoed through the SUV as we pulled off the road near a rundown gas station that looked like it hadn’t seen a customer since 1992. “Rotation’s accelerating. We’ve got a new cell forming west of us. That’s two on the ground now—maybe more.”

I wiped sweat from my temple and shoved open the passenger door. The air hit me like soup—thick, electric, wrong.

Tiff stood by the back of the truck, snapping clips onto her mobile weather rig. “That last funnel missed the town by a mile. This new one? Might not.”

“I need five minutes of video, then we’re gone,” Jake called out. “This one’s fast.”

The words hit me square in the gut.

Fast.

Too fast.

I set up my tripod on the edge of the lot, lens pointed toward the roiling cloud base just as the warning sirens began to wail—one long, haunting note across the empty town.

I reached for my phone. No bars. No Wi-Fi. No way to check in with Axel.

Come on,I muttered, stepping toward the edge of the road, arm raised to the sky like it would summon a signal. Nothing. Just static.

A flash of light split the sky. Thunder cracked a second later, deafening.

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