#Chapter 48: The Storm

Kayla Big, fat snowflakes tumbled lazily from the darkening sky. They melted the second they touched my cheeks, but were rapidly beginning to accumulate on the ground. I shivered and wrapped my arms tighter around myself, my thin leather jacket doing little—if anything at all—to fight off the biting cold. Nicholas trudged ahead, his hands gripping the handlebars of the motorcycle as he pushed it along the narrow road. His broad shoulders were stiff beneath his leather jacket, but he didn’t utter a single complaint. The silence between us stretched on as we walked, broken only by the crunch of the fresh snow beneath our boots. I kept my eyes on his back, half-expecting him to grumble at me, make some sarcastic remark about how this was all my fault, or even make some kind of teasing joke to piss me off. But he didn’t. He just kept moving, the muscles in his arms flexing with each deliberate push of the bike. I glanced at the sky, which was now a ra