Chapter 2

My heart skipped a beat, and cold sweat instantly dampened my palms.

This was too strange. Could everything that old man had said outside actually be true?

I stood frozen at the gate, my mind tearing itself in two.

If I walked through that door, signed the big contract, and became Senior Partner, Lily's daycare expenses would be covered.

But if that note was real, walking onto that plane would mean taking my daughter's future with me to my death.

I took a deep breath and suddenly turned toward the terminal's massive floor-to-ceiling windows.

Blinding Florida sunlight poured through the glass.

On the tarmac, ground crews were calmly loading luggage. There wasn't even enough wind to rustle a leaf.

I almost wished for dark clouds or a sudden gust—anything that would prove the old man wasn't completely insane.

But the weather was so peaceful it was unsettling.

I clenched my teeth, pulled out my phone, opened Reddit, and searched r/Miami for "airport old man."

A short video posted just minutes earlier immediately popped up.

The old man was sitting beside the planter in the arrivals area, screaming at passersby and whoever was filming him.

"Don't board! It's a Category 5 hurricane! The plane will be ripped to pieces!"

Under the blazing sun, office workers walked around him as if he were trash.

The comments were merciless.

"Do Miami's homeless people write Hollywood disaster movies now?"

"Jesus. Someone get security to remove him. Classic doomsday paranoia."

Anyone sane would have thought the same.

But when I remembered the sheer terror in his eyes as he'd grabbed my wrist, I knew that fear hadn't been fake.

Just as I was about to lock my phone, an obscure new reply appeared at the bottom of the thread.

[Wait. Is it just me, or does this guy look familiar? He looks exactly like Ezekiel Creed, the former NOAA legend!]

My heart sank. I immediately copied the name and searched it on Google.

The moment the results loaded, the blood seemed to drain from my entire body.

Ezekiel Creed. Former top NOAA expert. Spent his entire career tracking extreme Atlantic weather.

According to Wikipedia, he had accurately predicted the course changes of twenty of the most destructive hurricanes in U.S. history, with an almost nonexistent margin of error.

The gaunt old man in the research jacket in the photos was unmistakably the same "crazy old man" I'd just given electrolyte water to.

A cold sweat broke out across my back.

Then another old article from The Washington Post appeared beneath the entry:

[Ezekiel Creed was forced into early retirement and expelled from the meteorological community after issuing "unverified doomsday-level weather warnings" that caused public panic.]

So what was he?

A genius? Or a paranoid lunatic?

My heart, which had just begun to settle, started pounding all over again.

"Wow. Look who we have here. Why is our stressed-out single mom standing around at the jet bridge?"

The sharp click of high heels approached.

Mireille casually bumped me aside with her shoulder and handed her boarding pass to the ground agent.

I stumbled back half a step, watching her polished profile with its unmistakable air of superiority.

I remembered how she'd mocked me in a department meeting for "lacking professionalism" because I had to take care of a sick Lily. She'd even stolen one of my design proposals.

I clenched my fists. But the thought of this plane possibly turning into a flying coffin forced me to swallow my anger.

"Mireille, don't get on the plane. Something serious is about to happen with the weather in Miami. I just checked—"

"Coraline, if you want to give up, just say so." She turned toward me, contempt written all over her face, then actually laughed.

"Using some fortune-teller as an excuse? That's pathetic. I'll take the multimillion-dollar contract. You should probably go home and update your LinkedIn today."

She adjusted the collar of her trench coat and walked into the jet bridge without looking back.

I stood there, frozen. My own common sense was screaming at me.

Coraline, have you lost your mind? Because of some disgraced former meteorologist—and a prank note someone mysteriously attached to your suitcase—you're going to give up the promotion you've worked yourself to death for?

My phone vibrated.

It was a final message from Mr. Sterling.

[The plane is closing its doors. Don't be a coward and back out at the last second. Bring me that contract.]

I looked down at the glaring red note on my suitcase handle.

[HURRICANE LANDFALL IN 30 MINUTES! DO NOT BOARD!]

The strokes had been pressed so hard they nearly tore through the cardboard.

This wasn't a prank. It was a desperate warning.

Even if there was only a one-in-ten-thousand chance it was real, I couldn't risk it.

Because my lock screen showed four-year-old Lily smiling at me from a sunny beach in her little sun hat.

I told myself: Coraline, you're a mother.

If I lost my job, I could find another small firm and spend nights drafting there. But if that plane really went down, Lily would become an orphan.

I sucked in a deep breath, gripped the suitcase handle, turned around, and ran back into the terminal against the flow of boarding passengers.

The moment I left the gate, my mind started racing.

The highway back into the city would be completely gridlocked by now. Driving anywhere would be suicidal.

More importantly, the Miami airport terminal was built with heavy reinforced concrete and designed to withstand extreme winds. The shabby brick apartment I rented couldn't even withstand a Category 3 storm.

I had to stay at MIA. I had to find the strongest structural core in the building and stock up on everything I could possibly need to survive before the final countdown ran out.

My heels hammered against the polished floor. Yet everything around me looked horrifyingly normal.

Blue skies outside. The announcements calmly reminding passengers that flights were on schedule.

Business travelers at Starbucks flipping through The Wall Street Journal. Tourists lining up at duty-free. Kids fresh from Disney laughing with ice cream in their hands.

I had a master's degree in architecture. I was supposed to be a rational woman.

And yet here I was, giving up a life-changing contract because of a supposedly crazy old meteorologist and preparing to "survive the apocalypse" in an airport under a perfectly clear sky.

If the sun rose normally tomorrow, I'd not only have destroyed my career.

I'd become the laughingstock of the entire industry.

But what if that countdown on the note was real?