Electricity floods through me with new purpose, silver and crackling, racing along my nerve endings. Static pops across my skin, and every cell in my body vibrates at a frequency that threatens to tear me apart.
The first rumble of thunder shakes the boat. The temperature plummets next, the sweat on my skin turning ice-cold in seconds, and the wind kicks up hard enough to whip my hair across my face and tear at my clothes. Electricity sings in my veins, louder than it’s ever been, matching the rhythm of the storm building above me like it’s part of my heartbeat.
Yes. This. More.
Silver lightning crackles through the clouds, and it’s mine. Every bolt, every flash, and every deafening crack ismine.
“You did it,” Logan says, sounding muffled and far away. “You can stop now.”
But the power’s rushing through me in a torrent, pulling energy from my body, feeding it into the storm that’s growing, building, and hungry for more. Every gust of wind is my breath. Every crack of thunder is my heartbeat. Every flash of silver is the electricity that’s been trapped under my skin since T touched my forehead and infused me with her magic.
“Jade!”
Hands grab my shoulders and shake me.
Logan.
When I force my eyes open, he’s staring at me with terror so raw it makes my chest ache.
“You stupid, reckless, impossible?—”
A drop of water lands on my cheek. Then another.
Then the sky opens up, and rain pours down in sheets. It’s warm and heavy, soaking through my clothes, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Containers!” Evie’s already moving, grabbing every pot, cup, and bucket she can find. “We need to collect as much as we can before it stops.”
Kieran and Callie join her, positioning containers under the heaviest streams of rain.
Logan stays where he is, his thumb tracing my cheekbone, wiping away water or tears or both.
“You’re extraordinary,” he says, and then he leans down, his forehead pressing against mine, and I close my eyes, letting myself exist in this moment. Just for a second. Just for?—
The boat lurches to the left.
My eyes snap open as Logan’s arms tighten around me, keeping me from sliding across the deck.
The rain’s driving harder now, coming down in blinding sheets. Wind howls across the deck, tearing at the remaining sails, sending loose ropes whipping through the air. Towering waves slam against the hull hard enough that the whole boat shudders.
Callie’s clinging to the back mast, her feet sliding on the rain-slicked deck. “What the hell did you do?” she screams at me, sharp with panic.
Evie grabs the railing as another wave hits. “She called a storm, not just rain! Storms have wind, and waves, and?—”
Lightning cracks overhead, so close and bright that it leaves afterimages dancing across my vision.
Kieran’s at the helm fighting with the wheel, but the boat spins anyway, and my stomach drops as we’re swept sideways into a wave that’s trying to swallow us whole.
I reach for my magic, but I gave everything I had to calling the storm, and now I’m empty. A battery that’s been drained.
“Get below deck!” Logan screams, cutting through the chaos.
Another wave slams into us, and the boat tips so far to the side that I’m certain we’re going to capsize, just like I did all those years ago when I was trying to sail a dinghy at summer camp.
Logan’s grip on me tightens until it hurts, and I squeeze my eyes shut, because I can’t do anything except hold on and pray to whatever gods might be listening that our boat isn’t going to sink because I summoned a storm I can’t control.
The wind screams so loud I can’t hear my own thoughts. The waves keep slamming into the hull, and lightning splits the sky in silver flashes that turn the world into a strobe light of chaos and terror. The rain is hitting my face so hard it feels like needles, and the only thing keeping me on this ship is Logan’s arms crushing me against his chest.
The last thing I register before everything goes dark is his heartbeat against my cheek, steady even when the world is being torn apart.