William felt it, the swell of her. “Jane!” he said, reaching for his door handle.

She turned back to hold up her hand in warning.

The winds rattled the truck, sweeping in with such force that Ryan and Lily rocked in the back seat. William braced himself, watching the winds tear at Jane’s shirt and blow her hair wildly.

As the wind rushed past her, the smoke cleared.

Stumbling, she fought against the gusts to make her way back. Ryan tried to open the back door of the quad cab, but the force outside was too strong.

She saw it too. With a single look in the direction of the winds, the force bent around the truck, calming while still pummeling the smoke. As she jumped in the truck, the torrents once against picked up outside.

“Drive Quincy!” she said.

Rain hit them, falling in waves. Quincy slammed the gas, turning down a split in the road and barreling onto the path through the smoke. The winds made it nearly impossible to stay straight.

“I can’t keep on the road!” Quincy yelled.

“I can feel him. We’re not far,” William said.

“Can you calm the winds or something?”

“It has to be strong enough to keep the smoke blowing away,” Jane said.

“Crap,” Quincy muttered, keeping the gas pedal to the floor, the smoke barely at bay around them as the winds cleaved a path. The rain was now falling so hard that the wipers couldn’t keep up.

William reached for Jane. She nodded.

“Are we clear?”

“Almost! OK! Now! Now!”

The moment he laid his hand on her leg, he felt it coming, like a freight train whose brakes had failed.

He felt it slam against whatever invisible barrier he and Jane forged together in their communication. As in those times isolated from everything but each other in the SSA’s confinement, he didn’t just see Jane, but the emitting brightness around them. He saw Lily and Ryan in the same manner, the outside world fading away in a tunnel created only for them.

He dared to look away from Jane for just a moment.

The blackness thrashed, a horde of thick, twisting strands of viscid oil. It pummeled against the barrier, hammering to get through. And from the distorted feelers began to emerge something from which the tentacles were born.

Once again, he was seven years old, his hand dropping from his grandmother’s fierce clutch in a dark hallway. He could barely see the creature ratcheting itself to its full height—

William yanked his hand off Jane’s leg, shattering the connection.

Jane gasped, her eyes blinking. “It was on us.”

William stammered for breath as Quincy righted the truck, the winds around them calming.

“Ok, we’re through,” Quincy said. “Fires haven’t gotten this far yet.”

“What is it?” Jane asked. Lily looked over at her in fear. “What is it?”