E L L A R A

Night crowds the horizon before we even leave the docks. Security lights strobe against the water, turning the waves into shards of silver and black. Ethan’s orders crackle through the radios, patrol rotations, inventory lockdowns, the low hum of a system bracing for betrayal.

Adrian’s still at the command post, voice clipped, deliberate, every syllable meant to keep panic from spreading. I should stay behind. I should trust the chain of command. But the image of that cut rope won’t leave me, the clean slice, the solvent burn. Someone on this island sabotaged our own rescue lines, and a deckhand is still out there, somewhere beyond the reef, with a storm rolling in.

I move before I decide to. The medical kit thumps against my hip, heavier than it was an hour ago. My badge clicks against the zipper, proof that I belong here, even when I don’t.

The skiff waits at the far end of the dock, its hull black and wet, the outboard motor ticking from its last test run. Ethan’s silhouette stands beside it, hands braced on the gunwale, head bowed as if he’s already arguing with himself.

“You’re not cleared for this, Doc.” His voice is a low scrape against the wind.

“I’m not asking for clearance,” I say. “You need a medic onboard.”

“We’ve got medics.”

“You’ve got first aid. You don’t have to triage if he’s hypothermic or bleeding out.”

The wind gusts, whipping my hair across my face. He studies me for a long beat, eyes narrowing, shoulders tense under the sheen of rain. Then he exhales like the fight’s already lost.

“You’ve got five minutes before I can’t cover for you.”

I climb aboard. The deck rocks beneath my boots, slick with salt. The smell of diesel and storm electrifies the air, and the radio chatter from the command post fades into a hollow echo behind us. Ethan follows, checking the fuel line, every motion precise.

“You tell him it was my idea,” he mutters.

“I’ll tell him the truth,” I answered. “That I didn’t wait.”

He shakes his head, lips pressed into something almost like a smile. “You and Adrian are going to kill me one of these days.”

“Not if I can help it.”

He flicks the ignition, the motor growls to life, and the skiff shudders forward into the dark water. Behind us, the dock lights shrink to distant gold, swallowed by the sea. Ahead, the horizon flickers once, lightning, still miles away, but coming fast.

The engine growls lower as we clear the marina. Ethan angles the bow toward the open channel, where the sea starts flexing like muscle beneath the hull. Spray slaps my face, sharp and cold. I tighten my grip on the rail and squint into the dark. The horizon looks wrong, too smooth, too solid.

Then a voice detonates through the headset clipped to Ethan’s collar.

“Why is there movement on Skiff Two?”

Adrian. Low, furious, cutting through static.

Ethan winces. “We’re testing equipment.”

“Without authorization?”

“Temporary field check.”

“Bullshit. I can see the GPS drift.”

Ethan’s jaw ticks. “Copy that, sir.” He reaches for the switch, but I snatch the headset first. “Don’t.”

Before he can stop me, I lift it to my mouth. “It’s me, Adrian.”

The silence on the line lasts two heartbeats, long enough for lightning to flicker at the horizon. Then: “Elara, get off that boat.”

“Not happening.”

“Now.”

“No.”

Wind snaps my words into the night. “You said no more accidents. Then stop treating me like one waiting to happen.”

The static crackles with his breathing. “You have no idea what’s coming.”

“Then teach me from the field,” I say. “Or waste time yelling while someone bleeds out.”

Ethan’s eyes dart between us like he’s watching two storms collide.

Adrian curses softly, one of those words that sounds like prayer when he says it. “Fine. But you stay glued to Ethan. You don’t move without order. You don’t touch the throttle. You don’t.”

“breathe without permission?”

His exhale is rough, half-growl, half-surrender. “Just stay alive, Doctor.”

The headset goes dead.

For a while, it’s only the sea talking: deep rhythmic thuds under the hull, the slap of waves turning from roll to chop. The moon smears a dull ribbon across the water, already vanishing behind bruised clouds. Ethan checks the radar and mutters something under his breath about pressure drops.

“Tell me that’s not the storm front.”

He doesn’t answer.

Lightning flashes again, closer this time, white veins slicing the sky. A deep rumble follows, the kind that vibrates through the ribs before the ears catch up. The skiff lists on a rising swell, the bow cutting hard into the wind.

I steady the medical kit with one knee. “We’re close to the beacon?”

“Three miles,” Ethan says. “But it’s fading.”

The headset crackles again, Adrian’s voice barely audible under static: “Turn back. Repeat..turn.”

The signal dissolves in a hiss.

The horizon ahead heaves upward, a solid wall of black water and lightning stitching its edges. The storm has arrived, alive and hungry, blocking out every trace of the island behind us.

Ethan swears under his breath. I brace one hand on the rail, eyes wide, heart pounding.

“Too late to turn back now,” I whisper.

The sky turns the color of iron filings. Clouds stack like broken towers, swallowing the last line of stars. Wind tears through the rigging, a low howl that drowns the engine’s rhythm.

Rain arrives not as drops but as a single sheet, a living curtain. My skin prickles under it. The taste is metallic, ozone and salt. Ethan leans into the throttle, his shoulders squared against the gale. The bow lifts, crashes, lifts again. Every impact slams through my knees.

“Keep her steady!” I shout.

“Trying!” His voice is a thread pulled tight.

The radar flashes red, a pulsing wound. “Pressure’s dropping fast,” he calls. “We’re in it now.”

Spray blinds me; I wipe my sleeve across my face and see nothing but white churn. The skiff feels too small, too mortal, a toy caught between gods.

Somewhere behind us, lightning turns the sea to glass and I glimpse my reflection, wide-eyed, drenched, shaking but alive. The woman who once walked away from chaos now drives straight into it.

“Still think I should’ve stayed onshore?” I shout.

Ethan’s laugh is raw. “You’re insane.”

“Occupational hazard.”

A sharp crack splinters the air. Thunder answers half a second later. The world tilts; the bow rises, and for one suspended breath the sea seems to vanish beneath us. Then it returns in a roar, a mountain of black water towering where the horizon used to be.

Lightning forks down its face, turning it into a wall of fire and glass. Wind sucks the breath from my lungs.

“Ethan..”

“I see it.”

The storm swallows the sky, the island, everything. I grip the rail, heart hammering, as the first crest breaks over the bow and darkness rushes in.