Chapter 2

She was humming along to the radio as she pulled out of the courthouse parking lot, flicking on her windshield wipers as the spots of rain that had been falling finally intensified into a light shower. Nightfall had crept up quickly, and she was already looking forward to getting home and into a hot shower. Thoughts about the courthouse were racing around her mind in a tangled jumble, and as much as she tried to let it go and focus on the drive, she couldnt help getting caught up in her worries about the outcome. Should she have spoken more harshly about Garys conduct with his daughter? There were a lot of red flags in what shed observed in his behavior, especially how quickly he grew frustrated with her and the unpleasant language he often used to describe her behaviors. Shed done her best to be neutral in her reporting of the facts of the case, not wanting to seem like she was trying to sway the courts opinion one way or the other… but now she was worried shed been a little too logical. But shed made it clear what she thought was the best course of action for Emma.

At any rate, it was too late to change anything now. Theyd asked her professional opinion, and shed given it. The decision would be made no matter how much she stressed about it… still, she had to forcefully stop herself from gnawing on her lower lip as she navigated the tail end of rush hour traffic. Nearly home, now.

Shed forgotten that it was a Friday night. She hadnt had a real weekend since before grad school, so it always came as a surprise to realize that people were celebrating the end of their work weeks, and sure enough, traffic slowed to a crawl as she found herself on a stretch of road that featured a lot of the citys nightlife. This was usually the quickest way to her place… at least when drunk people werent wandering absent-mindedly into the street and forcing everyone to drive at about five miles an hour for fear of hitting a drunken pedestrian.

Gritting her teeth, she made a snap decision and flicked on her turn signal. There was a side road along here that most people thought was a dead end… but locals knew that if you went right down to the end, there was a parking lot from which an enterprising driver could sneak out onto an adjoining street. She didnt take the shortcut often, but right now Ivy wasnt in the mood to sit in her car waiting for a bunch of drunks to get out of her way. So she ducked down the dark side street, feeling a rush of relief to be leaving the traffic behind her.

But that relief quickly turned to dread when she saw a truck pull out of a parking lot up ahead, far too fast, straight into the lane ahead of her.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. For a moment, she couldnt quite believe what she was looking at. The truck, headlights blaring, had pulled right out into the oncoming lane of traffic — surely that couldnt be right. But then she caught a glimpse of the driver, his red face, his unfocused eyes … and realized with a lurch that the parking lot he was pulling out of was directly behind a bar. By the looks of things, hed been there all afternoon… and from the speed his truck was moving at, she had a feeling hed slammed his foot down hard on the accelerator, not expecting any traffic to get in his way.

With an eerie calm, she assessed her options. She could honk her horn and hope he moved but relying on a drunks reaction speed seemed like a fools errand. She could slam on her brakes, but even if she stopped in time, it was no guarantee that the truck would. Her best shot was to see if she could swerve around him. So with her scream of panic still on her lips, Ivy pumped the brake and pulled hard on the wheel… only to realize, with a flare of panic, that it was already too late. Her car was moving, turning, agonizingly slowly… just fast enough to avoid the head-on collision that theyd been heading for, but not fast enough to avoid the sickening crunch of metal and juddering thump of impact that hit her.

Ivy wasnt sure if she lost consciousness or not. One minute, she was desperately trying to pull her car out of the drunk drivers way… the next, she was in darkness. But it didnt feel like waking up, or even coming to after a bout of unconsciousness — shed once been knocked unconscious for a few seconds after falling off a horse, and the disorientation when shed woken up on the ground was still vivid in her memory. This didnt feel like that. It simply felt like all the lights had gone out at once… but at the same time, she realized that she could no longer feel the steering wheel in her hands or the seat of the car beneath her.

For a moment that seemed to last forever, Ivy confronted the possibility that she might be dead.

But she couldnt be, could she? If she was dead, then who was here, wondering about whether she was dead or not? No, she was here. She just couldnt see anything, or hear anything, or feel anything, or figure out where the hell she was. Brain damage? Had she somehow been severed from all of her senses? Just as the magnitude of that prospect began to sink in, Ivy realized with a rush of gratitude that she could, in fact, see something. But it didnt exactly answer her questions.

It was a glow, at first. Just the glow of light, bright enough to make her blink, and that physical gesture was enough to ground her again, making her realize belatedly how disconnected shed been from her body. No wonder she hadnt been able to feel anything… but she couldnt feel much now, either. The car was certainly not present. She was standing, somewhere, in almost complete darkness, save for that steadily brightening glow. And as she blinked her eyes, she began to make out more detail. The glow was shaped roughly like a human figure. But that didnt make any sense, did it? People didnt glow. What was she looking at, here? Was this some kind of dream? Her thoughts felt more orderly than shed expect from a dream…

And then there was the brush of a hand against her lower back. It was a light touch, but it seemed to ebb into a pleasant warmth that tingled through her whole body, anchoring her more solidly in her skin. It seemed to carry a message of incredible reassurance, wordless but powerfully articulate. It told her that she was well, that she was safe, that no harm had come to her. And somehow, it told her to be brave in the face of what was coming next. All that, with the touch of a hand on her waist. Not understanding, Ivy felt a smile creep onto her face regardless, and she took a step toward the glowing figure ahead of her. Somehow, she knew that she was among friends, here.

The glowing figure stepped back… and she realized with a start that it wasnt alone. There were more figures, all around her, dozens of them… it was as though theyd all been walking together for quite some time, but her attention had been so fixed on some inconsequential distraction that she hadnt noticed that they were there. Her heart swelled with that same strange feeling of familiarity, tinged with confusion… she knew at once that shed never met these people before, but that they were her dear friends, and that they cared for her. That theyd done more for her than shed ever realize or understand. That they believed in her strength, her ability to face the future.

She wanted to speak to them. She wanted to open her mouth to thank them, to ask them who they were, to tell them she appreciated their love, their kindness, their protection… and a thousand more questions were on the heels of those, too. But before she could so much as take a breath to speak, she felt another touch on her back, firmer, this time. An unmistakable instruction to step forward… but where? Toward the figure shed been looking at… but the figure was gone. Ahead of her was only darkness. They wanted her to step into the darkness? Somehow, she knew that where she was going, she was going alone. The figures had walked with her this far, but they would not be accompanying her through the dark gate ahead. Trepidation, grief, confusion … but those feelings all melted like snow as she felt the figures embrace her.

And with the glow of that strange companionship still warm in her heart, Ivy stepped forward, and felt darkness claim her again as the light of her new friends vanished completely.