The storm took the road an hour ago. Now it's taking the light, and there's nothing left to do but feel her watching me from across the room.
I tell myself it's the cold that has me shaking. I'm a worse liar than I thought.
❏ Beat: She crosses the room. Mya holds her ground but the bond surges — first contact, skin to skin.Jessica moves like she already knows how this ends. Maybe she does. Maybe the bond told her before it told me.
The scene delivers the peak but Beat 4's cost isn't dramatized — it's summarized. The bond should extract something visible here.
Consider cutting the frame verb. Let the shaking land directly without "I tell myself."
From the brainstorm decision. Blast radius: character profile (motivation), outline (Ch1 setup beat), scenes 1, 5 (downstream debt). 1 open question: does Jessica already know?
Short declarative + sensory anchor. On-brand. No change needed.