Chapter 2
The rain spattered hard against the windshield as Jenna Brooks leaned forward, squinting into the darkened sky. She almost couldn't see the road anymore, not more than just a few feet in front of her.
The urge to open the window and peek out was strong, but doing that wouldn’t accomplish anything except getting her wet.
The rain was that crazy. And there was nothing her wipers—even at high speed—could do about it.
This was the kind of stuff that made her wish to pull over to the side of the road and wait it out.
Or maybe even find an overpass to hide under.
Somewhere she could take cover, where she wouldn’t have to hear the relentless smack of drop after drop.
The universe seemed to be telling her she’d made a mistake. She shouldn’t have taken this chance. The people in Belle Hollow didn’t know she was coming, but it was almost as if the place knew, and it didn’t want her here.
Suddenly, she felt very small. What was she even doing, anyway?
She’d questioned herself so many times. It was a plain old DNA test. It made her so curious, but in reality, it didn't tell her anything about herself or these people.
But it did make her so, so curious. She had to admit that she'd always wondered. Kids like her always did. Parents like hers had downplayed her curiosity, suggesting she didn’t need to know, and what if she learned something bad?
But, given the recent turn of events, something inside her had pushed to know more.
Some new little voice even told her to go find out what was waiting here in Belle Hollow.
Where the matches had shown up. More than one.
Now, it seemed as if the universe was telling her she’d made absolutely the wrong choice.
She’d been wrong about the voice and now one step further could spell disaster.
However, maybe the disaster might not be just for her.
From as bad as it looked and what the radio had said before it went to static, this was awful for everyone in the area.
As if she’d brought the bad tidings in with her.
Jenna slowed her speed even more as if that would make her visibility any better.
Braking softly, she watched the rearview mirror.
No one came gunning up behind her. That was good—if they did, they would smack right into her car and send her spinning.
Because no one could see anything in this dreadful rain.
Luckily—unluckily?—she hadn't seen anyone for miles.
Belle Hollow was a small town nestled deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It wasn’t close enough to any freeway to get to easily. She’d followed the state roads on her GPS, sometimes confusing the state road numbers with the populations of the little towns she’d passed.
But if there was one thing she’d figured out in her life, it was that she sucked at going back.
She just kept moving forward. On this road, right now, forward was the only option.
She might want to huddle under an overpass, but there weren't any.
There wasn't a pullout or even a shoulder on the side of the road so she could get out of the way. If she stopped now, she’d be sitting smack in the middle of the road.
There were only two lanes that got more twisted and narrow the further she headed toward the little town. But that had been her goal, and it needed to stay that way. She was out of options.
On her right, the ground pushed up sharply, growing close to the pavement and marking the kind of woods that she believed probably held all kinds of wildlife. If not for the torrential downpour she might have seen some of it on her drive. She would have loved that.
On the other side of the road—luckily not the side she was driving on—there was a wavy silver guardrail and then almost nothing.
The ground dropped away into what had begun as a charming creek. She'd followed it for miles. It had been beautiful when the sun was out. It was fascinating when the rain started falling, the burbling little rapids spotted with drops. But now it bordered on terrifying.
The water had gotten higher and higher. Each mile she passed seemed to add another foot to the surface, though she knew that couldn’t possibly be right. She should have turned around and gone back—long before now—no maybe about it.
Jenna regretted her choices as she gripped the steering wheel so tight her fingers and knuckles blanched white.
She swallowed hard, thinking about the drink in the cup holder beside her.
She was thirsty but didn't dare risk the extra movement required to pick it up. What if she missed something on the road? Something could be crossing—a car, a deer, anything—five feet in front of her and she could miss it. The day had grown that dark, and the rain was thick enough that even her brights couldn’t penetrate it.
She’d slowed the car to a crawl, praying that no one came up behind her too fast. The locals probably knew this road like the back of their hands.
Maybe they knew this weather, too. She hoped it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.
Maybe she would meet some of them and they would all laugh at how terrified she’d been of a little rain.
“You’ll be fine,” she murmured to herself over and over. She just had to keep pushing forward. Each foot she survived was another foot further.
Jenna didn’t ask toward what?
She was watching the road in front of her with an eagle eye when it happened.
First, the water sluiced down the hill. It rushed out of the woods in a torrent.
What had been a small creek that trickled down the mountainside and disappeared into a pipe under the road suddenly became too much.
The water, full of mud, sticks, leaves, and more, barreled down the mountain in front of her.
Whether it clogged the pipe or just overran it, she couldn’t tell. But it began to rush across the road.
Just as Jenna was trying to decide whether it was too deep for her to drive through, or if this was really the end, she watched as the pavement in front of her cracked and buckled.
Slamming on her brakes, she prayed her tires would hold on the already too-wet pavement, and she barreled toward the now missing chunk of road.