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

He laughed. “You have any others I should know about?”

“No,” she said, and blushed. He wasn’t the best-looking boy in the world, but he wasn’t bad, and he had a confidence that she could only manage when she was demonified. It was attractive. Hugely so. His name tag identified him as Eugenio.

“This is the part where you tell me you like my eyes, too,” he said, in a mock whisper.

“Oh, sorry,” said Amber. “I like your eyes, too.” She did. She really did. They were brown like chocolate.

“How nice of you to say so,” he said, giving her another smile. “So does a nice girl like you have a boyfriend? I only ask because if you say yes I will spiral into a bottomless pit of despair and loneliness, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” she said. “And I don’t have a, you know … a boyfriend.”

“That seems highly unlikely. Are you sure?”

Before she knew what she was doing, she giggled. Dear Lord, she giggled.

“I’m sure,” she said.

“Well then, how about we meet up later, if you’re free? Do you live around here?”

“Ah, sorry, I don’t. I’m just passing through.”

“Oh no,” Eugenio said, losing his smile and widening his eyes. If anything, that made him even cuter. “So I’ll never see you again? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Probably.”

The last item to scan was a pair of socks. He held them to his chest. “So the moment I put these through and you pay, you’re going to just walk out of here, walk out of my life, and never look back? But what if I don’t scan these socks? Will you stay?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Amber, packing the other stuff into flimsy plastic bags. “I’ll just have to do without the socks.”

He gasped. “But how can you do without socks? They are an integral part of any civilised society. A sockless person is no kind of person, that’s what my father always says.”

“He always says that?”

“He’s not a very good conversationalist.”

Amber laughed.

“Hey, Juan,” said an unshaven guy standing behind Amber, “would you stop flirting with ugly chicks and do your damn job?”

Amber went cold with mortification even as her face flushed bright red. Eugenio lost his good humour in an instant.

“My name is not Juan,” he said, “and be careful what you say about ladies, sir. You don’t want to be rude.”

The unshaven man had incredibly soft-looking curly hair, entirely at odds with the hardness of his face. “You wanna know what’s rude, Pedro? Making paying customers stand in line while you try to get into this girl’s pants.”

Eugenio’s jaw clenched. He dragged his eyes away from the man only when Amber held out her money. “I apologise,” he said to her.

“It’s okay,” she said quietly.

He handed over her change. The rude man was now ignoring her as he dumped the last of his stuff on to the conveyor belt. Amber gathered up her things and walked away, eyes that were filling with tears firmly fixed on the floor.

By the time she reached the Charger, she was back in control again. She slipped the bracelets on over the numbers on her wrist, concealing them, then put the bags in the trunk and got in.

“I’m hungry,” she announced, keeping her words curt, afraid that anything else might result in the others hearing her voice tremble. The topic of food set Glen off on some random tangent. Amber didn’t listen. She replayed the scene in her head, only this time as she stood in the checkout lane she shifted, horns bursting from her forehead, fingernails turning to talons, and in her mind she watched herself tear the rude man’s face off.

They passed into Kentucky, and by the time they stopped at a roadside diner with a startling view of the Daniel Boone National Forest, her embarrassment had been replaced with anger. And anger faded faster than embarrassment. She got out of the Charger and closed her eyes to the breeze. It was still hot, but the air was better out here. It moved through the great slabs of lush forest on either side of the road, brought with it all manner of freshness.

“Big trees,” said Glen, and she had to agree with him. They were indeed big trees.

Inside the diner, the freshness was replaced by the smell of hamburger fat. There was a broken jukebox in the corner that played ‘Here I Go Again’ by Whitesnake on a loop. They sat at a plastic-covered table, and Amber ran her finger along the top, expecting to leave a trail in grease. The fact that it was perfectly clean disappointed her slightly.

They ate their burgers without speaking a whole lot. She could tell this was driving Glen insane, and it provided her with a glimmer of quiet amusement. He took some pamphlets from the stack beside the register and perused them while they ate.

“Did you know that the forest has one of the world’s largest concentration of caves?” he asked.

“Yes,” Amber answered, even though she knew no such thing, and cared even less.

Glen put that pamphlet aside, picked up another. “Hey, this is where Kentucky Fried Chicken was invented! Corbin, that is, not this diner. We should get some KFC! You want some?”

Amber loved KFC. “I hate KFC,” she said.

Glen looked glum. Amber beamed inside.

Amber and Milo shared the bill, and Glen looked embarrassed. She actually had some sympathy for him, the way he sat there, all pathetic and grateful. She was about to say something nice to him when he shrugged, looked up and said brightly, “Well, I’m off for a wee!”

He practically skipped to the restroom.

“Curious boy,” Milo muttered.

He led the way out of the diner, humming the Whitesnake song which was now firmly lodged in Amber’s head, too. She was not looking forward to another half a day on the road. She wouldn’t have minded staying here for a while, looking at the forest, enjoying the air. Apart from anything else, she liked the fact that Kentucky had mountains. Florida suddenly seemed way too flat for her liking.

A car pulled up, parking on the other side of a battered truck, and Amber glimpsed the occupants.

Terror stabbed her heart and she dived behind the Charger.

Milo stiffened. All at once his gun was out of its holster and held down by his leg.

Amber heard the car doors open and close. The beep as it locked. Footsteps on loose gravel.

And then her mother’s voice. “Excuse me, we’re looking for our daughter. Have you seen this girl?”

The driver of the truck. She could picture him in her head. Hispanic. Short. Wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He’d been eating at the counter when they’d ordered. Had he looked up? Had he noticed her?

“Sorry,” she heard him say. “Can’t help you.”

The truck started, reversed all the way round the back of the Charger, and the driver happened to glance her way. She shook her head, mouthing the words please, no.

He hesitated, then pulled out on to the road and drove off.