At 6:17 a.m., the first sound wasn’t my alarm.
It was a crack—sharp and wrong—like the morning itself had snapped.
I bolted upright in bed, heart thundering, still half trapped in a dream where my ex-wife’s lawyer was reading off numbers I didn’t have and mistakes I couldn’t undo. For a second I didn’t know where I was. Then the second sound hit: a long, grinding screech of metal that made my teeth ache.
I stumbled out of bed so fast I nearly tripped over my jeans. Barefoot. Pajama pants twisted at the waist. No shirt. My house was still dim, the world outside washed in that pale pre-sunrise blue that makes everything look colder than it is.
