bed to another. He and Paige rattled around as the pickup tore through a tight series of turns that sent it between groups of Half Breeds, over refuse scattered in the road, into the dirt beside the road, over a set of low bumps, and finally back onto northbound Mississippi Avenue. Once there, Al slammed his foot onto the accelerator and cranked the knob of his stereo. If he was going to drive into hell, there wasn’t any reason why he shouldn’t hear some Tom Petty along the way.
It took a few seconds for her to reorient herself, and then Paige sat upright and grabbed onto the side of the bed. Most of the light in Atoka came from whatever spilled down from the moon. Even though it wasn’t full, the pale glow was especially dazzling. To many people in other parts of the world, it must have been a beautiful sight. From where she was sitting, however, the moon made Atoka look like death frozen over. Many of the town’s lights were off and an overwhelming percentage of those that did shine were sputtering to stay that way. Smoke rose from fires in a few different locations, and whenever she spotted another human being in the distance, that person was cut down by the rampaging beasts that had overtaken the town. In some houses or beneath a few darkened stores, people were huddled just like the ones jammed into Waggoner’s panic room. For all she knew, the redhead with the Tupperware, those families, and even Waggoner were already dead. Even worse, they could have been among the Half Breeds being led to the reservoir.
Paige reached over to help Milosh get back into a seated position with his back braced against the wheel well. Unlike the other times she’d tried to help him, the Amriany accepted her efforts. “We shouldn’t be leaving this place,” she said in a voice she thought would be too quiet to be heard over the truck’s engine and the snarling of her countless shapeshifter pursuers.
Having reloaded the rifle and steadied himself so he could sight effectively along its barrel, he replied, “We aren’t going far.”
“But there’s people who can still be saved. The Mongrels probably need our help.”
“Plenty of people need help. There will always be someone to save. When you watch the news on television, all you see are those in need, and people like us are always thinking of ways to help them. You know what we have to do?”
“What?”
Milosh shifted and grunted as the heavy hunting rifle weighed down the tender stump of his left arm. “We need to stop watching the news.”
She would have chuckled at that if she hadn’t been forced to hang on for dear life as Al swerved to avoid running into a wall of Half Breeds. The truck took the corner and headed north.
“Did you ever hear of a village called Bruusk?” Milosh asked.
Since the green pickup had helped take some of the pressure off them, Paige said, “No.”
“They were being terrorized by Nymar, and three good Amriany refused to leave even when more and more of the villagers were turned.”
“This had better be a quick story,” Paige said. “We’re getting close to the Full Bloods.”
“All three Amriany, along with every last villager, died because none of them knew when to leave. How’s that for a short story? This is the case now. It is time to leave, and if we don’t, we die.”
Paige hadn’t allowed herself to feel guilty over decisions she’d made for a long time. There were things that needed to be done, and she did them as best as she could. That’s all there was to it, and that was usually enough to get her through the night.
It was going to take a lot more than that to get her through this night.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Nadya, Jesse, and Quinn waited for them alongside I-69, waving at the red pickup like a pair of pushy hitchhikers. Farther back on the road, the green pickup was completely covered in a writhing mass of knotted muscle, wiry fur, and gnashing teeth. Al skidded to a halt and Paige crawled across the bed of the truck to lean over Milosh’s side. “How many are left?” she asked.
“We killed many of the Vitsaruuv, but there will be more coming once those get finished lapping up all of the bait we poured onto that truck.”
“Waggoner’s going to be pissed,” Paige said.
“I’ve got something to show you that might make up for