The tires sprayed water.
“Valerie!”
Emery ran two steps after the vehicle.
The SUV accelerated.
“VALERIE!”
Red taillights disappeared into the storm.
And Emery was alone.
Now, standing beneath the same merciless rain, she counted because counting was something she could control.
“One hundred forty-six... one hundred forty-seven...”
Her mother had taught her to count when she was scared.
At least, Emery thought her mother had.
She didn't actually remember her mother.
Everything she knew about Marisol Quinn came from photographs and stories Daniel had told her.
Your mom loved sunflowers.
Your mom sang badly but loudly.
Your mom cried at cartoons.
Your mom loved you more than anything.
Her mother had died when Emery was very young.
That was the story.
That had always been the story.
“Four hundred twelve... four hundred thirteen...”
Another car passed.
Emery didn't wave.
“Six hundred eighty-nine...”
Her teeth began chattering.
“Eight hundred twelve...”
The paperback under her arm had swollen from the rain.
She looked down at it and began to cry harder.
It had been her mother's copy.
Daniel had given it to Emery on her eighth birthday.
“She loved this book,” he'd said.
Emery had read it seven times.
Now the pages were being destroyed.
She tried tucking it beneath the emergency blanket.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered to a woman she believed had been dead almost her entire life.
“I'm sorry, Mom.”
She reached nine hundred ninety-seven.
Nine hundred ninety-eight.
Nine hundred ninety-nine.
One thousand.
That was when she felt something beneath her feet.
Not thunder.
A vibration.
Emery stopped counting.
The vibration came again.
Low.
Rhythmic.
Growing stronger.
She looked west.
At first, there was nothing except rain and darkness.
Then a light appeared.
Then another.
Then five.
Ten.
Twenty.
Emery stared.
Headlights emerged through the storm in a long glowing chain, stretching around the distant curve of the highway.
The vibration became a rumble.
The rumble became thunder.
Motorcycles.
Dozens of them.
Then more.
Chrome flashed beneath the headlights. Water exploded beneath thick tires. Riders in dark jackets moved through the rain in disciplined formation, their headlights piercing the fog until the entire highway seemed filled with moving stars.
Emery took a frightened step backward.
Her heel slipped in the mud.
She nearly fell.
The lead motorcycle slowed.
Then the one behind it slowed.
And the next.
A hand rose from the lead rider.
The gesture passed backward through the convoy.
One motorcycle after another reduced speed.
Engines dropped from a roar to a heavy growl.
Emery froze.
The first bike pulled safely onto the shoulder about twenty yards away.
The second followed.
Then the third.
Within seconds, the roadside filled with motorcycles.
There were so many that Emery couldn't count them.
For the first time that night, the vehicles had not passed her.
They had stopped.
The lead rider switched off his engine.
Other engines began shutting down behind him until the enormous roar faded into rainfall.
The sudden quiet frightened Emery almost as much as the motorcycles had.
The man who climbed from the first bike was enormous.
He looked like the kind of person Valerie would have told Emery never to approach.
He was tall and broad, with heavy boots, rain-darkened jeans, a black leather vest beneath a waterproof riding jacket, and a thick beard streaked with gray. Tattoos disappeared beneath his sleeves. His face looked carved by decades of sun, wind, bad roads, and harder memories.
He took two steps toward Emery.
She backed away.
He stopped immediately.
Then, without saying anything, he lowered himself onto one knee.
That changed everything.
Suddenly he wasn't towering over her.
He was looking up slightly.
His voice, when he spoke, was unexpectedly gentle.
“Hey there, sweetheart.”
Emery said nothing.
“My name's Boone.”
Rain ran from his beard.
“You don't have to come any closer. I'm going to stay right here, okay?”
Emery tightened the blanket around herself.
Boone glanced at the highway, then back at her.
“You shouldn't be standing out here alone.”
Her lips trembled.
“She said to stay here.”
Boone's expression changed.
Only slightly.