My legs strained and burned with the effort it took to make it. Category three meant these winds were probably up over a hundred miles an hour by now, but I didn’t want to think about it.

We made it to the deck, and I struggled across the few feet that lacked a railing to make it to the alcove that sheltered my front door.

The scant amount of windbreak made all the difference, and with a twist of my key, we were inside. I lowered Finley to the ground. “Go wait in the armchair right there in the living room, okay? I’m getting Grandma Vivian.”

Her eyes seemed frozen in the widest position, and I thanked God that I’d closed the steel shutters. Otherwise she would have had double the reason to be terrified. We were about to be surrounded by water.

“I will come right back. I promise. You are not alone.”

Fin nodded, and I raced for the door.

The wind knocked me on my ass as I ran for the deck, sweeping my feet clean out from underneath me.

“Damn it!” I shouted, already fighting to get to the staircase. I bumped down on my butt to give myself the smallest profile possible. The water was up to the rims on the truck, and Vivian’s back filled the front passenger doorway. “How did you get up here?” I shouted over the roar of the wind.

“I’m not helpless!” she yelled back over her shoulder, the beach bag safe in her lap.

I gripped under her arms and hoisted her from the truck, then began the long trek back into the house. By the time I reached the foyer, I was exhausted. My muscles shook with the effort it took to get Vivian to the couch, but I got her there.

Now to close the door.

“Juno!” Fin cried.

I turned, expecting to see the cat involved in something awful as usual, but Fin stared at me.

“She’s in the truck!” She sobbed. “I forgot her!”

“Okay,” I said, mostly to myself. “Okay.” I was not going to let her cat drown in a damned backpack.

I was more cautious this time crossing the rain-slick deck and made it to the truck as water crept up the rims. A quick glance behind me showed a canyon forming in the dune…and not just one. The ocean was coming.

I stepped into the truck and grabbed Juno, slinging her onto my back. Then I looked up. Will’s wings were still tacked to the visor, and my sea-glass pendant from Jackson dangled from the rearview mirror. I had time. I could get them.

The dune gave way behind me.

Wings or sea glass? There was only time for one. The water was coming.

Wings.

Sea glass.

Will.

Jackson.