I tugged on Lore’s hand, pulling her after me. “Come on. I’m gonna hotwire the truck.”
I reached to test the truck door’s handle to see if it was unlocked, but didn’t get further than that. The house’s door swung open, and out stepped an elderly man with a long beard and a shotgun aimed at my head.
“Step away from my truck, boy.”
I slowly raised my hands up and stepped back, keeping Lore behind me. I kept my mouth shut as I waited to see if he recognized me. Any non-shifter who was part of the Old Faith would recognize me as the Keeper’s son, even if they weren’t Bishop citizens.
There was no flicker of recognition on the man’s face. I could probably kill him, but that would likely upset Lore. While I debated our options, Lore stepped around me.
“Don’t shoot! Please help us! We’re just trying to get out of here. We’re…lost. Maybe we can borrow your phone?”
The man’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, then he lowered his gun. “Fine. Come in. Don’t touch anything.”
He ambled back inside, the screen door slamming shut behind him.
I gripped Lore’s wrist, pulling her toward the trees. “Come on. Let’s go.”
She wrenched her arm out of my hand and shot me a glare. “No. This guy wants to help us. He’s gonna let us use his phone.”
I blinked at her, giving her a look as if to ask,are you crazy?“You mean you actually want to use his phone? I thought you were just trying to distract him. Lore, we can’t trust him. We can’t trust anyone out here.”
She snorted. “He’s a little old man. What’s he gonna do?”
“And I’m just a twenty-one-year-old mechanic. Harmless, right? Even if he isn’t a member of the Old Faith, who are you going to call? A taxi?”
The slits of her eyes turned dagger sharp. “Yes, actually. This is still New Jersey, bro. Not an alien planet.”
I glared at her, but she held her ground, her jaw set. She was so stubborn. So fearless. And so trusting. I was getting ready to throw her over my shoulder, but she was already bounding toward the house’s front door.
“Lore! Get back here!”
She made a tinyhanoise over her shoulder, as if it was silly for me to think she’d obey. Unless she was speared onto my cock, the girl wasn’t very good at following instructions.
Grumbling, I charged after her.
The cabin smelled damp and dusty. It was dark, and the interior was straight-up creepy with its ’80s wooden paneling and newspapers stacked all around the room. Yellowed newspaper and magazine clippings were pinned to every spare inch of the living room walls. Unease wound through me as I skimmed the headlines. Almost all of them were articles on the Jersey Devil. It wasn’t uncommon for citizens of the Pine Barrens to be obsessed with the myth. It’s what the Barrens were most famous for, and it drew tourists to these woods. The myth was engaged in by everyone around here, whether they were part of the Old Faith or not.
Still.
It didn’t do much to ease my suspicions.
“Thank you so much,” Lore said to the man, who’d collapsed into the beat-up recliner in the corner of the room, his attention falling to the old box TV sitting on a few milk crates.
“Fine, fine,” he dismissed, then gestured to a doorway. “Phone is in the kitchen.”
I followed Lore into the adjoining space. “I don’t like this. The guy is obsessed with the Jersey Devil,” I told her, keeping my volume low.
“So what? Isn’t everyone here?” she countered.
“Yeah. But I’m also covered from head to toe in old blood, and he’s just totally cool with that?”
Her doe-like eyes darted down my frame, and she chewed her lip as she took me in. My dick thickened in my jeans at the way she flushed. “Looks like it could be mud. We are in the woods, after all.”
“Just make your call so we can bounce.”
Lore wrinkled her nose at the rotary phone affixed to the wall. “How am I supposed to use this thing?”
“You should be more concerned about what number you’re going to call. No taxi will come to these parts. We’re too far off the main roads.”
