“Maybe,” he says, but the doubt in his voice sits heavy in the room.
Another flash turns the window white. The thunder hits a beat later, rattling a picture frame on the wall.
Wyatt flinches. So do I.
We’re quiet for a long moment, both of us staring at the storm because right now it’s alive, circling just outside the glass.
“I hate this,” he says softly.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “Me too.”
He taps one finger against the mug. “This storm feels like it’s building.”
“Yeah,” I say again, my chest tightening.
Because I can feel it, too.
That wrongness. That coiled tension in the air.
The kind that means the valley’s about to change.
The kind that means none of us are sleeping tonight.
The alarm doesn’t wake me. The light does.
I must’ve drifted off at some point, exhaustion winning the fight.
Harsh, orange light streams through the curtains in a way that doesn’t make sense. Morning sun isn’t orange. Not this bright. Not this wrong.
I bolt upright. My heart drops into my stomach.
Because that’s not sunlight.
It’s firelight.
“Shit.”
I’m on my feet before my brain fully processes what I’m doing. I yank the curtain aside, and there it is.
A glow on the horizon.
Rising.
Spreading.
Thick smoke billows upward into the dawn sky, dark against the early light.
“Wyatt!” I shout, already grabbing my boots. “Get up.”
He stumbles out of his room a second later, eyes wide behind his glasses. “What? Oh no.”
There’s no time to waste.
“Call the fire department.”
“They’re probably already…”
“Call them anyway. And let Jesse know so the twins don’t race around.”
