BEHIND THE CLOUD

Chapter 23 — The Last Storm

Nature delivered its coda at dusk: a natural supercell rolling in from the west, the kind old farmers nodded at like an adversary they respected. Without interference, it split on the ridge as models foretold, sparing the basin the worst.

Amara stood on the ridge with Rhea, radio in hand, directing emergency openings for drainage gates and channel diversions. Volunteers rotated in slickers, boots thudding, moving the way a town moves when no one is fighting the weather, only working with it.

“Gate three, open by ten percent. Gate five, hold.” Her voice was clear, each instruction a stitch. The supercell snarled, then shouldered past, dropping its heavy heart into the far hills where it would nourish fallow ground instead of drowning homes.

When the last hard band passed, the sky loosened to rain that sounded like rain again—soft, indiscriminate, unweaponized.

Amara lowered the radio. Her hands shook for the first time all day.

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