darker_london | iMiracles (Zoe)

Across the city, in the bushes under Zoe’s window, Rachel’s old phone lit up.

It lit up as if stubbornly defying Rachel’s belief that she wasn’t due any miracles. Despite its fall, and despite lying forgotten on the ground for two days (Zoe had not reminded her to pick it up – her mind was elsewhere), it was not completely dead. Quite miraculously, it was not dead.

The battery was at the end of its life, though; a thin, thin stripe of red represented its last gasp. The screen was cracked beyond saving, but the mechanisms were okay.

It lit up, silently, as someone tried to call.

And if Rachel hadn’t tossed it, there might have been someone to pick it up. Maybe. At that very moment, Zoe was in her room.

Events might have even arranged themselves, at the right moment, for Zoe to look out her window and see the light in the bushes. It was unlikely, but not impossible.

But that didn’t happen. Zoe was in her room, yes, but there was no way she would have been able to notice the phone, even if it was in her room, unharmed and whole. Zoe was too busy, too far away.

Her body seizing on her floor.

So, as Rachel climbed into the car with her father, all the way across town in front of school, the name Dad danced silently on the cracked screen, although there wasn’t a soul around to see it.

And Harley didn’t have his daughter's new number. Why would he? It was a secret phone.

So he never got a chance to warn her.