The man hunched his shoulders up in anattempt not to touch Kobal or me. I didn’t feel insulted by it,everyone did that around me now, but I was beginning to rethinkasking him to sit in the middle. The poor guy wasn’t going to beable to move after today if he sat like that the whole time.
I ignored the hard stare Kobal gave me as Irolled down my window and draped my arm out to rest it on the hotmetal of the door. I questioned Kobal’s ability to drive a vehicleuntil he turned it on and shifted the handle on the steering columninto drive. Not like it would have mattered if he couldn’t drive, Ididn’t know how to do it, and I wasn’t so sure Hunchy beside me dideither. When Kobal wrapped his hands around the wheel, I wasrelieved to see his three-inch-long claws had retracted and hisblack fingernails were now back to normal.
Kobal led the way out of town. He drove ontothe broken roadway I’d often seen winding into the vast nothing ofour country from the practice field where we’d spent hours trainingsince I’d arrived. I now realized it was literally the highway toHell.
Looking in the mirror, I spotted the largegroup of volunteers, soldiers, and demons who had been left behindto protect the wall gathered to watch us go. There were so manycounting on us not to fail. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breathto steady myself. This had to work.Ihad to succeed, somehow.
We’d barely made it a mile before the charredremnants of homes began to mar the landscape around us. Red andgray brick chimneys rose into the day from a few of the remains.Some homes had porches untouched before their crumpled walls, andothers had half a house still standing testament to the lives thathad once filled them.
A lump formed in my throat when we passed aplayground. Green grass had grown up to brush against the bottom ofthe swings as an unseen breeze blew them gently back and forth. Themetal of the swing set sagged in the middle, bending beneath theweight of the rust eating away at it. The castle made of tires andwood had buckled and nearly touched the ground.
Even falling apart, Bailey would have lovedto play on the castle, and I could almost hear the echoing laughterof the children who had once run through here.
I turned away from the playground and focusedon the rutted and broken road before the reminder of Bailey made mecry again. Kobal slowed the truck to only ten miles an hour tonavigate the road. We’d been told that if everything went well,we’d make it to our destination in a week.
I highly doubted everything would go well,but I kept my pessimism to myself. I was already on the blacklist,adding a gloom and doom personality on top of everything else wouldonly make things worse.
My teeth clacked together, and my knee hitthe glove box when we bounced over a large rut. Beside me, Hunchyhissed in a breath when the jarring impact almost caused him totouch me. I wondered if the humans would be so wary of me if theyknew I was part angel as well as demon, but I’d been told to keepthe knowledge of what I was a secret from them.
To the humans, I was some sort of freakyhuman who could set things on fire and had been sleeping with thehead-ripping demon.
I wouldn’t have talked to me either.
CHAPTER 6
River
A good hour passed with Hunchy trying to stayas still as a statue and Kobal glaring at the road like it was theenemy. The tense silence was starting to grate on my nerves when Ifinally decided I should stop calling him Hunchy. “What’s yourname?” I asked the man beside me.
He flinched at my voice. After all this time,I should have been prepared for others’ reactions to me, but Iwasn’t as his flinch caused me to recoil. Turning toward thewindow, I fully expected him to pretend he hadn’t heard me as Itried to shake off the lingering pain his reaction had caused. Theyhated me so much that they even hated the sound of my voice.
I lifted my hand to rub at my temples whiletrying to ignore the man at my side.
“I’m First Sergeant Sue Hawkson,” he saidfrom beside me.
My eyebrows shot into my hairline when hespoke tome. “Sue?” I asked indisbelief, certain I’d heard him wrong.
He flinched again, but I realized it wasn’tmy voice causing his discomfort. It was my question. Turning towardme, his indigo eyes relentlessly held mine. “Yes.”
I closed my mouth and blinked at him a coupleof times. He had the weirdest name I’d ever heard for a guy, butwho was I to judge? I was the descendent of ‘Don’tcall meLucifer’ Satan.
“And I thought my mom made an odd choice withRiver.”
His full mouth actually quirked into a smile.“My mom was worse.”
“What’s so wrong with Sue?” Kobal took abreak from glaring at the road to glare at us.
Sue’s shoulders shot up to his ears as heleaned away from Kobal. I bit back a laugh at the motion clearlymeant to protect his head and neck. Kobal must have recognized thesame thing as he scowled at Sue before turning to focus on the roadonce more.
“Sue is usually more of a girl’s name,” Iexplained.
“Let’s not sugarcoat it. Sueisa girl’s name,” Sue replied.
“Why would your mother name you after awoman?” Kobal demanded, ever the one for tact.
Sue relaxed enough to let his shoulders downin a shrug. “She was a big fan of Johnny Cash.”
Now he’d lost me. I stared at himquestioningly, hoping he would explain further, but unwilling topush him in case he stopped talking.
