Cary ran out of the room, her heart crushed under the weight of being outed by Brent.

Across the room, Tasha stood frozen, a hand pressed to her mouth, her eyes bulging. The other people in the room stared as she ran past them, too, muttering to each other. Only pitch forks in their hands would complete the picture of an angry mob.

Liam, the one security guard she'd actually talked to before, burst through the door from reception, darting straight for Cary.

She swerved around the desks and bolted for the back exit.

“She’s a demon,” Brent shout. “Stop her.”

“No!” Cary yelled back over her shoulder. “I’m not possessed. It’s a mistake.”

Getting outed by her boss was horrendous enough, but when her best friend gave her a sympathetic look as if she’d contracted leprosy, Cary wanted to curl in a hole and never come out again.

Someone grabbed her arm and pulled against her. Tottering backward to a halt, she jerked around and rammed her foot into the guy’s shin. He crumbled and released her wrist. Behind him, the guard, including Brent, burst after her.

“Stop!” Brent yelled.

Cary sprinted down a corridor in the opposite direction, passed the bathrooms, and reached the rear exit. The metal door was locked and wouldn’t budge. She dug in her heels. Prayed to any entity that would listen. Please. Please. Please. She pushed harder. The door opened a crack, not enough to squeeze through, but enough to show she could force it open. Cary took a few steps back, got a running start, and she shoved her shoulder into the door.

An alarm erupted. The door swung open.

She scrambled away from the building into sunlight and down the sidewalk of a side road.

Her silver SUV was several cars away, with Blinkie stretched out on his back over the hood. Shit, if he wasn’t invisible, his presence would only make Brent more determined to catch her. But Blinkie would attempt to protect her, and she couldn’t risk him getting hurt.

She sprang forward, her breaths shallow and racing. “Blinkie! In the car.”

He jumped off the hood as voices escalated behind her.

With a click of her car’s alarm, she ripped open the door. Blinkie leapt inside, and she dove into the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut behind her. Her hands were shaking, and the key kept missing the ignition hole.

Several security guards, along with Brent, spilled out from the back door. Was this really how it ended with her job? The company that had given her a job and a chance at normality?

Jamming the key in, she revved the car and slammed the gear into drive.

“Shit, shit, shit!”

Swerving into a U-turn, her front wheels climbed over the curb as the guards closed the distance between them. She hit the gas and barreled toward the main road.

Fuck! What just happened? Since last night, her life had become a whirlwind of problems, each worse than the next, but nothing compared to this. Nothing. Going onto the entry ramp to the freeway, she passed several cars and sped forward.

What was she going to do now? Her apartment would be swirling with paranormal trackers and security in no time.

The phone trilled. She flinched and snatched it from her bag. Tasha. She shoved it into its the stand on the dashboard and answered it.

“Cary, where are you?”

“It’s not what you think. A demon sprayed me last night with something. That’s what Brent was referring to.” How else was she to explain it without sounding guilty?

“Why did you run?”

Cary’s voice stilled, and the words wouldn’t come at first.

Her father’s words rammed forward. Never tell a soul. You can’t trust anyone. The world hates demons. Cary loathed the beasts, too.

“I got scared. Brent wanted me to let them experiment on me! I’m not their lab rat and don’t want people poking me or cutting me open as they scraped off whatever is on me.”

“They would understand if you told them.”

“No, they wouldn’t, because I told Brent, and he called security when I didn't give him what he wanted.” Which wasn't entirely a lie. “Argos specializes in abolishing demons, not befriending them. Brent doesn't know how to turn it off when it's a person. So, I’m leaving town, Tasha. Please don’t tell anyone.”

“What’ll I tell Brent?” Tasha’s voice quivered. “You’re scaring me.”

“Trust me. I need to do this.”

Tasha didn’t respond at first, and Cary was convinced her friend dropped the phone. “Listen, they’re going to try and track you down by your phone. Get rid of it. Call me later. Stay safe.”

“Thank you, Tasha. You’ve always been an amazing friend.”

“Got to go.” She hung up.

She unlatched the back of her cell, pulled out the sim card, and broke it in half. No possible tracking now.

This was the right decision. Run away and never return. Except her stomach ached like crazy. What about her friends, apartment in Detroit, and her clothes? She’d worked damn hard for them, and it tore her insides to lose the life she’d built up, as small as it was. Finally, she had been working toward something, and now what? But she wouldn’t stay and let Brent get his hands on her.

“I’m no one’s guinea pig!” Her voice bellowed inside the car.

Blinkie grumbled and nipped at his front paw as if he had a mad itch.

Focusing on the cars and trucks around her, Cary wiped her cheek, refusing to cry. Of course getting busted was bound to happen eventually. Her dad had warned her.

She was now forced into hiding. She whacked both palms into the steering wheel.

“Son of a bitch!”

Cement buildings on either side of the freeway blurred by in a whizz, and the bright sky had no right being glorious today. It should piss down fire and brimstone.

A thousand scenarios careened through her mind, from going into permanent hiding to coming clean to Argos. What was she supposed to do?

After a couple of hours of driving non-stop, she pulled over in a small town and climbed out. She made a hasty line for the bank machine, deciding it was time to cash up just in case. With the pin number punched in, the machine made that churning noise. She glanced over her shoulder at the couple crossing the road, the cars zipping by, and an elderly man walking his dog along the sidewalk.

A beeping sound had her return her focus to the machine, which flashed a message across the screen.

Insufficient funds.

She pressed the cancel button, but no card came out and the screen reverted to its welcome message.

“Fuck your welcome.” She tapped her finger into the cancel button. “Give me back my card.”

The cash machine didn’t respond. Wonderful. It just ate her card, and she bet her life that Brent was screwing with her. Taking a deep breath, she smacked the cancel a few more times, then hurried to her car before security guards arrived.

Don’t panic. Each breath tripped over the next. She had a bit of cash in her wallet to carry her over until she sorted out her situation. Would Brent freeze her assets? Months ago, she remembered a paranormal tracker saying another hunter had theirs frozen by Brent after he broke into a store to steal cash. Shit! Levi was a possibility to help her out… Yeah, and then he’d try to cleanse her or something worse. No, she wasn’t calling him.

Blinkie howled, his heated breath steaming up the car.

“Easy for you to say.” She’d hide and use protection runes to stay undetected by demons, until she got her head straight. Yes, good idea.

Only one solution remained. Track down Thomas, her dad’s friend. He might know something.

“Hold on, boy. We’re going on a road trip.”