The pilot momentarily took his eyes off the incoming storm. “Ma’am, that storm is barreling down on us at over three hundred and fifty miles per hour. Even if we tried, we wouldn’t be able to outrun it. Our best shot now is to head right through and try to ride it out.”

Sophie stared ahead, watching the swirling brown particles racing toward them. She blinked as the first pieces of dirt and dust crashed into the armored windshield.

I didn’t come all this way to die in a damned dust storm, she thought, grabbing her belt and tightening it across her chest.

Before she could think anything more, the storm was on them, the wind hurling particles of dust and dirt at the chopper from all directions. The pinging of rocks and debris making contact echoed throughout the interior of their metal tomb. The blades above groaned in protest as the rotor reluctantly ground them through the harsh wind.

“Hold on,” the pilot yelled, pulling up on the cyclic and heaving the chopper deeper into the center of the storm.

Sophie cried out as a rock the size of a baseball bashed the windshield, the crack spreading like a spider web.

“It’ll hold,” the pilot said unconvincingly. “The windshield was built to withstand a fifty-cal round at point-blank range.”

“Those engineers better have been right.”

Sophie didn’t trust many engineers, especially those who made their living testing products designed for war. She knew better than anyone that there was a major difference between how products held up under laboratory conditions and how they performed in real life. Companies like NTC had been making billions every year designing faulty products. It was simple economics, a concept she had learned at a young age. Weak products had to be replaced, which increased revenue. Quality was a thing of the past, and warranties had become extinct.

Sophie eyed the crack, hoping the windshield wasn’t another one of NTC’s money-saving ventures. She didn’t like gambling, especially with lives.

“How much farther?” Sophie yelled.

“You tell me—check the radar!” the pilot yelled back.

Before she had time to look at the radar, she saw an object through the glass. Squinting, she tried to discern what it was. “What the . . . ,” she muttered under her breath. The object swirled through the storm, moving toward them faster and faster.

“Watch out!”

Sophie was flung to one side, her insides scrambling against her rib cage, as the pilot yanked the cyclic hard to the right. It was too late. A second later, the spinning piece of debris smashed into the windshield, covering it. The pilot cursed in Spanish. Sophie understood every word.

“Get it off the windshield!” Sophie screamed.

“This isn’t a car. It doesn’t have wiper blades.”

The pilot loosened his goggles, pulling them over his helmet to get a better look at the metal object stuck to the windshield, and Sophie saw his face for the first time. His eyes were crystal blue, unlike any she had ever seen before. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen years old.