“You good?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “It didn’t get me.”
I watched him for a second longer than I needed to, making sure he was telling the truth.
There was no blood or bite.
I turned back to the truck.
“This is it,” I opened the door and looked inside.
Stain pushed himself up, limping once before straightening. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Let’s just hope?—”
“No keys,” I finished, already checking the ignition.
I looked toward the front desk.
The board and rows of keys hang in neat lines. “They have to be there. I’ll grab them.”
I moved back across the showroom, slower this time. More aware. My hearing expanded enough to pick up Max back in the Service Bay. The scrape of something outside the glass—I saw a fly fluttering its wings.
Just a long line of strange things that had happened to me since I woke up. Something was off, but I didn’t have time to figure it out now.
I reached the desk. The keyboard sat behind it, with rows of labeled hooks, some empty, most not.
My eyes flicked over them. I didn’t read every tag because I didn’t need to. Something in me just—locked on.
There.
Top row.
I reached for it, but my hand stilled halfway.
A sound. Soft. Somewhere in the building.
I grabbed the keys, digging them into my palm.
Everything else in this place felt off—too still, too clean—but those keys felt like they still belonged to the world before.
“Got them,” I turned in Stain’s direction.
He didn’t answer. His attention was fixed on the floor.
I followed his gaze and saw a thin streak of blood cross the tile between two of the cars.
It looked fresh.
My jaw tightened. “That’s not good.”
“No, it's really not," Stain agreed.
I opened the truck door, about to climb in, when Max suddenly barked sharply and urgently, catching my attention.
Everything in me snapped toward it. “Taryn.”
I was already in motion.
The service bay quickly came into view. I noticed something low to the ground inside it.
