Thunder rattled the house hard enough to make the walls groan.
Rain hammered against the boarded windows in uneven bursts, sometimes sounding like fingers drumming against the wood and other times sounding like the sky itself was trying to break its way inside.
The house wasn't much.
Just another abandoned building somewhere in Maine.
The windows had been boarded up years ago. The wallpaper was peeling. Water stains crawled across the ceiling overhead. Dust coated almost every surface that hadn't been disturbed by us moving through it.
Still, it was shelter.
After everything we'd been through lately, shelter was good enough.
I laid back against the couch and stared at the ceiling.
The storm outside reminded me of another storm.
Not because it looked the same.
Because it felt the same.
A few months ago, people would've been looking at me right now.
Waiting for me to tell them what came next.
I was their leader.
At least that was what everyone called me.
