Page 43 of The Storm

No. No, thanks.

I whirl around and slam into Nick.

“Blue,” he says.

Another thud reverberates through the walls. The metal shelves rattle.

My gaze fixes on the door, but I can’t move.

“I—” Nothing else comes out. My throat is too tight.

“Don’t,” Nick says. His voice is steady. His shoulders are tight.

“I need out.” My voice is pathetically small. My hand hovers, pressing down on an invisible handle. “I can’t do this.”

The walls are already closer than they were before.

“You can,” he says. “It’s just a few minutes.”

“I can’t.” Panic is pushing into my voice with force now.

Then my face is in his hands and he’s right in front of me, holding me steady, and I’m so startled that for a moment his face is the only thing I can see.

“You can,” he says. “You’re Blue.MyBlue, and you can do anything you set your mind to. And right now, you’re going to concentrate on me, and fuck that tornado.”

My heart jumps, but I can’t quite understand what about the words he said caused it. I look into his eyes and try to block out the shelves and the walls. “I won’t fuck a tornado. I have standards.”

His lips twitch. “Of course you do.”

The roar outside gets louder again, and also closer.

Nick’s head whips around, his gaze on the door.

“Shit.”

Everything crackles and rattles and groans around us.

My heart is beating so fast and so loud that it makes my limbs shake.

“Down,” he says, already grabbing my arm and pulling me to the floor.

“What—”

“Blue!”

I drop to the floor and instinctively cover my head with my arms. The roar becomes deafening, even through the thick walls of the fridge. The floor vibrates. The walls vibrate. Containers and boxes start to fall all around us, and Nick pushes me under one of the metal shelves.

Something slams into the fridge. The walls buckle inward for a split second, and then all the lights go off.

I choke on a breath. I’m screaming inside, but nothing comes out.

The darkness is complete. Everything around us seems to crash, and all I can think about is me and Nick in this metal box being crushed from all sides until there’s no room left anywhere.

The sounds are deafening and wrong. Wood splintering. Metal tearing. Bricks raining down.

I can’t breathe.

The roar of destruction fades almost as quickly as it started. It leaves behind a ringing silence.