The first rumble of thunder growled deep and far off, a drumbeat to the city's steady hum. Ethan caught it through the tinted glass of the Bentley, and for a moment, it was on the verge of a relief—nature announcing its temper in blunt frankness. People were never so blunt.
Rain was coming. He could feel it in the air, the metallic tang of a storm before it broke.
They were still on the expressway, the miles of blacktop curving toward the sea. The lights of the city hazy behind them, smeared by piling clouds. Zaria sat beside him, her body tense—half turned away from the window, from him, but every tension in her limbs alert.
"Always drive in silence?" she said suddenly, her voice a drop of ink in water—small, but growing.
Ethan kept staring straight ahead. "I like to think first."
"T
