Tires grind on snow and ice with every sharp turn. His knuckles are white fists around the wheel. It mirrors the hard knot in his jaw, the focus in his eyes. This is not a man eager to get his flapjacks.
“What’s wrong?” I demand, swallowing my yelp when he jerks around a sports car slowing at the lights.
Marcus snaps around him, makes no effort to stop and roars through the intersection.
Horns scream and tires shriek. I want to cover my eyes, but I’m too afraid to move. To even speak. He continues with this speed, reckless and crazed. I want to speak, but my heart is in my throat. A trapped, terrified bird. I can’t look away from the blur of buildings and cars as we tear past them to whatever destination he has in mind.
“You’re safe.”
I blink away from our potential deaths to the man reaching for my bunched hand in my lap.
“I won’t let it have you.”
There is no spit in my mouth for a response when he jerks sideways, pivoting off the main road, through a dingy alley. The tires crunch a metal dumpster lid and bounce over a mound of collected snow but never slow. He barely pauses at the entrance before diving through traffic, a salmon forcing his way up stream, cutting off other vehicles and filling the air with the blare of anger.
It does foolishly dawn on me that I’m no longer cold from the winter, but damp with sweat. My muscles coil with terror as he presses the gas and jolts us full throttle around two cars, turning aggressively down a side street lined with rows of tidy homes.
I almost believe we’re about to stop. We have to at some point, I think. He can only drive for so long before we arrive, get pulled over, or worse, hit someone. But Marcus doesn’t stop. Doesn’t slow. He’s on a mission that propels us out of the city entirely. Buildings become fields. Miles of white that vanish into the horizon dotted by skeletal trees.
Morning slips into afternoon that dips into evening. We don’t stop for food. We don’t even stop for a quick rest. The light on the dash keeps blinking, begging for fuel, but he ignores it until I can no longer keep silent.
“Where are we going?”
“Far.”
I steal a peek at the gas light.
“We need to stop for gas.”
Marcus glances at the lit symbol. A quick flick before turning his attention to the road once more.
“We’ll stop soon.”
I want to point out that there isn’t anything and there may not be anything for a while still, but I know he knows that.
“Why are we here?”
He’s silent for too long. We push further away from Usher House and the demon in the basement, and all my chances to finish what I started. The latter sends ripples of frustration coursing through me that bubble in my chest.
I need to go back.
I need to find Sarai Duval.
“That thing back there.”
It’s said so quietly, I nearly jump.
“What?”
Marcus draws in a slow, uneven breath before murmuring, “At the house…” His fingers tighten around mine. “What I saw last night…”
I inwardly wince. “Marcus…”
He shakes his head. “It’s not … it’s not a good thing, Lenny. Whatever that thing is, it’s evil and it wants you. I don’t know for what, but I’m not letting it touch you again.”
Guilt worms up in my throat, a nagging prod to tell him the truth. Confess that I’m the reason the demon is even here. To tell him why we need to turn back.
But Marcus continues to talk.
