“You think someone’s following us.”
Nick shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see when we get there.”
“Oh.”
They fell back into silence, but only for a moment. There was one question Josie was dying to ask.
“What are the Nox?”
“Good question.” Nick made a right-hand turn onto the highway for the third time. “You really don’t have anything like them where you come from?”
“Nope.”
“You sure?”
“Pretty sure I’d know if there were man-eating monsters living in the darkness.”
“Okay, okay. Don’t get touchy.” Nick glanced at her. “It’s just hard to imagine life without them. A life where you can actually go outside at night or sleep in the dark.”
“Was it always like that?”
Nick shook his head. “Not always.” He sped up, keeping one eye on the rearview mirror. They were passing an off-ramp and at the last minute, he veered over two lanes and took the exit.
Josie grabbed the “oh shit” handle as the SUV screeched around the bend. Another quick turn and Nick slammed on the brakes and veered the car off the road behind a thick growth of scrub brush. Lo and behold, about sixty seconds later, a black sedan car sped down the same road they’d just been on.
Josie gasped. “You were right.”
Nick held up his hand, and continued to watch the road. A few minutes later, the same car slowly drove by in the opposite direction, backtracking, looking for them.
Nick stayed put. After ten minutes, another car passed by—a black SUV this time. As before, it drove slowly, and circled back after a few minutes.
As the SUV disappeared back onto the highway, Nick exhaled deeply. “Okay, I think we’re good.”
Josie tightened her seat belt. “Wow.”
Nick started the engine and shifted into neutral, then let his car slowly coast down onto the road. They had a clear view in either direction. No black cars in sight. Without waiting, Nick turned right and resumed normal driving speed and tactics as he crossed the train tracks.
“Who’s following you?”
Nick shrugged. “The first was a government tail, most likely. The second was definitely from the Grid. That’s who’s usually following me, just in case I know something.” He looked at Josie sidelong. “We’re all being followed. Anyone who had a connection to Project Raze.”
“Project Raze?”
“I’ll explain it all when we get there, I promise,” Nick said, cutting off the question on the tip of her tongue. “But yeah, the Nox. I’ll give you the history-book version since apparently you’re clueless.”
“What gave me away?”
Nick laughed. “Besides walking down an unlit trail through the woods after dark?”
“Exactly.”
“We’re taught in kindergarten,” Nick said, in a sugary-sweet tone, “that the Nox are like the boogeyman—they come to get children who are bad, in the night while they’re sleeping.”
“That’s awful.”
“Isn’t it? You should see the picture books about it. Scare tactics to get kids to behave and follow the rules. Twenty years ago, parents would use them as punishment. If you were bad, you’d get stuck out on the back porch all night with just a single light above you to keep the Nox at bay.”
Josie shivered. The idea of standing on a cold concrete porch, back plastered against the wall of the house while those things flapped and shrieked around her all night, was enough incentive to make even a hardened juvenile delinquent turn angelic.
“The truth,” Nick continued emphatically, “is even more disturbing. The Nox didn’t exist until about sixty years ago. At least not in our world. The government doesn’t like to advertise this fact, but the truth is that the Nox were the by-product of Cold War government experiments attempting travel through space-time.”
“Wait a minute,” Josie said, straightening up in her seat. “Someone made those things?”
Nick eased off the main highway onto a bumpy, uneven road. “More like accidentally found. Awesome, right? Man-eating monsters that live in the dark and that no one can see.”
Josie cocked her head to the side. “No one can see them?”
Nick shook his head. “Nope. They’re completely invisible. Can’t catch them either. It’s like they can disappear at will. One minute they’re there, the next, gone.”
“Oh.” Josie thought about the gray wings sweeping past her in the darkness. Had she imagined she saw them?