A low rumble echoed behind me. I looked back to see a wall of black clouds boiling up from the white, spreading toward me with frightening speed. Chilled, I tried to fly faster, but the sky rapidly darkened and lightning flickered around me as the storm drew closer, filling the air with the smell of ozone.

Garret.

A voice shivered across the cloudscape, soft and female, making me falter. I knew that voice. Where was she? Why couldn’t I see her?

Garret, I’m here. Just hold on.

Where are you? I tried to call, but my voice had frozen inside me. At my back, the boiling wall of darkness loomed closer, streaks of lightning flashing in its depths.

How’s he doing? A different voice joined the first. Low and strangely familiar, it made something inside me bristle. I couldn’t remember the face, or what it had done, but a low growl rumbled through my chest before it died in my throat.

He’s fighting. The female voice sounded choked, making my stomach clench, too. His temperature is far higher than normal, and he’s been delirious the past few nights. Wes thinks his body is trying to adapt to the transfusion, and that it’s causing some weird side effects. But we really don’t know anything. She sniffed, and her voice went even softer. All we can do is wait, and hope that he comes out of it.

The other sighed. At least he’s still alive, Firebrand. I did the only thing I could think of.

I know.

Their voices faded, swallowed by the darkness and rising wind, and a stab of desperation shot through me. Wait, I wanted to shout, straining to hear her voice, to follow it until I found the person on the other side. Don’t go. Don’t leave me here.

No answer except the howling of the wind and the rumble of the storm at my back. Before me, the sky continued on, forever. Rolling gray clouds with no end in sight. Behind me, the dark wall boiled steadily closer, a wave swallowing everything in its path, filling the air with the tingle of electricity.

I suddenly realized what I had to do.

I twisted around to face the oncoming storm. For a split second, hanging upside down in midair, I caught a glimpse of my shadow in the clouds below, lean and sharp, with an elongated neck and wide, sweeping wings. Then I was rushing toward the wall of darkness. The clouds filled my vision as I shot into the flickering blackness, and everything around me disappeared.

* * *