I was halfway down the stairs when I remembered my phone had no signal and the ride app was loading with the particular stubbornness of something that had decided tonight was not its night.
I stood under the building overhang and watched the screen, waited and got three loading circles and nothing else.
Then the rain started.
Not gradually. All at once, the way it always did in Aldenvale — like someone had simply decided and acted on it immediately. Within thirty seconds the street was a river, and I was wet from the shoulders out and the ride app had given up entirely and was showing me an error message in cheerful red.
I stood there for a moment.
Then I went back inside.
I was still wringing water out of my sleeve in the lift when I thought about what I was walking back into — Alex
