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.
*
I jumped from the car before the engine had even shuddered to a halt, leaving the driver’s door swinging into the highway draft.
When I reached her, she was dying.
Her skin was the color of curdled almond milk, slick with the cold, oily perspiration of cardiogenic shock.
Her pulse at the carotid was an irregular, thready flutter—one hundred and sixty beats a minute, skipping every third contraction.
“Ma’am!”
I shouted over the roar of an eighteen-wheeler tearing past three feet from my heels: “Can you hear me?!
