The Demon Road Trilogy: The Complete Collection: Demon Road; Desolation; American Monsters

Dan held up his hands in mock-innocence. “I didn’t do anything,” he said. “I was just sitting here. What did I do wrong?”

“You picked the wrong friend,” said Sally. “Go on. Out.”

Brandon kept his gaze fixed on Amber. His face had gone pale and rigid, like he was about to dive at her. Dan had to practically drag him to the door.

Sally stood there with her hands on her hips. “Wow,” she said when they had gone. “What a couple of tools. You okay, honey?”

“I’m fine.”

Sally patted her shoulder. “They’re morons. Don’t listen to a word they say.”

Sally helped Amber clean up the mess. The two businessmen sneaked glances whenever they could, and Amber couldn’t blame them. Even mopping the floor, Sally was pretty. She didn’t get red-faced with the exertion like Amber did, and her hair didn’t fall out of its ponytail, like Amber’s did. She even looked good in the Firebird T-shirt.

Amber tried her very best not to look at her own reflection in the mirrors, though. She was in a bad enough mood already.

The rest of her shift dragged by. When it ended, she pulled on a fresh T-shirt and shorts that weren’t yellow, said goodbye to the cook and to Sally, and stepped out on to the sidewalk. It was already getting dark, but the heat was waiting for her, and her forehead prickled with sweat as her lungs filled with warm air. She’d spent her whole life in Florida, been born and raised in Orlando, and she still reacted to the heat like a tourist. It was why, despite having a big, two-storey house to call home, her bedroom was on the first floor, where the air was fractionally cooler, especially on a day like today, when the clouds were gathering. Rain was on its way. Lightning, too, most likely.

Amber had a fifteen-minute walk home. Other kids would probably have been able to call Mom or Dad for a ride, but Bill and Betty had very firm ideas about what independence meant. Amber was used to it by now. If she was lucky, she’d get to the front door before she got drenched.

She crossed the street and slipped down the narrow lane that led to the dance studio she had hated as a child. Too uncoordinated, that was her problem. That and the fact that the dance teacher had hated her with startling venom. Amber was never going to be as pretty as the pretty girls or as graceful as the graceful girls, and she had come to terms with that, even as a kid. Her dance teacher, however, seemed to take issue with it.

Amber got to the badly painted sign of the ballerina and the curiously eighties hip-hop dancer, and Dan and Brandon turned the corner in front of her.

They were talking about something – Dan was chiding Brandon and Brandon was looking pissed off – but when they saw Amber they went quiet. Amber stood there, her legs stiff and suddenly uncooperative, and another headache started somewhere behind her eyes.

Brandon grinned. There was nothing friendly in it.

Amber forced her legs to work again, and she took the lane to her left. They walked after her. She quickened her pace through the growing gloom.

“Oink, oink, little piggy,” Brandon said from behind her.

Amber broke into a run.

They laughed, and gave chase.

She plunged out of the lane and cut across the road, slipping between the back of a laundromat and an attorney’s office. Immediately, Amber realised this was a mistake. She should have headed towards the pizzeria where there would have been people, and light, and noise. Instead, she was running across an empty lot and finding herself out of breath. A hand closed around her jacket and she cried out, twisted, got tangled in Dan’s legs, and they both went down.

She landed heavily, painfully, with Dan sprawling over her.

“Oww,” he laughed, rolling over. “Owww, that hurt.”

Amber got up and backed off, rubbing her hands where she had skinned them as she fell. The headache was a thunder cloud inside her skull. Goosebumps rippled. Her stomach churned.

Dan stood, panting, and Brandon jogged up to them, taking his time.

“This isn’t funny,” Amber said.

“It’s not meant to be,” said Brandon.

“Why’d you run?” Dan chuckled. “We wouldn’t have run if you hadn’t run. Why’d you run?”

“Let me go,” said Amber.

Dan swept his arm wide. “We’re not stopping you from going anywhere. Go right ahead.”

Amber hesitated, then stepped between them. They loomed over her on either side. She took another step, started walking away, but the moment her back was turned Dan was right behind her, on her heels.

She spun, her vision blurring for a moment. “Stop following me.”

“You can’t tell me where to go and where not to go,” Dan said, suddenly angry. “This is America. Land of the free. Don’t you know that?”

She could taste copper in the back of her mouth. “Leave me alone,” she said dully.

“We’re not doing anything!” Dan yelled, right in her face. She flinched away from him.

“Admit what you did, little piggy,” said Brandon, circling her. “Admit that you spilled that milkshake on me on purpose.”

“I swear, it was an accident.”

“If you admit that you did it on purpose,” said Dan, the reasonable one once again, “then we’ll go away.”

He was right in front of her as he spoke, but he sounded a hundred miles away. She had to end this now, at once, before the blackness at the edge of her vision overpowered her and she collapsed.

“Okay,” Amber said, “okay, I did it on purpose.”

They nodded, like they had known all along. But they didn’t leave.

“You made me look like a liar,” said Brandon.

Amber tried focusing on Dan. “You said you’d go away.”

“Jesus,” he said, making a face. “Don’t be so frikkin’ rude.”

“Okay,” she said, “I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry. It was stupid. I’m very sorry. Please let me go home.”

“For the last time,” said Dan, “we’re not stopping you. We’re not stopping you from doing anything. Why is that so hard for you to understand? Are you really that dumb? Are you really that stupid? Stop treating us like we’re the bad guys here, okay? You’re the one who threw that milkshake on my friend. You’re the one who got us kicked out. You’re the one who ran. You’re the one who made me fall over. My knee is bleeding, did you know that? But am I complaining about it? Am I making a fuss? No, I am not. But you? You won’t stop turning this whole thing into some big frikkin’ drama.”

“I don’t …”

“What? What was that?”

“I don’t feel well.”

Her knees started to buckle and she reached out to steady herself, grabbing the front of Dan’s shirt. He grimaced and pushed her hand away and she stumbled, and then Brandon was there, grabbing her, straightening her up—

—and then he hit her.

The pain was nothing compared to the violent storm in her head, but his fist rocked her, sharpened her, and she saw him look at his own knuckles, like he was surprised that he had done it, and then everything was moving very quickly and when she felt a hand on her face she bit down hard and heard a howl.