Race the Darkness Read Online Free

flooded his mouth. He stomped toward his dad. “What is your problem? I’m just following your rules. I got the message ten years ago when you didn’t show up at the hospital after I was struck by lightning. When you never even asked Row or Matt whether I was alive or dead. Now get out of my…”
    His words faded when he saw his father’s face. Fine wrinkles flared out from the corners of his eyes and deeper ones cut furrows across his forehead. His mouth was turned down in an endless frown. The last time Xander had been in the same room with his father, the guy was in his forties. The man before him was two decades older and looked like he’d suffered a tremendous loss.
    Tears streamed down the older man’s cheeks, splashing onto his T-shirt.
    Pain slammed into Xander’s temple. He jerked and pressed his palm to the side of his head. He could practically feel his brain pulsing inside his skull.
    Dad’s gaze cut to him. “She needs me. I can feel her desperation, but I can’t find her anymore. It’s been too long.” I love her. She’s my soul. My everything. I need her as much as she needs me.
    For a moment, only a moment, compassion chiseled away Xander’s hard edges. But then blades of bitterness and rejection and anger stabbed through the tenderness. “This is about Gale? It’s always been about Gale. It’s been over twenty-five years since she left. Get over it. And get out of my way.”
    She’s my fearless. Dad cast his gaze down the driveway.
    â€œHere we go again.” When Gale and Shayla first left, Dad had raged for weeks about some local legend and the bear totem that resided on the hill nearby. But that’s all anyone knew—the rantings and ravings of a man gone manic in his grief. “You’re not making sense.” Xander grabbed Dad’s arm and hauled him to the edge of the driveway. “Stare at the night all you want. But do it after I drive past.” He got back in the truck and drove on, refusing to look back, or think about Dad or the voice. He’d think about beer. A chilled beer. He could practically taste the tang of that first swig. His mouth watered.
    At the end of the driveway, Xander barely braked, just cranked the wheel to the right and skidded out onto the road, laying a strip of rubber and squealing the tires in a way any high school boy would admire. He gunned the truck’s engine to get to the top of the tallest hill in Sunny County.
    Alcohol was less than six minutes away. God, how he needed a beer. Or five. Fuck that, he needed a case. Hell, he should go straight for the tequila. Anything to kill the voice.
    As he neared the top of the hill, his headlights played over a motorcycle parked along the wide berm of road and then snagged on a man. A huge beast of a guy stood staring up at the centuries-old carved wooden bear like it was his own personal savior.
    The animal posed on its hind legs, mouth open in a frozen snarl, looking real. Alive. Ready to attack. It wasn’t the kind of thing to attract tourists. It was more likely to repel them.
    What the fuck was up with the carving? His father obsessed over it. And now this freak?
    The man turned his face toward the truck, blinking from the brightness of the headlights. A thick black mark—what the hell was it—slashed up his face from mouth to cheekbone, giving him a sinister, half-evil look. He glared into the lights until Xander drove past.
    Xander glanced in the rearview mirror. The truck’s taillights tossed a bloody glow over bear and man, highlighting the play of muscle and sinew hacked into the wood and making the black mark on the man’s face appear to be a gaping hole.
    Xander’s breath locked inside his lungs. As crazy as it sounded, he half expected man and bear to move. To charge after him.
    The truck raced down the hill, the man and the bear fading from sight. Xander’s gaze snapped to the road in