Read Online Splintered Energy (The Colors Book 1) by Arlene Webb - Free Book Online Page A

glowed like that? He struggled to aim at the weirdo less than two feet away.
    “Get the hell outta my truck, before I blow your ugly red head off.”
    The stranger barked a harsh laugh and yanked the gun from his hand. The freak tossed the rifle to the floor, started tapping with the music, vibrating the dash as he looked around the truck.
    I let a fag disarm me! “Are you crazy? I’ll snap your goddamn neck.” He had a couple inches, sixty pounds over the bizarre man, and it’d been awhile since rage pounded so hard he shook. A white, God-fearing male with inalienable rights. Not to have freaks in his truck remained one of them.
    The road was deserted, and who’d blame him? Hell, the guards in the pen at Florence would slap him on the back. If the guy didn’t get out in one minute, he’d eat pavement.
    The weirdo sniffed, like a dog scenting territory. A red hand snaked for the ashtray, and the man grabbed the Marlboro’s glowing end. The fag calling himself Demon snarled and threw the cigarette over his shoulder.
    Freakin’ Jesus . He didn’t care if he cracked open his knuckles, it’d be damn satisfying to break this punce’s face before pumping his head full of shotgun pellets—only the splatter of crimson was sure to be HIV tainted. He needed space.
    In the desert. Just over that ridge.
    Long hair whipped around the freak’s head as he stared at the sputtering flame devouring the food wrappers on the back seat. “Fire. Demon like.”
    A blow of his fist knocked his truck into park. He lunged over the seat and smashed the burning wrappers. “Are you crazy? Vocabulary of a two-year-old? Outta my truck, before I kill you. I’ll rip your demon head off.”
    Electricity gripped his neck to thrust him backward, and the dashboard slammed into his skull. The damn gun. Get the damn gun . He pushed himself off the console. The smack on his jaw knocked him sideways into the driver’s window, and his head cracked glass.
    A dull ache told him his jaw was fractured. It’d hurt like hell after the alcohol wore off and— Jesus, goddamn teeth loose? He rubbed the back of his head, blood on his hand, and his panic spun out of control. What sat in his truck? An honest-to-God demon? “What the fuck do you want?”
    With an arrogant snap of fingers, the fiend gestured forward.
    Tears spilled, and he almost bawled for the first time since childhood. He had to be concussed, and his rifle lay in front of an impossibly strong freak.
    He threw the truck into gear. The banging of the passenger door echoed the rage and hurt throbbing through him while he drove into Payson. As the small fire burned itself out on the leather seat, demon-freak scowled with childish disappointment. The psycho’s attention spun back to the radio. Instead of drumming with the beat as before, he growled and rubbed his temple. “Hurts head. Make stop. Faster.”
    How’d I get in a B grade horror movie? “Make stop? Your fuckin’ head hurts? You should feel what you did to mine.”
    A red finger tapped the radio—instant silence. “Faster,” demon man growled.
    No doubt, they’d find a battered corpse under a cactus. Me, gnawed by coyotes . The stoplight facing him turned red. Would he be eviscerated if he stopped? He pulled behind a station wagon with a couple of teenage boys.
    The demon broke into a feral grin and bounced out the broken door.
     
    * * *
     
    “Hey man, what’re ya doing?” Kevin clutched the wheel and gaped at the red-haired, red-skinned, shirtless man pushing Tim over to sit next to him. The truck behind them did a frantic U-turn before speeding away, its open passenger door banging.
    Kevin wished he hadn’t just smoked a reefer.
    A nervous Tim giggled. “Hey dude.” He glanced at Kevin. “Is he red? Or am I hallucinating?”
    “Hello.” Kevin should strangle Tim. What garbage was in that pot? “I’m Kevin and this is Tim. What’s your name? Er…most people ask first, for a ride I mean.”
    “Don’t know name.