She didn’t wave for help.
She looked directly into my windshield as my Honda approached at fifty-five miles per hour.
Her eyes were not the eyes of a panicked victim. They were two unblinking, slate-gray discs of terrifying, predatory intelligence—staring straight through my glass, through my pupils, through the cheap tie around my neck, as if she were reading the serial numbers off my soul.
Then her knees dissolved.
She hit the crushed granite of the shoulder with a sickening, heavy thud, her forehead striking the steel guardrail pylon, her breath exploding from her chest in a thin, whistling, red-tinted plume of fine aerosolized spray.
I didn’t think about the pitch deck.
I didn’t think about Nick’s eight-thirty deadline.
I didn’t think about the three-year non-compete clause in my employment contract.
I slammed the brakes of my Accord so hard the antilock calipers groaned against the rotors: SCREEECH-PULL.
