The constant din of rain on metal was almost louder than the thunder that shook Clueless down to her bones every few seconds. With her hands clamped firmly over her supersensitive canine ears, she whimpered as she huddled against the cold steel side of the grain bin.

 

She didn’t know what the words divine intervention meant, but if she had, she would have been hard pressed to think of a better term to describe what had just happened. The thunderbird had managed to cut the airplane in half with surgical precision, separating the part that Clueless was sitting in from Fey and Zave's, despite only being one row behind them. But while the thunderbird had been content to let the front half plummet to its occupants' doom, it had decided to keep the back half.

 

In that moment, if you had asked Clueless who had been luckier—the people in the front half, or the people in the back—she would have said the front. While the back end had been spared the gruesome crash that the front half had suffered, these passengers had been granted a slower, much more painful death.

 

From farther in the grain bin, a scream of agony tore through the darkness.

 

It was dark in here. Even though the thunderbird had torn a hole big enough for it and the back half of the plane to fit through, the majority of the ceiling remained. All Clueless could see through the hole was the storm that continued to rage outside. Every ten or twenty seconds, though, the darkness would be chased away for a brief moment by a flash of lightning. Clueless preferred the darkness.

 

It kept her from witnessing the horrors that were taking place on the other side of the grain bin.

 

The thunderbird was a great black mass of feathers with an onyx beak. It had flown the rear half of the airplane here as easily as a hawk would have carried a dead squirrel. Apparently seeking shelter from the storm that it, itself, was causing, it had made a temporary nest in the largest bin of a grain elevator, dragging the airplane inside with it. Now it was systematically emptying the plane of its occupants, most of whom were already dead. Every few minutes, though, another scream would drill itself into Clueless' skull.

 

What about Norrin? Ember? she thought as tears wetted the fur around her eyes. She had no love for the fox-walker after how badly she'd treated Fey and Zave, but that didn't mean Clueless wanted her dead. And despite their initial meeting being rather violent, Fey bore no ill will toward Norrin. He’d only been protecting his territory, an instinct that Clueless understood only too well.

 

Clueless watched the thunderbird root through the plane with a wicked looking talon before plucking out yet another lifeless body. Could they still be alive in there? Could they have, against all odds, managed to escape like she had? Clueless had leaped from the emergency exit in a moment of confusion while the plan was being dragged inside the bin, but all she’d managed to do was trap herself in here with the thunderbird. As far as she had seen, nobody else had come after her. Now it was only a matter of time before the thunderbird noticed her, and she joined all the other passengers in its stomach. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Nothing to do but wait until death came for—

 

The thunderbird shrieked in pain, a sound that made Clueless' vision go double for a few seconds, and it yanked its talon out of the plane. A figure appeared at the opening, somehow looking massive even as it was dwarfed by the thunderbird's sheer gargantuan size, and it leaped from the decapitated airplane to land at the bird's feet. Clueless sprang to her feet, her tail wagging with joy.

 

Norrin was still alive!

 

And he wasn't alone. Even though she'd missed it at first, Clueless soon spotted the second figure clinging to Norrin's back. Ember pointed commandingly at the closest wall, and Norrin sprinted over to it as fast as his lumbering form could go.

 

"Norrin! Ember!" Clueless shouted to them, but her voice was drowned out by the thunderbird's furious cry. The gigantic bird spread its wings as much as it could within the grain bin's confines and loomed over the two skinwalkers as Norrin…Clueless paused. What was Norrin planning to do? He was strong, but even he stood no chance against that beast!

 

To her surprise, Norrin rammed one of his hands into the grain bin's metal wall. With his incredible strength and razor sharp claws combined, he was able to punch a hole straight through the solid steel surface. Then, roaring with exertion, he drove his other hand into the hole and curled the side of the bin inwards like he was peeling an orange from the inside.

 

And then they were gone, leaving Clueless alone in the grain bin with the enraged thunderbird.

 

Screaming in fury, the thunderbird leaped up to the hole in the ceiling and took off into the storm with a flash of lightning and the boom of thunder. For a minute, Clueless could only stand there and stare in awe at the hole Norrin had made. She remembered Fey telling her about something she'd called Instincts, but Clueless hadn't paid attention. Was that what this was? Did Norrin have one of those Instinct thingies like Fey?

 

It took another clap of thunder to snap her out of her shock. Norrin had given her the perfect chance to escape, and she was just standing here!

 

With her heart racing in her chest, Clueless charged through the hole and out into the storm. The rain sent a jolt through her body—it was freezing!—but she powered on anyway. The grain elevator was on the outskirts of a small town, she realized, if a smattering of about three dozen houses, a couple barns, and a single field could even be called a town.

 

Or maybe a ghost town. Clueless didn't stop to look around, but even in her wild flight she could tell the place was deserted. The houses were in shambles, like each and every one of them had been personally torn apart by a tornado—which, she realized, they may very well have been. But if nothing else, the ruined houses might at least provide her a safe place to hide until the thunderbird went—

 

The thunderbird landed directly in her path. It spread its wings at her in challenge, eyes flashing with lightning, and released a cry that brought Clueless to her knees. It clearly didn't intend to let her get away like Norrin and Ember had, immediately lunging for her with its deadly beak. Clueless closed her eyes, waiting for the end…

 

"RUNNNNN!" a great low voice commanded her, and she opened her eyes just as a streak of brown crashed into the thunderbird from the side. The thunderbird let out an indignant squawk as it was thrown off balance, teetering on one talon and flapping its wings to stay upright.

 

Norrin turned to Clueless and plucked her from the ground like a mother cat snatching her kitten out of harm's way before taking off at a dead sprint. Clueless' mind reeled, trying to catch up with everything that had happened in the space of a few short seconds.

 

"Norrin! Here, this way!" Ember's voice cut through the storm.

 

Norrin turned to follow it, and the next thing Clueless knew they were inside…somewhere. The room was cramped, barely five feet by five feet, and had no windows. Norrin dumped her unceremoniously to the concrete floor and hurried back toward where they'd come in. A single square of light, faint as it was, showed storm clouds roiling and flashing above them. The thunderbird shrieked somewhere nearby, and for a split second the view was blocked as Ember clambered in with them. Norrin reached one beefy arm outside and grabbed hold of something, filling the air with the sound of squealing hinges.

 

And then they were plunged into darkness.