The Storm Runner (The Storm Runner 1)

“Okay, kids, help me out here. I’m lost,” said Mom. “What’s going on?”

Brooks looked at me warily, but she didn’t need to worry. I wasn’t going to spill. Ms. Cab was right—Mom would do anything to save me. She’d risked her own life with that psychotic dwarf-thing. The less she knew, the safer she’d be.

“I… I don’t know.” The lie tasted worse than all the ones I’d thrown up earlier. “But we should go back to the bank, make sure Hondo’s okay.”

Mom scowled. “You’re going home, where you’ll be safe.”

I started to argue, but Brooks shook her head. “Hondo’s fine. They don’t want him.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “That thing attacked him. It could’ve killed him.”

“I was following it,” Brooks said. “Hondo held his own. Which is super impressive, because aluxes might be small, but they can be vicious.”

Relieved, I got into the car, sliding into the backseat with Brooks. Mom turned the key and the engine started right up.

“Did that thing temporarily freeze the engine or something?” I asked as Mom drove the two miles toward home.

She told us that aluxes were magical and masters at playing games with humans. Okay, so she knew a thing or two about Maya creatures. What else did she know?

Brooks crossed her arms and whispered, “They’re vile little monsters, created by someone for a specific purpose. So the question is…”

I gazed out the window. Who’s trying to kill me?

“Why would it come after you, Zane?” Mom’s voice trembled.

Brooks offered, “Mistaken identity. Happens all the time. I actually think it was after me.”

I immediately saw what she was doing, and I was impressed she could think on her feet like that. She didn’t want my mom to worry or get in the middle of this. That made two of us.

“Okay, then why would an alux be after you?” Even though the question was directed at Brooks, Mom looked at me in the rearview mirror, and I could see the doubt in her eyes.

Brooks fabricated some big story about how her dad traded antiques around the world and the alux’s owner had accused him of selling her a fake Maya death mask. It all went south from there. Brooks got separated from her dad the night it all went down, and she hadn’t been able to find him afterward. Now she was on the run.

She was seriously convincing.

Mom’s shoulders sagged. “So you have no one?”

Brooks looked out the window. “I’m trying to find the only real family I have left.”

Something told me that wasn’t a lie.

My head was swimming in a million directions. So someone had sent the monster to kill me, to prevent me from releasing Ah-Puch….But who? Hadn’t Ms. Cab said that only she, some dead seers, and now Brooks knew about the ancient prophecy?

I wanted to ask Mom to finish her sentence, That half-breed is the son of… but it was too awkward with Brooks in the car. To be honest, I didn’t really want to talk to Mom right then. It would only lead to her asking me loads of questions I wasn’t ready to answer. Maybe we could have a serious talk after the eclipse. Then I’d finally find out who my father was.

Hondo was home when we got there, wearing down the carpet in the living room with his anxious pacing. He had a puffy eye and a bloodied lip. “It’s about time!”

“Come on,” Mom said, and we all went into the kitchen, where she pulled some wrapped burritos from the Frigidaire and nuked them. Brooks pecked at the edges of her tortilla. I must have been starving, because I wolfed down two while Hondo told us his war story.

Thankfully, it had been so dark in the bank when the lights went out that Hondo never figured out he was fighting an ancient Maya elf or whatever it was called. And the security cameras hadn’t picked up anything, because they had “strangely” malfunctioned. After we left, the intruder had run off. Hondo had pulled the alarm and stuck around to answer the cops’ questions about the “attempted robbery.”

“What the hell was that little thing?” he said. “It had some serious moves. I mean, not as good as mine, but still….”

“A wanted criminal,” Mom blurted. “Works for an underground organization, some kind of mafia.”

I couldn’t believe how fast the lie came out.

“A mini mafioso?” Hondo asked. “Kind of like that wrestler, the Goblin. Remember him, Zane? Real small, but wicked fast.”