3. Callum #2
“I have to go, kid,” I say, watching the rain hammer against the glass. “Need to get back on the road before this storm washes the ridge out entirely.”
Isla lets out a soft sigh. “Alright. Be careful, okay? Love you, big brother.”
“Love you too.”
I hit the button on the steering wheel to disconnect the call.
The exact second the line cuts—click—the dashboard display goes completely black. The deep rumble of the V8 engine underneath me dies on a wheezing gasp. The headlights snap off, plunging the cab into total, suffocating darkness. The hazard lights shudder once and then vanish.
I turn the key back, wait two seconds, and crank the ignition again.
Dead silence. The instrument cluster stays pitch black.
No starter whine, no warning lights, no sign of life at all.
I’ve worked enough vehicular accidents to know how alternator failures and dead batteries look, and this isn’t it.
The truck didn’t just stall—it’s like the power was sucked right out of it.
“What the fuck?” I try it a third time, turning the key hard enough to strain the ignition cylinder. Nothing.
This is a brand-new GMC Sierra—a heavy-duty splurge I bought last year after wrapping up a brutal six-month stint on a cold-case task force. I keep the maintenance schedule immaculate. Oil changed every five thousand miles on the dot, fresh fluids, zero mechanical red flags.
I grab my phone off the console and tap the screen. The glass lights up, but the top bar is utterly blank. No Service. The GPS map is stuck on a frozen gray grid, a little blue arrow floating over a nameless expanse of blackness.
A total dead zone.
I stare out the windshield into the pitch-black rain, my brain automatically running through the math, laying out the variables and paring down my options.
Option one: pop the hood in a hell of a downpour, shine my flashlight into the engine bay, and pretend I can fix a catastrophic electrical failure on a modern computer-controlled truck with no dry tools on hand.
Option two: be a sitting duck with no service while I wait on a tow truck that isn’t coming, basically handing Michael Myers a personal invitation to drag my dumb ass into the woods.
Option three: grab my flashlight and walk across this bridge toward whatever the fuck town is printed on that sign in the hopes that I’ll find civilization somewhat soon.
Option three it is.
I reach into the cup holder, grab my flashlight and phone, and pull the hood of my hoodie up over my head before dragging my heavy duck-canvas Carhartt jacket over my shoulders. I step out into the storm, slamming the truck door behind me and locking it with the key blade.
This fourteen-day mandatory relaxation experiment is off to a terrible start. If I end up on a missing persons flyer tucked inside a break room before sunrise, Hayes is going to be furious he has to do my paperwork.
The bridge creaks under the heavy soles of my boots, the weathered timber groaning beneath me.
Across the span, the woods swallow the road whole.
Even through the storm, there’s an odd quietness to this valley.
The trees here are gargantuan—ancient pines and hemlocks with branches so dense they block out the sky, smelling of wet cedar, moss, and rich, turned earth.
Down in the distance, through the thick veil of fog, I can make out the vague outlines of gabled roofs and soft lanterns flickering like something pulled straight out of a different century.
I’m maybe thirty yards past the bridge when the back of my neck starts to prickle.
It’s an old instinct, honed over eight years on the force—that certainty that you’re being watched. My hand immediately drops to my right hip, my fingers curling to index the grip of my gun.
My hand meets empty air and soaked denim.
Fuck.
Right. No badge, no Glock. I let out a breath, dropping my hand and adjusting the beam of my flashlight against the gravel.
Tiny, flickering pinpricks of pale yellow light bob lazily through the drenched tall grass beside the road, completely unfazed by the sheeting rain.
It must be fireflies. Hundreds of them, weaving through the hemlock needles.
It’s strange as hell—fireflies usually don’t brave a mountain storm like this—but the sight tugs at something in my chest. I grew up with fireflies lighting up the timber behind our house back in the Appalachians.
Out here in the middle of nowhere, they’re oddly comforting.
A pair of dim, yellow headlights rounds the bend ahead, slicing through the rain and fog.
I step off to the shoulder, raising a hand to shield my eyes as the engine comes closer.
It’s a small, boxy black hatchback—looks like an old eighties model, low to the ground, its windshield wipers slapping back and forth.
The car slows, tires crunching on the wet gravel, and sidles up right next to me before rolling to a stop.
Inside, the driver reaches over and hand-cranks the window down—just a couple of inches, barely enough to let a draft in.
