Twenty minutes of being outside, watching the stars come out, might be the perfect ending to her day if it would just stop raining. Her mother had always complained that she was high-strung, but Amelia never exactly understood what her mother had meant or how to fix the problem.

She wondered what it would feel like to have one moment in her life when she didn’t follow a routine.

Her first memory was learning her numbers by her father’s watch. “Time is important,” he used to say. “Control your time and you control your world.”

She wasn’t sure she believed him, but she’d had the saying made into a plaque that hung beneath her office clock.

Amelia braced herself for a run to her car. She couldn’t wait any longer. She had groceries to buy and Rambo to attend to.

Once outside, she locked up. With her arms full, she stepped off the curb on her way to the faculty parking lot. Without warning, rain suddenly rode the wind, splashing against her face, washing away her plans and spotting her glasses.

The roar of a motorcycle dueled with thunder. Glancing up, she glimpsed the last bit of sunshine fighting through storm clouds to the west. I’d better hurry, she thought. Rambo hated thunder. He’d be panicked, alone in the house.

One blink later, something slammed into her arm, whirling her around as if she were nothing more than a human turnstile in the middle of the road.

Two seconds ticked by before she hit the pavement so hard her head bounced off it.

Three seconds until the bike scraped the ground in front of her like a huge metal bird diving to earth. Steel slid across the rough asphalt, rattling and screeching as if in pain.

Then, one breath later, almost silently, a man’s body landed twisted and boneless like a rag doll five feet from her.

Stillness blanketed them, as if all time had frozen.

She closed her eyes and stopped counting. Her world began to fade, leaving only a black canvas.

As if from miles away, someone screamed and she heard the squeal of car brakes.

A high-pitched cry for help drifted through the muddy water Amelia’s mind seemed to be floating in, but she paid no attention. Neither did the man lying a few feet away. His hand was stretched toward her as if he were reaching for her.

She moved slightly, reaching over the rough ground until the tips of her fingers rested over his bloody hand.

With the few brain cells that were still working, it occurred to her that they’d almost met amid the sounds of cars braking, people shouting, and an ambulance’s scream growing louder.

She bit back the pain as she held his hand. She might not know his name, but she shared his pain.

* * *

“Miss Remington, can you open your eyes?”