I hit Ignore. I’ll call her back in the morning.
Another sound from my cell phone, this one just a chime. Another glance at the dash.
One new voicemail
I reach over, turn my speaker volume down, and hit Play.
“Joey, honey, it’s Mom. Just calling to say good night, and I miss you. Call me back when you get the chance. It’s been two weeks—it would be nice to hear your voice.”
Has it been two weeks since we spoke? Really?
“I know you’re busy, but—you haven’t gotten back to us about Thanksgiving. Are you coming? Sierra booked her ticket, and I know it would mean a lot to her—”
I reach over to stop the voicemail, but red brake lights catch my attention through the windshield. I look up just in time to slam on my brakes before I ram straight into the truck in front of me.
I brace for impact.
2
I come to in what appears to be an office.
Strange. Call me old-fashioned, but I expected a hospital.
I look around and realize I’m still tensed. Still braced for impact. I force my shoulders to relax and release the tension my body’s holding on to. My inhale sounds like a gasp.
My heart beats out a quick, loud rhythm in my chest. My hands shake. Adrenaline courses through my body, at odds with the dullness of my surroundings.
The office appears to be ripped straight out of the 1970s. Teakwood-paneled walls. Furniture that somehow manages to be both colorful and drab. Mustard and orange everywhere. No windows; the only light comes from the yellow-hued overheads.
The room appears to be empty, but I jolt at the sound of a keyboard clacking.
I’m not alone.
The presence of another person in this strange space causes all my nerves to stand on end. I feel like my body’s fight-or-flight response has been activated, and everything in me is screaming,Fight! Or flight! Whichever! Both. Literally justdosomething.
I stand and see a young man sitting at the desk on the other side of an absolute monstrosity of a computer. He’s wearing horn-rimmedglasses and staring intently at his screen. I’d place him somewhere in his early twenties, if I had to hazard a guess.
“Where the hell am I?” I demand.
The man—the receptionist?—smiles up at me. Warm, comforting, inviting.
And yet, something is off. Something about his demeanor—hisaura, I’d say, if I believed in auras—tells me not to trust him.
“This isn’t hell, honey. Don’t you worry,” he says, sounding disturbingly upbeat. I’m so thrown by the pep in his voice that it takes a moment for his words to register.
What a very odd thing to say.
And considering my last thought before he uttered those strange words was not to trust him, I’m feeling pretty damn worried.
I wasn’t worried about hell before this—had never really thought much about it, if I’m honest, the idea of an afterlife an overwhelming, nebulous concept I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around—but now I sure am.
“Whereisit, then?”
“This is the waiting room.” He seems to think he’s being helpful.
“The waiting room,” I repeat flatly. “But I wasn’t in a waiting room, I was in my—”
I freeze. The motion reminds me of bracing for impact just… moments ago? But it couldn’t have been moments ago. That makes no sense.