She looks up at me, her expression a mix of sheer shock and extreme skepticism.
Even in the dim glow of her dashboard, she’s striking.
Scary, maybe, in an I-will-not-hesitate-to-run-you-over kind of way, but pretty.
She’s in a heavy black leather jacket that seems to swallow her small frame, and her jet-black hair is pulled up into a messy knot right at the crown of her head—the way I’ve seen Isla wear hers when she’s stressed out.
Long bangs frame her face, brushing just above a pair of sharp, intelligent eyes that I can’t quite make out in the dark—maybe mossy green, maybe deep blue.
Maybe a mix of both. She’s got high cheekbones, a small, upturned nose, and full lips pressed into a flat line.
For a few seconds, neither of us says a word. Then I clear my throat, leaning down slightly so she doesn’t have to shout over the storm.
“My truck broke down,” I say, my accent thick and heavy as I point a finger back over my shoulder toward the bridge. “Electrical gave out. I’ve got no cell service out here, so I have no idea where the hell I am.”
Her frown deepens, but she doesn’t roll the window up, so I take that as a win.
“I was heading west off the highway toward the pass,” I continue, rain dripping from the bill of my hood straight down my nose. “Must’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere back near the gorge cutoff, because this definitely isn’t the route to the state line.”
She stares at me through the glass for another beat, then slowly cranks the window all the way back up.
I drop my hands into my jacket pockets, turning back toward my truck. Right. Stranger on a pitch-black mountain road. Can’t blame her.
Then I hear the metallic clunk of a heavy car door open.
I turn around as she steps out, slamming her driver’s side door shut.
She’s taller than I expected. I’m six-three, and even without a massive heel on her boots, she comes up almost to the tip of my nose.
She’s wearing sheer black tights under a short leather skirt, a black top, and scuffed Doc Martens—an outfit that makes me question whether it’s been raining like this all night, or if she just didn’t give a damn when she got dressed.
She lifts a hand over her forehead, trying to shield her dark bangs from the rain as she looks up at me. “I can take a look at it,” she calls out over the wind.
I arch an eyebrow, genuinely surprised. I wouldn’t have pegged her for a car girl, but at this point, I’m not about to turn down a second set of eyes. “That’d be great. Appreciate it.”
We turn and start walking back toward the timber bridge, our boots crunching against the wet shoulder.
“How long have you been driving around out here?” she asks, her voice laced with a strange, guarded undercurrent of disbelief. “How did you even get past the ridge cutoff?”
“Got lost about an hour ago,” I say, stepping around a wide, muddy puddle. “Where are we, exactly?”
I look sideways down at her profile. In the dim yellow backscatter of her car’s headlights, I see her throat work as she swallows hard before answering.
“Amberhollow,” she says quietly.
I run the name through my head, cross-referencing every state highway map I looked at back at the precinct. Nothing. “Never heard of it.”
She lets out a short, sarcastic little laugh, rain glistening on her cheekbones. “Yeah. I didn’t think you would.”
Before I can ask what the hell that’s supposed to mean, she shoves her hands deep into the pockets of her leather jacket and quickens her pace, walking ahead of me on the narrow road. I hurry my step to catch up.
When we reach the truck, she walks straight to the front grille, tapping two silver-ringed fingers against the hood. “Pop it and release the safety latch. Let’s see what we’re working with.”
I reach in through the driver’s door, pull the interior hood release with a heavy thunk, and join her at the front. I lift the hood into place and slot the prop rod into the frame.
She steps right up against the bumper, leaning into the engine bay like she’s done this a hundred times. Her hands—small, but confident—go straight to the battery terminals, wiggling the heavy cables to test the connection before peering down toward the main alternator wiring and the fuse block.
The rain is coming down harder now, soaking into her dark hair. Without thinking too much about it, I unzip my heavy Carhartt jacket, shrug my arms out of the sleeves, and lift the thick canvas over her head like a makeshift roof, blocking the downpour.
Slowly, she cuts her eyes sideways at me through her peripheral vision, her dark eyebrows pulling together in sheer skepticism.
I clear my throat, my arm muscles tensing as I hold the wet coat over her. I point a thumb up toward the sky. “The rain.”
When she just keeps staring at me like I’ve grown a second head, I feel like an absolute idiot and clarify. “Just…trying to keep you from getting soaked out here.”
A small, genuine snort slips out of her nose. “Smooth, Romeo.”