Kate watched as the director shook his head. “No way is she going back down there. Not after what happened.”

“What’s going on?” Kate asked.

She watched as the director’s eyes widened a bit. He nodded. “Agent, hold on. Senator, Ryan says your nephew has found another of the abducted.”

“How does he know this?” she demanded.

“He says he’s seen them.”

“Does he know where they are?” she asked.

“He says he does, but in exchange for that information, he wants you to go with him to San Diego,” Mark said, not hiding his frustration. “I don’t know what this means, but he’d like Iron Man to give him the tour.”

Jane knew she should be dead.

She’d heard the glass shatter, felt the weight of the hurricane winds, saw the chunks of wood and metal fly through to pummel and slice her and William Chance apart.

She’d shut her eyes instinctively, bracing herself.

Instead, the southernmost wall, on the other side of the room, shuddered with the impact. The plaster wall of the old hospital cracked like an eggshell, exposing the wood studs and insulation, until it too was torn apart by shards of splintered plywood, rock, and whatever else the winds carried.

Yet she and William remained untouched, as was everything behind them, even though they were directly across from the windows that had blown apart when the storm barreled in.

The winds had turned. They had turned the winds.

When she met William’s eyes, she saw a mixture of astonishment at what they had done. There was no discussion, no stammering; just a basic understanding.

We did this.

And in that realization came silence, and the equally jarring sight of sunlight slowly peering through the dissipating storm.

Within seconds, the cries started coming from the hallway.

William touched her arm. She felt the jolt again, so strong it was almost electrical. We have to go.

The cry of her name from further down the hall broke her from the connection.

“I … can’t,” she said.

Go. I’ll find you.

As she hurried away, she realized William hadn’t opened his mouth to speak.

She immediately found the hurricane had showed its force in every room with a window. Walls had collapsed, water gushed in, debris covered the floors, the humidity was rushing in with the stank smell of ruin.

Fearing the worst was coming, hospital staff had moved all the remaining patients to interior rooms. While the generators staggered to keep operational, the hospital was now also open to the outside, with hundreds of gaping wounds. The glaringly bright sunlight revealed the impossibility of keeping patients here.