The rain in Chapter One had been a backdrop for fear. It was cold, confusing, and overwhelming.
The rain in Chapter Seventy-Eight was just weather. And weather was a variable we knew how to calculate.
I watched from the shadows of the garage bay as three black SUVs screeched to a halt on the wet gravel. In the original timeline, I had been cowering behind a tool chest, clutching a wrench like a lifeline, terrified that these men were coming to kill me for a debt I didn't owe. Dax had been bleeding, desperate, and defensive.
Now? Dax was standing in the center of the driveway, his arms crossed, looking at his watch.
"Three minutes early," Dax muttered, his voice barely audible over the storm. "Their pathfinding AI must have been upgraded in the patch."
The doors of the lead SUV flew op
