Then, the smoke rose.
Black, roiling, too thick and fast to be anything but an explosion. It unfurled in a violent bloom from behind the boats, a massive plume against the soft blue sky.
The air shifted with it, rushing past us with the smell of burning fuel and charred plastic. Acrid. Chemical. I tasted it before it reached us—a bitter sting at the back of my throat, like melted wires and scorched metal.
Someone screamed.
Next, I was on the move.
Down the steps, across the hot, packed sand, feet thudding, lungs already catching against the shock of motion. My brain was half a second behind my body, trying to catch up and sort out what I'd witnessed—was it a fuel tank? A boat engine? A goddamn bomb?
"Michael!" I heard Alex call behind me.
I didn't stop.
The wind changed as I drew closer to the marina. It carried a cloud of smoke from burning fiberglass and oil. My bare feet hit the pavement near the pier.
My vision narrowed. My heart was in overdrive. Years of training drove me forward, even if I had nothing—no radio, vest, or gun—only instinct.
The resort's back dock was chaos—staff running, someone on the phone, another shouting for water as if water could help. Two boats were already pulling away from the edge, trying to clear the area, but the damage was done.
One of the yachts—big, white, polished like a trophy—was a skeleton now. Flames curled along the railing, eating through the deck. The explosion gutted the center.
Shredded canvas sails flapped in the breeze. Someone had already pulled a man off the dock—shirtless, barefoot, bleeding down one arm. He was screaming in French, smoke-blackened and wild-eyed.
My legs kept moving. Faster. Past the tourists backing away. Past the waitress holding her hands over her mouth. Toward the fire, like it was a thing I knew.
Because it was.
This was the part of me I never talked about. The part that ran toward what other people ran from.
And I didn't know yet what that would cost.
Chapter four
Alex
Somethingintheairchanged.
I noticed it first in the birds—their relentless chatter went silent all at once as if someone had flipped a switch. I paused my coffee cup halfway to my lips while I scanned the beach from our table beneath the thatched roof of the resort's café.
The ocean, which had been breathing in a steady rhythm since we arrived, seemed to hold its breath. Even the palms stopped their constant rustling, frozen in mid-sway.
I looked at Michael as he began, "Did you hear—"
Then, the world shattered.
The sound hit first—a violent crack that vibrated in my bones before my brain could process it. The pressure wave followed. It was a physical force that seemed to compress every cell in my body.
Tables from the café toppled. Glass shattered. A woman screamed.
I was on the ground before I realized I'd moved, sandy grit on the wood floor grinding against my cheek and hands instinctively covering my head. My ears rang with a high-pitched whine that distorted everything else.
When I looked up, disoriented, the pristine sky had darkened with a thick column of black smoke rising from the direction of the marina. The scent hit next—acrid, chemical, wrong—the smell of paradise burning.
People ran, voices overlapping in panic—some shouting in English, others in French, and still others in Tahitian.
A child wailed somewhere to my left. Plates crashed against the floor. The café's roof, constructed to withstand Pacific storms but not this, sagged at one corner where a support beam had splintered.
