Page 22 of Day of the Storm

Still… his parents hadn’t raised a quitter. “Hey, Mabr?—”

Sirens sounded, drowning him out. Daryn turned toward him, stepping away from the door to the open back loading bay.

“What’s going on?”Rain blew in, splattering him in the face. He lifted one arm to block her from the spray.

Mike could hear thunder outside, too. He grabbed his phone and checked the warning flashing across his screen. His younger brother was a meteorologist at the local news station.

Houston was obsessive about watching the weather.

“Storm warning!” he said, just as a feminine voice came over the intercom. He pulled Daryn away from the door.

The voice overhead continued.

Instructing everyone to enter tornado protocols immediately and move to the center of the building.

The thunder outside was louder than he had ever heard before. It had him actually concerned for once—most times he just tuned out the weather, having heard about it from his brother for years.

“Come on, doc. You heard the boss. Let’s go.”

“I have to lock this up first.” She reached for the doors.

He waited impatiently.The storm just got louder. Hail slammed against the metal building. Mike swore. “Come on!”

“You can go without me,” she yelled over the sirens and the intercom that were mingling.

Mike looked toward the window on the steel door behind her. Just as a tree slammed to the ground outside.As a damned car shifted fifteen feet before his eyes.

Daryn screamed his name.

Shit.

Thiswasthe big one Houston was always shouting about.

“Hell, no.” He bent and scooped her over his shoulder. Easy to do. She didn’t weigh much.He didn’t stop to think that she’d be royally pissed at him if this was all for nothing.Better safe than sorry.

Pixies usually didn’t. They were usually all wings and air, after all. Hell, the storm could just blow her away.

“We’re getting away from the damned windows.” From the walls, too. He hustled through the small pathology department toward the end of the annex, thinking that if he could get them to the actual brick building, they’d be better off.

Get them inside the building deeper, somehow. She didn’t fight, just clung to his shirt.

He put her on her feet, right next to the steel doors that separated the annex from the main building.

No one else was around. That stood out.

No one—no one wasanywhere.

Fear of what was about to happen shot straight through him.

The walls started shaking around them.

He saw it happening.Knew what it meant. His brother had watched so many tornado documentaries from the time they’d been teenagers, Mike could recite stats in his sleep.

Crushing injuries. Crushing injuries were the killers. He remembered that.

They had to find a safe place. Fast.He had to find his sister, too. She was in the TSP building somewhere.

Fear for A.J. was stronger than fear for himself right now.