Prologue
The silence was the worst part.
Not the cold. Not the way the headlights cut through the night. Not the nausea crawling up her throat or the sting in her palm where the skin had split.
The silence. Like the night had swallowed everything, every scream, every gasp, every sound that should echo through the night but didn’t.
Keelin stood in the middle of the road, cold water soaking through her heels, her dress clinging to her thighs. Her breath hitched like her lungs were giving out. She blinked at the headlights, heart punching holes through her chest. Everything was too loud. Too bright. Too much.
The car sat crooked behind her, engine ticking, one headlight flickering like a dying star. The door was open. The keys still in the ignition.
Breathe.
Her legs were shaking. Her hands? Useless. Just limp things hanging at her sides, sticky with sweat and maybe blood.
A wall of sound hit her before she could move.
“Ma’am! Stay right there!”
She didn’t move.
Couldn’t.
A hand touched her shoulder and she flinched hard, head snapping to the side when a flashlight hit her eyes. Someone wrapped a blanket around her. Someone else started firing questions she couldn’t answer.
“What’s your name?”
“Are you injured?”
“What happened?”
Her throat was raw. Her lips wouldn’t open. There was something caught in her mouth, gravel or regret, she couldn’t tell. Her mind was spinning so fast, it felt like she’d left her body behind.
And then she heard him. Her dad.
“Keelin.”
He didn’t rush. He didn’t ask if she was okay. Just looked her up and down like he was calculating something. He stepped between her and the paramedics like he had every right to.
“You say nothing,” he murmured. “Do you hear me?”
She blinked.
His jaw tightened.
“You don’t speak until I tell you to.”
Sirens. Radios. Flashlights.
Her stomach twisted. His voice came again.
“Everything will be fine. I will make this go away. I will fix it.”
The wind picked up. Her fingers curled under the blanket. She looked down at them. Pale. Empty. Red.
She turned back to the road, but she didn’t see anything anymore.
Not the lights.
Not the shape.
Not the body.
