Seventy-two hours had officially passed since Noah had hung up the phone.
He stood outside in the dark, watching the horizon like he was waiting for the world to crack open.
The air was so cold it should have cut him to the bone.
It should have blackened his fingers with frostbite, frozen his breath, crawled under his coat like knives—but despite what he had told the others, the cold didn't bother him.
His ability to control fire kept the worst of it at bay, and a slow, rolling heat rose from his skin in waves.
He stood on the ice with his collar turned up, his boots sunk just enough to grip the frozen crust.
The wind hissed across the flats. Sound traveled too far at night, too clearly in the cold.
That was why the chopper had to land miles away—no risk of engines waking the KAS team that was sleeping in the tower behind him.
It should have been impossible for something so big to be this quiet.
But then he saw it.
