Page 138 of Meet Your Maker: Part One

But somewhere deep in my mind, a whisper rises:Is that rotation in the clouds?

I tilt my head back, eyes narrowing. Above the dancing vortex, the sky darkens, the clouds churning with slow, deliberate menace. The playful breeze vanishes, replaced by something focused, hungry,wrong.

The whisper turns to a scream.

That’s no dust devil.

A sharpplinksounds at my feet. Then another.

I glance down. Tiny pellets of ice bounce off the grass, skittering like glass beads.Hail.The first few stones sting when they hit, like birdshot peppering my skin.

My mind flashes to Mishka’s delicate, shifted forms. These hailstones aren’t big, but they fall with enough bite to bruise—or shatter—a fragile carapace or diaphanous wings.

The hail isn’t huge, but each pebble lands with intent—like the bite of rock salt from a farmer’s warning shot.

“Mishka!” I scream, my voice raw. The wind snatches my words, hurling them back with a mocking howl.

The grass whips and bends, the air thick with the electric bite of ozone. The sky shifts to an acid green, quickly twisting into an Oz-shaded nightmare.

My shoes slam into the ground, clumps of mud clinging to my soles, trying to drag me down—but I won’t let it. Not with that twister behind me, moving like it has my name, dragging its skirts across the earth, threatening to tear up everything I love.

I stumble, a lurching, tripping kind of gait, my eyes wild, scanning desperately for Mishka or Sumi. The field is a blur of motion—the wind wrapping itself around me, tugging at my hair. Each step feels like it could be the last before the ground falls away.

A sharp gust rattles the earth. The wind screams louder, and the hail becomes a steady barrage, jagged stones hammering my back, my shoulders, my scalp. My dress clings, soaked through,ice encrusting the fabric like crystals on a ballgown, tailored specially for my cruel waltz with the wind.

“Mishka!” I yell again, my voice desperate, but it feels wrong—like yelling in a dream. The sound snags in my throat, thin and strangled, swallowed whole by the storm before it even leaves my lips.

Then, as suddenly as it began, the hail stops. The wind shudders and retreats—the roar cutting out, like someone flipped a switch. My ears pop painfully, the pressure shift sudden and unwelcome. The suffocating quiet presses on my eardrums like a vise.

I stumble to a halt, my breath ragged and shallow. The swirling walls of the tornado encircle me, a cylindrical prison of wind and debris.

What fresh hell is this?

I’m in the eye of the storm.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

“No, no, no,” I whisper, panic clawing up my throat. My eyes dart to the churning walls, my mind screaming for an escape. Mishka’s out there. I feel it—a thread tugging at my heart—but the storm has swallowed him whole. The not-knowing presses down on me, a cold weight in my chest.

I force myself to breathe, clinging to a fragile sliver of hope. Maybe—God willing—he made it out. Maybe he’s on the other side of these walls, running for the packhouse, Sumi’s paws scrabbling beside him. Maybe he’s already in Ben’s’ arms.

But the storm whispers its doubts, each gust a cruel reminder that hope is paper-thin in the face of such fury. I swallow hard, my throat raw, the taste of rain and fear bitter on my tongue. Please, I pray silently. Let him be safe. Let him have made it out.

The walls of the tornado loom, the swirling vortex a cage of motionless violence. I strain my senses, pushing my gift as far as it will go, desperate for even the tiniest flicker of him—thatfamiliar spark of anxious determination. But there’s nothing. Just the roar of the storm beyond the stillness, a monstrous boundary I can’t cross.

Don’t fall apart now.Don’t you dare.

And then it hits me: I’m alone. That realization sinks in just as the air parts like a curtain—and he steps through.

Silas.

He’s pristine—not a drop of rain mars his clothes, not a single loc is out of place. The wind that battered me, that tore at everything in its path, now swirls around him harmlessly, almost reverently, like it’s afraid to touch him.

Beside him, another figure stands, half-hidden in the swirling mist and shadows. A long, dark cloak wraps around them like a shroud, the fabric writhing with the wind’s restless energy. Their face is obscured beneath a deep hood, but the air around them pulses with a cold, malevolent fury.

A wave of realization crashes over me—hot, sharp, and sickening.

This is a trap.

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