She dreads rainy days.
They make her think of bullets, cold and stinging.
She thinks about not getting up, calling in sick to work. She's safe here in her bed. As long as she doesn't get up nothing can hurt her. That's what she tells herself. But the thunder rumbles beyond her windows, rattling the cups on the counter, rattling her bones. That dark feeling reaches her here too, it seems. She reluctantly pulls herself out of bed to the patter of raindrops hitting glass.
Breakfast is a hurried affair. She goes through the motions, drinks the last of her coffee and is out the door before the sink is completely drained.
There's no reason to linger.
The streets are busy despite the promised rain, a bustle of umbrellas and rain boots, of people heading to work. She hops around puddles, expecting mud and something darker when there's only the faint rainbow shimmer of oil.
The sky is grey, dark, angry swirls of clouds threatening to unleash even more rain on the city below. She moves with the crowd, jacket hood pulled far over her face. The people around her condense and shift like a slinky and she finds herself crammed in a sea of pallid faces, all blurred and running together like watercolors.
Suddenly there is a cessation of rain on her head and she looks up to see smiling rainclouds on a blue background. The umbrella tips and she gets a face of raindrops, only for the umbrella to sway hurriedly back in place.
"Here, Miss."
She stiffens abruptly at the masculine voice. "Uh . . . thanks," she says roughly, bewildered at the sudden kindness. They're moving in the same direction and the man manages to keep his umbrella over them both, but her shoulder is still getting rained on and he notices.
"Here, I can—" Her hood shifts too far and cold rain stings her face like tears. His words choke off. ". . . Cloud?"
She jerks away from her momentary friend, and instantly regrets it as another surge of drops lashes her. She reluctantly huddles back underneath the stranger's umbrella, still held out in expectation of her using it.
She finally takes a moment to examine him. Spiky black hair pulled into a stubby ponytail, tan skin, beautiful blue eyes. He looks almost too perfect to be real. Maybe he isn't. Her eyes jerk away, only to be drawn back like iron to a magnet.
He should have a scar, she thinks abruptly, then banishes the thought, not sure where it came from. There is a scar, a thin white line high on his right temple that looks like an old cat scratch.
But that's not right.
Frustrated at her sudden fixation, she shakes her head and forcibly drags herself back to reality. "That's . . . that's not my name." And oh how it sounds so eerily familiar, like it should be, instead of the name her parents had given her.
His brows furrow and blue eyes examine her as carefully as she had just been doing. "But I . . . know you?"
She rolls her eyes as she pulls her hood back into place. "I've never seen you before in my life." But something hitches in her voice, an uncertainty. Has she? Or is he something she should know, as intrinsic to her as the rain? She has an odd moment of déjà vu, of this stranger sprawled in the mud beside her and something heavy resting in her hands.
The odd connection makes her freeze up and she stumbles and pitches forward, stopped only by a brick wall wrapped in a charcoal grey sweatshirt. Hands rise to grip her forearms, steadying her, an umbrella handle knocks against her bicep.
And suddenly they're nose to nose and there's no denying the uneasy feeling she's been ruthlessly crushing ever since she met this stranger. She knows him and she knows she shouldn't.
Knows that stupid strand of hair that refuses to be slicked back. Knows those blue eyes that should have the faintest glow to them. Knows the beautiful, sunny smile he has even though she's never seen him smile.
The chest beneath her hands is broad and muscled and warm and . . . whole. Not full of bullet holes. She shakes her head, trying to dislodge the morbid thought. But it clings tenaciously, fingers plucking at her mind as if trying to pull something out, something important.
Blue eyes watch her closely, that edge of familiarity haunting their expression. "And neither have I—but I know you. Somehow."
Cloud. He'd called her Cloud.
Something slips into place, puzzle pieces jumbled together but eventually finding the correct slot. It floods through, fragments of someone else's memories. They're heavy with grief and guilt and she feels like she's drowning in the sensation of someone else's emotions, someone else's life. Jagged edges and unfinished holes that still hint at something much larger.
And she knows it's not right, not correct for this time, this world, but it feels right in a way she doesn't understand.
". . . Zack."