Ivy Wolfe had one rule for herself: never let the silence settle. Silence meant thinking, and thinking meant remembering the life she’d left behind—the one with the desk job, the beige cubicle, the clock that ticked louder than her dreams.

No time to think. That was the point, wasn’t it?

She sat there, breathing. No blood. No fire. Just the ticking of hot metal and the vast, indifferent stars.

That’s when she found the dry lake bed.

Then she laughed. A raw, giddy sound that echoed off the salt flats.

She called the car Ghost . Because by the time you saw her, she was already gone.