Most days he rode his Harley out of town with no real destination in mind, letting the engine’s low growl smooth the rough edges of his thoughts. The motorcycle was old but meticulously maintained, its chrome catching whatever light the sky offered, and people in town had long since grown used to seeing Marcus drift past storefronts like a ghost passing through a familiar world.
The storm rolled in without warning.
By mid-afternoon the sky had turned the color of old steel, and wind pushed snow sideways across the highway until the world blurred into shades of white and gray. Marcus had been heading home from the motorcycle shop where he worked when the blizzard thickened so suddenly it felt as though someone had dropped a curtain across the landscape.
Visibility fell to almost nothing.
He slowed the bike, leaning forward slightly as if his body alone might cut through the wall of swirling snow.
That was when he saw them.
At first he thought it was a trick of the storm—a cluster of shapes stumbling along the shoulder of the road—but as he drew closer the forms sharpened into something unmistakably human: a woman and four children struggling against the wind.
They looked like shadows fighting the storm.
Marcus pulled the bike to a stop so abruptly the tires slid sideways on the icy pavement.
The smallest child—a little girl wrapped in a coat too thin for the weather—was swaying on her feet as if she might collapse.
