The tires rolled smoothly over the road as the town fell away behind them, buildings giving way to long stretches of green. The air seemed to shift out here—cooler, cleaner, the smell of damp earth drifting in through the open vent. The constant hum of traffic was gone. No streetlights, no sidewalks, no neon signs buzzing overhead. Just trees. Tall, ancient-looking pines that crowded the roadside and swayed faintly in the late afternoon breeze, casting shifting patterns of shadow and light over the hood of the truck.
It was the kind of quiet that could either soothe you or set your teeth on edge. For Molly, it was definitely the latter.
She sat stiff in the passenger seat, arms folded tight across her chest, shoulders drawn in like armor. Her gaze was locked on the woods blurring past th
