“Just past Mount Hood. About eighty miles north of Bend, Oregon. We ran into some heavy snow near Government Camp. Had to chain up. Thought fer sure that’d wake you. But nope. You sleep like the dead, boy.”
Max barely heard the man as he rambled. They were in Oregon. He knew from conversations he’d overheard that the half-breed colony was somewhere in the mountains of Oregon. And the half-breeds were continuously outsmarting and outmaneuvering Atalanta and her daemons. Which meant he was as close to safety as this trucker was ever going to get him.
Jeb turned the key in the ignition and the big rig roared to life. As he put the truck in gear, Max said, “Aren’t you hungry? I’m starving. Can’t we stop longer so I can get something to eat?”
Jeb turned right around the back of the truck stop instead of left onto the road. “Already ate. Maggie’s gonna let us park it here so I can get some shut-eye. You can go on in and get something if you’re hungry. She made some elk stew that’s the best thing since my pappy gave me my first can of Copenhagen.”
They were stopping? For real? And Jeb was going to take a nap? This couldn’t be any easier. Max fought a smile as he sat up in his seat. “Yeah. Cool. I’m so hungry I think I could eat a bear.”
Jeb killed the ignition, tossed the keys onto the console between the seats and shot him a what-the-hell’s-gotten-into-you? look. “You haven’t strung more’n five words together since you climbed into my truck. What got stuck in your bonnet all the sudden?”
“Me? Nothing.”
Jeb studied him closely. “You’re not plannin’ to run off are ya? There’s nothin’ good in these woods out here, you know. You’d just freeze to death. Or worse.”
“Run off?” Max tried to brush off the worry. “Where would I go?” He reached for the door handle before Jeb could stop him. “I’ll just let you sleep while I go eat. Thanks, Jeb.”
Jeb harrumphed. “Okay, but don’t wander. Be ready to go in two hours. I got a schedule to keep.”
Max nodded as he jumped out of the truck. “Two hours. Got it.”
Jeb was already leaning back in his seat and pushing the cap over his face as Max closed the door. The frigid air bit into his skin, but standing in the middle of the back lot of the small truck stop, Max took his first deep breath of freedom. He hadn’t thought he’d make it this far. Couldn’t believe his luck. He wasn’t home free yet, but once he had some food, he’d snag a map and figure out where he was going next.
Against his chest, the disk warmed his skin, and he walked toward the building with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. A shadow moved behind the window. Squinting closer Max realized it was the woman from out front—Maggie. She lifted a hand and waved at him. Almost on reflex, his stomach growled.
He made it as far as the back door of the building before he heard the scream. A blood-curdling shriek that froze his hand on the door handle and sent his heart rate into the triple digits.
A roar echoed from inside. Something hit the door hard. Max jumped back and let go of the handle. The screeching stopped altogether.
Run. Go. Now!
His adrenaline surged as he took off toward the truck. Though there was no way the daemons could have found him so fast, the bone-chilling temperature told him otherwise. They were here. Somehow. They were here.
“Jeb!” Hear me! Turn on the truck! The door to the building behind him crashed open, followed by an ear-shattering roar, but he didn’t look back. “Jeb!”
Twenty feet from the big rig, the driver’s-side door popped open and Jeb dropped to the ground, muscles coiled tight, face white as snow. He didn’t cower the way most humans would in the same situation, and the look in his eyes as he took in the monsters behind Max said he’d seen daemons before. “Come on, boy! Run!”
Max didn’t have time to question the hows or whys of that. He sprinted as hard as he could toward the truck, his arms and legs pumping, his heart pounding in his ears.
“Run!” Jeb hollered, motioning with his arms.
Just as Max reached the tail of the semi, something caught his leg. He went down hard, face-first into the gravel. Snow and rocks impaled his hands and face. The daemon growled behind him, grabbed on to his leg and yanked.
Terror clawed its way up Max’s throat as he dug his fingers into the frozen ground, tried to grab something to stop him from being dragged across the parking lot.
And then he heard a roar, only this one wasn’t daemon, it was human. Something warm and fluid squirted across his neck. The daemon let go of his leg.
“Get up!” Jeb screamed.
Max pushed up to his knees, his ears ringing, his hands and face a mixture of dirt and blood. Whipping around, he saw Jeb holding a hunting knife as long as his forearm. The daemon was on the ground behind him, blood spilling from a wound in his chest.
“Get up!” Jeb screamed again.
Max scrambled to his feet.
“Go! Go!” Jeb got a handful of Max’s jacket and half pulled, half pushed him toward the cab of the truck. As Max skidded to a halt and reached up to grab the handle, he glanced back and saw Jeb standing with the knife in his shaking hand while the daemon pulled himself to his full height and glared down at him.
Max tugged himself up. Inside the cab he spotted the keys Jeb had tossed on the console. Could he drive this thing? He’d watched Jeb all the way down here. Hell yeah, he could drive it. And at the very least he could mow down some daemons while he learned. His hands shook as he found the right key and shoved it into the ignition.
“You made a foolish choice, human,” the daemon outside growled. “Like the half-breed inside. The boy belongs to us.”
Max’s fingers froze on the keys. Maggie was a half-breed?
“I got a knife here that says different.”
“You’re no match for me, human,” the daemon snarled.
“Yeah, prob’ly not,” Jeb answered. “But I’m not about to make this easy for you. That boy’s done nothin’ to nobody.”
Max hesitated. All he had to do was turn the key, stomp on the gas and take off. Never look back. But something stopped him. Something in the center of the chest that ached so bad, it wouldn’t let him leave.
I grow tired of your humanity, Maximus. Kill or be killed. That is the world in which we live.
Never before had Atalanta’s words been so true. If Max left, the daemon would rip Jeb to pieces. If Max joined him, even if he was able to overpower this one, the other two inside would be on top of them in minutes. And there was no telling how many more were out in those woods.
The disk burned hot against his chest. He looked down at the markings on his hands. What good was ruling the world if you lost yourself in the process?
The daemon growled outside. Max let go of the keys, whipped around and searched the storage area behind the seats for Jeb’s toolbox. When he came up with a twelve-inch-long screwdriver, he figured that was as good a weapon as he was going to find, threw the driver’s door open and leapt from the truck.
Jeb had circled around so neither he nor the daemon were looking Max’s way. As Jeb lunged with the knife, Max tightened his grip on the screwdriver and inched closer. Jeb’s knife only nicked the daemon’s arm, didn’t even draw blood. The daemon chuckled and swiped out with his claws, catching Jeb across the chest and abdomen.
Jeb howled and fell back against the ground with a thunk. Blood oozed from his torso, staining his shirt. The knife flew from his hand to land yards away on the cold ground. Jeb tried to crawl backward over the ground to reach his knife, but it was too far away. The daemon leaned down so he and the trucker were face-to-face. “I told you that you made a foolish choice, human. Say hello to Hades for me.”