Jacob swerved, hydroplaned, regained control. He glanced in the mirror. She sat slouched in the seat, eyes slits, irises the color of fog.

***

He pulled the van into the garage and lowered the door before he dragged the storm woman, half-conscious but still struggling, from the backseat. She’d shaken the van three more times with her thunder on the way to his house, each time growing weaker.

Jacob hadn’t opened the door to Paula’s studio since The Storm. She’d always kept it locked. The key hung on a nail by the door. There had been a second key on her keyring. They never found that, either.

Jacob hurried down the basement stairs, clutching the tempest. Her body reverberated like distant thunder—the feel of it against his chest made his heart race, then slow, then race again. He held her awkwardly against himself, fingers slipping over skin the texture of fine-grit rubber, as he fumbled for the key and opened the door.

The smell of Paula nearly dropped him. Her robe lay draped over the back of the chair. Her slippers under the desk. Four tubes of her lip balm at the base of the desk lamp—always handy to soothe her storm-chapped lips. The scent of film and the fluids used to develop it. All of it hit him at once—as if she’d been in this room all along, working the months away while the world went on without her.

But she wasn’t here.

A storm took her.

The storm bit Jacob’s arm, and his flesh froze at the touch of her mouth. He screamed and pushed her into the small room. Her eyes turned amber again—the cloudy grey clearing.

Jacob pulled the robe from the chair and tossed it to her. “What do you eat?” he asked.

She smiled, revealing the inky interior of her mouth. “Everything,” she said. Her eyes sparked yellow. Her chest concaved over her ribs.

Jacob slammed the door as thunder exploded. The wood jumped against his shoulder.

When he caught his breath again, when the ringing in his ears had faded, he cracked the door. Everything glass in the room had shattered. All of Paula’s lenses and plates turned to razor sand.

The storm lay on the floor, gasping, eyes dark. Her face twisted as he looked over her.

“Take me outside,” she growled. “Give me back my blade. I need the sky.”

Jacob closed the door and turned the lock.

He unloaded his bags. The video camera had practically melted, but the chip appeared intact. He popped it into the reader.

The funnel twisted across the screen—pale and beautiful, impossibly smooth. It roped and bent closer to shore, tossing debris. He saw himself walking toward it, reaching for it, then all went white.