Tori Spark’s sneakers pounded the gym track, a rhythmic thud echoing in the spacious room. Her breath came in steady huffs, the only sound competing with her footfalls. In her grip, a phone vibrated with each stride, displaying an article that pulled her brows together in a frown.
"Recent tornado claims life of young boy," the headline screamed silently from the screen. The name Mikey glared back at her, a stark reminder of another name, another life lost.
She swiped through the report, details blurring past. Each fact, a jab to her memory, opening a door she'd long tried to close. A door marked 'Sammy'.
No tears. Not here. Not now. Tori focused on her pace, on the cold touch of the phone, on anything but the parallels forming in her mind. Sammy. Mikey. Two boys caught in the merciless grip of a natural disaster. At least, that was the story. Tori’s mind could never let that day go, nor could she let go of the nagging thought that something more sinister than an act of God had taken her younger brother from that open cellar door.
Her fingers tightened around the device, the plastic case creaking under the pressure. She read on, each word of Mikey’s story fueling a growing fire inside her. Sammy's face flickered behind her eyelids, a ghost from the past urging her to see, to understand.
The gym lights overhead flickered, a fluorescent stutter. Tori's heart skipped in unison. She blinked away the image of her brother, forcing her gaze back to the article, back to the present.
Tori picked up speed, the track a blur beneath her as the article scrolled faster, her thumb also a blur. With each step, she outran memories, chased answers, and fought the tide of emotions threatening to sweep her under.
No time to drown. No time for anything but the truth. Sammy deserved that much. Mikey did, too.
Tori's breath came in short, sharp gasps. Her sneakers pounded the gym track, rhythm unbroken. She swiped at her phone, eyes scanning the text. The words leapt out: ‘storm cellar left unlocked.’ Her pace faltered for a heartbeat. The same detail from years ago. A detail that shouldn't have been.
"Mikey" echoed in her head, a stranger's name tethered to Sammy by an identical tragedy. The article was merciless, recounting facts with cold precision. Tori felt heat prickle at the back of her neck. Had someone had called Mikey outside, into the storm—the same way someone may have called Sammy?
Two weeks ago, a boy had been killed in a tornado accident… but the cops had been informed that things weren’t as straightforward as all that. The boy had been safe, according to his father. The father had run upstairs to grab the family dog, but when he’d returned… Mikey had been gone.
“I locked the cellar door!” the article quoted the father. “I have it on camera. It was locked!”
Tori stared at the article even as her pulse pounded and she continued to round the track.
The air in the gym seemed to thin, tighten around her. Tori squeezed the phone harder, its edges digging into her palm. She could see the headline from back then, the one that haunted her sleepless nights. The certainty she'd locked the door. The reality that she hadn't, or so it appeared.
She pushed forward, faster now. Each step is a silent demand for answers. She couldn't bring Sammy back, but she could chase down the truth for Mikey. For both of them.
Unlocked—the word looped in her mind. An oversight? An accident? Or something deliberate?
Her lungs burned with the effort, mirroring the burn of questions too long ignored. She needed air, more air than the gym could offer, but first, she needed to finish this run. Needed to keep moving.
"Don't think about Sammy," she told herself. But the past wasn't easily outrun. Sammy's shadow clung stubbornly to the edges of her vision, a reminder that some races were long, treacherous. That some finish lines kept moving.
No time to stop. No time to succumb to horror or heartache. There was only the track. Only the truth. And Tori was not one to quit. Not anymore.
Yet Tori's stride faltered. Her breath caught in her throat as the gym blurred around her and memories surged, unbidden, forceful as a riptide. A name carried on the wind. Sammy's voice, faint but unmistakable. His small form stepping out into the storm. She had screamed his name, feet pounding the earth, desperate to reach him.
"Sammy, wait!"
Rain lashed her face. Mud clung to her shoes. But she was too late. Always too late.
Her heart hammered against her ribcage, echoing the dread that crept up her spine. The unlocked door wasn't an accident. The calling of names, a pattern too precise.
"Deliberate."
The word escaped her lips, a whisper lost in the hum of treadmills and clanking weights. Someone had wanted the storm cellar open. Someone had wanted her brother to step outside.
She accelerated, the rhythm of her running shoes slapping against the track a metronome for her racing thoughts. Sammy's death—no longer a tragic act of God but a cold, calculated move by an unseen hand. “Who would do this?"
Questions piled upon questions, each more unnerving than the last. Tori pushed harder, faster. Sweat trickled down her back, but it wasn't exhaustion that drove her now. It was the need to unravel the truth, to find the thread that connected Sammy's untimely end with Mikey's.
"Focus."
Tori's feet pounded the track. A shiver sliced through her despite the heat that radiated from her core, sweat slicking her pale skin. The same unlocked door. The same eerie calling. Two boys. Two storms. No coincidences.
"Keep running."
The shrill tone of her phone cut through her tumbling thoughts.
Tori stumbled, nearly losing her balance as she fumbled with the device. Stopping, she stepped to the side of the track, taking a quick, deep breath to steady her breathing before she jabbed at the screen.
"Hello?"
"Spark, you need to get back here, now. We’ve got a new case."
The voice on the other end was terse but familiar. It was Javi, her partner at the FBI. Tori's already galloping pulse spiked for a moment.
“Right now?”
“Leaving in an hour.”
“Got it. On my way.”
She ended the call, her breath still catching from the run. Looking down at her phone, she saw the window for the article detailing Mikey’s disappearance staring up at her. With a sigh, she swiped it away, clearing her phone screen.
Her specialty was disaster response. If she and Javier were being called in, then every second counted. There was no time for distractions—or ghosts. Tori pushed through the door of the locker room, her sneakers squeaking against the floor in her haste.
Time to move.