The first raindrop hits the window with a soft click, an isolated sound against the silence. I glance up, expecting it to be the only one, but the sky opens in sudden release, sudden surrender, a deluge against the glass. Lightning flares on the horizon, illuminating the storm with sharp intensity. The empty office grows darker, the outlines of desks and papers fading with the pounding rain, with the insistence of the weather. I move to the window, my eyes tracing the paths of water against glass, against the wet and waiting world outside. “Looks like we’re here for a while,” Lucas says. He joins me at the window, his reflection sharp and insistent against mine.
I should feel trapped, but there is a strange relief in being caught like this, a strange comfort in the enforced delay, in the
