AN ANGEL IN EXILE

CHAPTER THREE - THE ANGEL IN THE RAIN By the time Kit left the paved highway and turned onto the gravel road that led toward Heron’s high country, the sky had folded into a curtain of rain. Thick, relentless sheets hammered the windshield, turning the wipers into a frantic metronome. The old F100 rumbled stubbornly along the slick road, its headlights slicing pale tunnels through the storm. The forest grew denser the farther west he drove. Tall pines leaning over the road, their branches sagging with water, their trunks black and glistening. The world felt narrowed to a tunnel; gravel, trees, rain, darkness. Sam lived far from anything resembling civilisation. No ranches. No cabins with Air BnBs and clever names. No hikers. No tourists. Nothing but forest, wildlife, and a handful of old-timers who’d chosen solitude over society. Kit kept one hand on the wheel, the other rubbing at his tired eyes. He’d been driving for hours. The rhythmic roar of rain and the monotony of gravel bends were wearing thin on him. Rexy sat low in the passenger seat, ears back, uneasy. Dogs could sense when the world felt wrong. “Almost there, boy,” Kit muttered, though he wasn’t sure how much distance was left. These roads twisted for miles. He rounded a tight corner, the tires skidding briefly in the mud. That’s when it happened. A brown streak shot out from the right side of the forest like a flash of living lightning. Kit slammed the brakes, the F100 fishtailing on the wet gravel. Heart pounding, he leaned forward, peering through the blurred windshield. “Fox?” he whispered. “Or?” Something moved again. Not an animal. A woman. She burst from the trees in a blur of motion, splashing across the road directly into his headlights. Kit gaped. Frozen. The storm pounding around them as she skidded to a dead stop in front of him. Her head snapped up. Their eyes met. Everything inside him seized. She wasn’t just startled. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. Her hair, blonde, soaked through, clinging to her flushed and rain-slicked face, caught the beam of his headlights like a halo. Her clothes weren’t the usual trail-runner attire; they were form-fitted, tactical, meant for endurance, not leisure. Training gear. Serious gear. Mud streaked her legs. Rain plastered her to her bones. Those eyes though…emerald. Sharp. Alive. They locked onto his through the glass, and for a moment the storm ceased to exist. Kit felt something he didn’t have a name for. Something that punched straight through the layers he’d built. The cowboy, the recluse, the orphan, the man who sang to millions but belonged nowhere or no one. In that suspended heartbeat, she was an angel standing in the road, forged of rain and fear and wildness. Her watch beeped. A single electronic tone, urgent and cold, snapping her back to herself. She jolted like she’d been touched by a hot wire. Her eyes widened in recognition of danger, not of him but of time. Of something chasing her, or something she was racing against. Without a word, she spun around, her breath visible in the cold rain, and sprinted into the forest on the other side of the road. She vanished as fast as she’d appeared, swallowed by shadows and falling water. “Wait!” Kit shouted, shoving the truck door open. Rexy barked sharply, leaping out beside him. By the time Kit reached the tree line, panting, the forest was silent. The rain drowned everything. He saw nothing but darkness between the pines. No tracks. No sound. No flash of blonde hair. No emerald eyes. It was as if the storm itself had conjured her and taken her back. Kit stood there, rain soaking through his coat, breath steaming in the cold air. His pulse hammered in his throat. He’d seen fear in people before, in storms, in sickness, in grief, but what he saw in her eyes wasn’t fear of him. It was fear for her life. He ran a hand through his wet hair and looked back at the road. The F100 idled there, old engine chugging like a tired heartbeat. “Damn,” he whispered. “Who the hell are you?” Rexy whined softly at his feet. Kit glanced once more into the forest, every instinct screaming that something wasn’t right. He didn’t know who she was or why she was running through a storm in the middle of nowhere, but he knew one thing with absolute certainty: He was meant to cross her path. The angel in the rain was a mystery. One that wasn’t finished with him yet. As Kit climbed back into the truck and drove deeper into the wilds toward Sam McDonald’s cabin, he felt the weight of two truths settling heavy on his shoulders: Sam needed him and somehow, so did she.