The armored SUV was an extension of my madness. I pushed it through the blizzard, the world outside a screaming vortex of white, the tires finding purchase on the icy mountain road only through sheer, desperate force of will. The engine howled, a pale imitation of the sound trapped in my own chest. Every kilometer was another lash of a whip I now knew I deserved.
I was chasing a ghost. A ghost I had created.
The GPS, a cold, clinical voice that had no concept of damnation, guided me to a place that shouldn't exist. A black-ops relic, a forgotten safe house from a generation ago. The kind of place Vera kept in her back pocket for scenarios that were theoretically impossible. The end of the world. The fall of the family.
The final coordinates led me off the main road, onto a barely-there
