Outside, the air is chilly enough to bite. The sky is that early-dawn gray that makes everything look unfinished. My car sits under a flickering light, alone in the far row like it’s hiding. The lot is mostly empty—night shift stragglers and early morning arrivals.
My keys feel heavy in my hand. I reach my car, unlock it, slide inside. The seat is cold through my jeans. I exhale and rest my forehead on the steering wheel for just a second. Just a second.
Then I sit up and start the engine. It turns over, catches, purrs to life. Relief loosens my shoulders.
I pull out, driving slow through the lot. My eyes sting with exhaustion. The radio stays off. I don’t want noise. I want quiet. I want my bed. I want my grandfather’s soft snores drifting from the living room where his bed is set up. I want the familiar creak of my porch steps.
I turn onto the main road, headlights cutting through the thin fog. The town is sleepy. Streetlights cast pale pools across asphalt. The world feels hushed, like it’s holding its breath.
I’m about thirteen miles from the hospital when my dashboard suddenly lights up like a warning flare. Every indicator blinks at once.
Battery.
Oil.
Check engine.
My heart jumps, a sharp little spike of irritation. “No,” I mutter. “Not today.” The steering wheel stiff in my hands. The engine sputters. My car shudders like it’s trying to shake itself apart. I glance around, mind still slow from the shift. There’s no one behind me. No one beside me. Just empty road and trees and a billboard advertising a church revival.
The engine makes a clanking noise again. I grip the wheel tighter, force my brain into focus. I signal and guide the car toward the shoulder.
It gives me just enough time.
Barely enough.
The moment my tires hit the gravel edge, the engine dies like someone cut a cord. The radio goes silent. The air stops blowing. The dashboard goes dark except for a faint glow that fades like a dying ember. I sit there with my hands still on the wheel, heart pounding too hard for something as simple as car trouble.
It’s the time of day. The place in my trip that is always desolate because it’s an empty two lane road of fields. The emptiness. The way the world feels too quiet.
I reach for my phone in my purse, planning to call Miles or a tow. I hadn’t figured out which call to make first then I need to update the caregiver to hold over and I will be home soon.
A tap.
Soft.
On my window. My head lifts automatically, irritation ready on my tongue. But the words die before they form.
Because there are two men standing beside my car. Not in hospital scrubs. Not in a uniform.
Dark hoodies. Ball caps pulled low. Faces half-hidden. And both of them are holding guns.
My breath stops.
The world narrows to the glint of metal and the shape of their hands. For a heartbeat, my mind refuses to accept what my eyes are seeing. It tries to make it something else. A mistake. A nightmare. A scene from a movie.
But then one of them lifts a piece of paper to the window.
A photo. My grandfather.
It’s from last year before he ended up bedridden. This was back when he could get around with assistance. He’s sitting in his recliner, the blue blanket over his knees, his eyes crinkled with a smile that makes my chest ache.
The picture is so normal. My stomach drops so hard I feel hollow.
The man with the photo taps again, more insistent, like I’m taking too long to understand. I can’t hear anything but my own heartbeat.
Thud.
Thud.
