Grave Mistakes (Hellgate Guardians #1)(32)

The Jolly Green Giant of my nightmares picks up speed, and suddenly I’m struck by a thought. “Sweep the leg,” I mumble to myself, recalling the only other thing I remember from the Karate Kid movies aside from wax on, wax off. “Sweep the motherfucking leg!” I scream to myself in triumph as I snap my helmet back on and swing a leg over my moped. I rev it up like the threat it is and glare at the demons running toward me.

The wheels give a scream of protest as I take off like a drunk snail and head straight for the mountain of green demons. I curse my ancient, slow ass scooter as it takes its sweet fucking time to gain speed. The speedometer needle passes twenty, and I growl-scream as I ignore every self-preservation instinct I have and barrel right for the demon tower. We close in on each other, and when we’re about fifteen feet away, I purposely lean too far to the right, and then attempt to jump off.

It’s way fucking harder than the movies make it look.

I grunt in pain as I roll brutally to a stop on the pavement. My moped goes skidding toward the running demons, and I watch in awe as it slams into their leg tower and sends the demons crashing down.

Screams fill the air, and I cover my ears against the sound as my impromptu “bowling for demons” plan works, and they all fall down like Humpty fucking Dumpty, into a dozen pieces.

I don’t stick around to see them get up. I pick my road-rashed ass up and sprint as fast as I can toward the main road. Sorry, moped. Sacrifices have to be made.

One good thing about living in a city with way too many people? I don’t have to run far before I run into someone. I haul ass toward the gas station, and the first pump I get to has a man in his forties climbing into a convertible. Perfect. I take a running leap at it and jump into the passenger’s seat. My landing is slightly off though, so the gear hits me right in my baby maker. “Motherfucker!”

Men think they own the pain rights when it comes to shots in between the legs, but I can officially swear to the fact that it hurts like a bitch for women too. Startled, the man gapes over at me as I quickly remove my leg from his lap and rub my sore crotch as I settle into the passenger seat. I whip my head around to look behind me for the green monsters, but so far, I’ve outrun them.

“Umm...Excuse me? What the fuck are you doing?” the man demands. He rubs at his side and his thigh like my jumping on him caused some kind of injury. Considering I’m scraped all to hell and being chased by murderous demons, I don’t really have a lot of sympathy for him right now.

I shoot him a look, though the movement hurts my neck because I’m pretty sure I pulled a muscle from my moped maneuver. My cheek also hurts like a bitch. Basically, the whole side of my face and my palms feel raw from my pavement slide. “Just drive!”

He looks aghast. “What? No. Get out of my car! I don’t even know you.”

I quickly shove my hand out and grab his, ignoring the stinging pain in my palm so I can give his hand a forceful, trustworthy shake. “I’m Delta. Nice to meet you. You are?”

“Umm, Tom?”

“Great, Tom. I’m gonna need you to fucking drive now, okay? Because there are scary green men chasing me, and they don’t look friendly.”

Tom frowns at me, but I must look crazy enough to scare him into action, because he puts his car into gear and starts pulling away just as I see the first of the demons round the corner, bloodied and pissed off. They seem to be yelling something at me, though I can’t understand what they’re saying, and no one else at the gas station seems to see them at all.

As soon as Tom’s red convertible pulls out onto the highway, I watch as the green demons stop, arms crossed as they watch us drive away. I let out a sigh of relief and turn back around, letting my aching head lie back against the headrest. “Fuck,” I mumble under my breath.

Tom shoots me an uncertain look. “Where am I supposed to take you? Because I was heading out for a date and…”

“And you don’t want to show up with me in the car? Yeah, that wouldn’t be good, Tom.”

He nods in agreement. “So...where…”

Right. Where, indeed.

I quickly rattle off the address to the stupid mansion of the stupid demons. They’ve got some explaining to do. They also owe me a new moped. And an entire box of ramen.

“That’s a long way away…”

I’m on the brink of losing it. “Okay, can you just drop me off at the nearest bus stop? Please?”

He grumbles a lot of shit, including a tidbit about a “crazy ass woman thinking she’s being abducted by green aliens,” but he takes me to the bus stop anyway.

“Thanks, Tim,” I tell him distractedly.

“It’s Tom,” he scowls.

“Right. Sorry.”

He peels away as soon as I shut his door. I barely have time to back away to the curb and not get my toes run over. “Geez. Tim’s rude,” I mumble as his car races off.

“I think he said his name was Tom, dear,” the elderly woman on the bus bench says behind me.

I nod at her. “Yeah.”

The woman gives me a once-over, because I probably look like shit. “Here,” she says kindly, digging in her purse before offering up a travel package of wet wipes. “You’ve taken a bit of a tumble. Unless Tom there needs to be taken care of?”

She speaks so sweetly that I don’t even realize what she’s said for a few moments. “Oh. Um, no. Tim doesn’t need to be killed. I crashed my moped.”