One

It’s pitch dark, pouring rain, and I have no idea where I’m going, which is also the perfect analogy for my life. As I drive, squinting through the fogged-up windshield, a bug zigzags down the glass, caught in a rivulet where the broken wiper can’t reach. It keeps getting a grip, legs scrabbling to hold itself steady, to catch its breath for one merciful second before the pounding rain sends it tumbling down until it finds the next spot where it’s so sure it is safe . . . and it’s not.

The rain finally washes the poor bug into the path of the wiper, and it’s crushed into a dark smear on the glass.

“All the analogies, all the time,” I mutter.

I’ve spent my adult life looking for those safe footholds, for places where I can hole up and breathe and regain my balance. And, in my desperate bid for stability, I’ve always stayed just a little too long. Jobs where I was mistreated and cheated. Relationships where I was mistreated and cheated on. Like that bug, I cling until I’m washed away by a trickle of remaining dignity that finally says “enough.”

Now, once again, I’m retreating to the only place I know is safe.

Home.

According to the GPS, I’ll be there in . . .

I frown at the screen. I’ve driven off the map. When did that happen? I must have lost cell signal in the storm. I check the car clock.

11:56

I blink. That’s not right. I left at seven, heading out right after my last day at work. I grabbed dinner at a drive-thru and was on track to be at my parents’ place before midnight. I tap the clock, as if that will help. Then I realize—duh—I have both a watch and a phone.

I squint at the phone. 11:57. My watch says the same.

When did I last check the time? The map diverted me for a slowdown at ten, and I’d been thinking that I might be slightly later than expected and I should call my mom, because at 12:01 she’ll start to panic, as if the roads turn to lava at midnight.

It can’t be this late, though. Sure, I’m driving at . . . I check the speedometer. Twenty-five miles an hour? No wonder the other cars that took the same detour are long gone. I’m being careful on the unfamiliar road. I will never endanger another person’s life with my recklessness.

Never again, you mean.

I take a deep breath, as my old therapist’s voice overrides my inner one, telling me for the hundredth time that what happened wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t being “reckless.” I was being a ten-year-old child.

The point is that I’m driving far below the speed limit, because of the rain and my bad wiper, but there is still no way it’s taken me two hours to travel about fifteen miles.

Thunder crashes, making me jump again, my hands death-gripping the steering wheel.

When my breathing slows, I recheck the time. I’m seeing it wrong, I must be. I’m tired, and my vision is blurring and—

11:59.

That isn’t possible.

I turn back to the GPS. The last time I saw the map, Lake Michigan had been somewhere to my left, which is correct. I’ve been living in Chicago, and my parents are up near Traverse City. The best route hugs the lake on 196. I’d been near the spot where it veers inland, so it makes sense the detour took me onto a smaller lakeside route. I just can’t see the actual lake . . . or anything else.

As if in response, lightning flashes, and I get a two-second view of my surroundings. Trees. That’s all I see. Looming hardwoods on either side.

The windshield fogs, and I spin the dial on the fan, as if that will help. Then I rub away condensation and peer into the darkness, seeing nothing but road and precious little of that, asphalt swallowed by the rain and night.

I take a deep breath and focus on home. I’ll get there, no matter how long it takes, and when I arrive Dad will come to carry my bags, despite the storm while Mom will stand on the porch, waiting to pull me into a crushing hug.

They’re always delighted to see me, no matter how little I’ve done with the wonderful life they gave me.

Oh, but you’re still so young, Ellie. You just need time. The right job will come along. The right man will come along. And you’ll look back and laugh at yourself for being in such a hurry.

They’ve been saying that since I was eighteen. I’m now thirty-five. I have three partial degrees, one ex-fiancé, and the car my parents gave me for graduating high school. But Dad will fix the old car and Mom will mend my frayed seams. They’ll patch me up as best they can and give me the courage I need to venture into the world again.

I just need to get—

A woman appears in my headlights. I yelp and yank the wheel as I jam on the brakes. My foot goes to the floor, and nothing happens. I jerk the steering wheel, but the car keeps barreling toward the woman.

I see her face—a pale oval in the night—and then there’s a horrible, gut-wrenching crash.

I slam back against the headrest. Pain explodes behind my eyes, as if I’ve been punched in the face. White fills my vision. Endless white. Then it sinks away, and I realize the airbag deployed. I bat it down and—

Storm. Collision. Woman.

Struggling to free myself from the deflated bag, I wrench the door handle, and the door flies open with an ugly screech that tells me it won’t be closing properly again, and I don’t care because I hit someone. I was going so slowly, being so careful, and I did try to swerve and brake, but somehow I still hit her.

I stumble toward the front of the car as one leg screams and buckles. Hot blood pours from my nose, and icy rain drenches me. I can’t see. The lights from my car are out, and everything’s dark, and I’m staggering forward—

My knee strikes something hard as sharp pain slashes down my arm and my hands fly up to ward off attack from . . .

A tree?

There’s a tree across the road. That’s what I’ve stumbled onto, my knee cracking against the trunk, a broken branch slashing my arm.

A massive tree stretches nearly across the road.

Did I miss the woman and knock down a tree? Not when the trunk is nearly as wide as my car.

I hit a fallen tree.

That’s what my car struck.

But . . . wouldn’t I have seen it?

Blood drips onto my parted lips, and I pinch my nose as I try to focus.

I squint and sluice rain from my face, but I can’t see a damn thing.

“Hello?” I call. Then again, louder.

When no one answers, my heart picks up speed. If I didn’t hit her, she’d answer.

If I didn’t hit her, she’d have come to check on me after the crash.

“Hello!” I bellow, as loud as I can.

Only the pound of rain answers.

I know I’d seen a person. A middle-aged woman with gray-streaked hair, standing there, looking straight at me.

A woman who’d seen an oncoming car and hadn’t moved.

She must have been in shock.

Only she hadn’t looked shocked. I remember her face the moment before impact. She’d looked tired. Resigned. As if she’d seen the car coming and known she couldn’t get out of the way and just—

Just what? Stood there?

What matters is that I know I saw a woman, and I know I swerved and braked, and then I hit a fallen tree.

Did I also hit the woman? Is she under the car? Or—worse—crushed between it and the tree?

I need light. Hands out, I feel my way back to the car. The door hangs open. I stick my head inside and smack the airbag away as I search for my phone. It’s not where I left it, and I’m frantically patting the seat, the floor, the—

There! On the floor. I grab my phone. Please be working. Please be . . .

The screen lights up at my touch, and I exhale. As I back out of the car, I try to flick on the cell phone flashlight, but my fingers are too wet to work the touch screen. I rub one hand on my jeans.

My soaking-wet jeans.

I growl in frustration. A woman could be lying on the road, dying, and I can’t do anything right. It’s like one of those nightmares, where I’m desperately trying to phone my parents, and my fingers keep hitting the wrong numbers.

Reaching in, wipe my hand on the dry cloth seat, and turn on the flashlight. I check under the vehicle first, but there’s nothing there. Then, with the light outstretched before me, I run to the front of the car, only to see nothing except that massive tree.

I wave the phone around the hood, searching for a sign of anyone between the bumper and tree, but the downpour means even the flashlight doesn’t illuminate more than a few inches.

And then suddenly I can see, as everything lights up in another flash of . . .

I lift my face to the sky. That’s not lightning. There was no thunder—I’d have jumped, and the road is still lit, as if by something behind me.

I turn just as the light swallows me. And then—

Nothing.

Copyright © 2026 by Kelley Armstrong. All rights reserved.