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I see her face—a pale oval in the night—and then there’s a horrible, gut-wrenching crash.

I slam back against the headrest. Pain explodes behind my eyes, as if I’ve been punched in the face. White fills my vision. Endless white. Then it sinks away, and I realize the airbag deployed. I bat it down and—

Storm. Collision. Woman.

Struggling to free myself from the deflated bag, I wrench the door handle, and the door flies open with an ugly screech that tells me it won’t be closing properly again, and I don’t care because I hit someone. I was going so slowly, being so careful, and I did try to swerve and brake, but somehow I still hit her.

I stumble toward the front of the car as one leg screams and buckles. Hot blood pours from my nose, and icy rain drenches me. I can’t see. The lights from my car are out, and everything’s dark, and I’m staggering forward—

My knee strikes something hard as sharp pain slashes down my arm and my hands fly up to ward off an attack from …

A tree?

There’s a tree across the road. That’s what I’ve stumbled against, my knee cracking against the trunk, a broken branch slashing my arm.

A massive tree stretches nearly across the road.

Did I miss the woman and knock down a tree? Not when the trunk is nearly as wide as my car.

I hit a fallen tree.

That’s what my car struck.

But … wouldn’t I have seen it?

Blood drips onto my parted lips, and I pinch my nose as I try to focus.

I squint and sluice rain from my face, but I can’t see a damn thing.

“Hello?” I call. Then again, louder.

When no one answers, my heart picks up speed. If I didn’t hit her, she’d answer.

If I didn’t hit her, she’d have come to check on me after the crash.

“Hello!” I bellow, as loud as I can.

Only the pound of rain answers.

I know I’d seen a person. A middle-aged woman with gray-streaked hair, standing there, looking straight at me.

A woman who’d seen an oncoming car and hadn’t moved.

She must have been in shock.

Only she hadn’t looked shocked. I remember her face the moment before impact. She’d looked tired. Resigned. As if she’d seen the car coming and known she couldn’t get out of the way and just—

Just what? Stood there?

What matters is that I know I saw a woman, and I know I swerved and braked, and then I hit a fallen tree.

Did I also hit the woman? Is she under the car? Or—worse—crushed between it and the tree?

I need light. Hands out, I feel my way back to the car. The door hangs open. I stick my head inside and smack the airbag away as I search for my phone. It’s not where I left it, and I’m frantically patting the seat, the floor, the—

There! On the floor. I grab my phone. Please be working. Please be …

The screen lights up at my touch, and I exhale. As I back out of the car, I try to flick on the cell phone flashlight, but my fingers are too wet to work the touch screen. I rub one hand on my jeans.