The semi-trailer lay on its side, my trailer twisted like a broken spine, a pickup truck crushed beneath thirty thousand pounds of freight. Steam hissed from the engine block; something groaned. Glass littered the highway. Diesel hung thick in the air—sharp and metallic.

I sat on the asphalt, hands trembling, hair and palms sticky with blood. Could’ve been mine. Could’ve been Dan’s, my co-driver. Hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Rory barked beside me, alive, thank God, with fur standing on end. But the bark was muffled, like cotton in my ears. Behind us, emergency lights washed the desert sand in red and blue, like Christmas had come early and already regretted showing up.

I don’t remember climbing out of the cab. One moment my hands locked the wheel; the next, I was sitting on the asphalt with my heart pounding hard enough to bruise my ribs.

“Driver?” a trooper called. “Can you stand?”

I looked up but didn’t answer. A cold shiver slid down my spine as my eyes drifted to what remained of the pickup, the one that came sideways through the median like it had been fired from a slingshot. Shattered windshield. Bent frame. Something slumped behind the wheel.

And I knew.

Trouble was going to follow me.