It was the first thought to enter Leah Rhodes’s mind when she woke up. The second thought was why the hell she was lying in a gutter. An acrid smell of smoke mingled with iron hung in the air. Pain blasted through every muscle, every bone, as she struggled into a sitting position. Blinking several times, shapes came into focus beneath the solitary street lamp that burned above her and she realized where she was. She was all alone on the street, across from her former high school. It had been well over a decade since she last stood on the steps at graduation. Something was terribly wrong. This was a place she would never return to. One moment she had been at her surprise birthday party, the next, she was alone in a gutter. An accident. It had to have been some sort of terrible accident, she realized as she rubbed circles over her aching temples. For a moment she took in how silent everything around her was.
