She shrugged. “And what have you done each time you faced this situation?”

I grimaced. “I stepped in the trap.”

“Your survival record is pretty great, so far.”

“No one has a perfect score forever.”

“So what are you going to do?”

I exhaled and stepped forward, heading for the rear of the truck. “What I always do. Take the bait.”

Our whole cadre—fifteen Valkyries, Thorin, and me—grouped around the back of the truck and eyed the doors as if they might open on their own.

“Has anyone ever seen Maximum Overdrive?” I asked.

Standing beside me, Naomi turned and slapped my shoulder. “Don’t go there. This is creeping me out enough already.”

“Siobhan. Keisha.” Embla pointed. “Start knocking on doors. We need to talk to the driver.”

I sucked in a breath, steeled my nerves, and hopped onto the bumper without a second thought. I always take the bait. Before I could fully grasp the handle, the door blew open, knocking me from my perch. I yelled as I fell back, and Thorin caught me. He set me down and rose again in one fluid motion, Mjölnir already in his hand, ready to go.

Stone men streamed from the cargo hold, and Thorin stepped up to the plate, a regular Casey Jones. Heads rocketed into the air like pop-fly baseballs. Torsos exploded. The Valkyries streamed in around me, weapons drawn, blades flashing, booted feet kicking and striking.

Skyla scooted up beside me. “This is the worst Easter egg hunt ever.”

“I was thinking it was more like the worst piñata.”

“Same idea, though.” She drew a big black gun from a holster under her armpit and fired into the head of a grabbing monster. His skull exploded, but he kept reaching for us. I put a foot to his abdomen and shoved. He stumbled, lost his balance, and fell onto his back, where he lay scrabbling like an overturned turtle.

“Why were we scared of these things again?” she asked. “They’re ridiculously stupid. Like zombies, but without the bite, and none of those pesky cravings for brains.”

“You know how you lose in a zombie movie?” I asked. Another golem stumbled close. Skyla blew him away in two shots, point blank. “Numbers. When there’s too many for one person to overcome, it doesn’t matter if they’re slow and stupid. And these guys aren’t slow.”

Thorin pressed in beside me and made rubble of another stone man. “Hanging in there, Sunshine?”

From the corner of my eye, I spotted a stony arm reaching for me. I ducked under it, shoved my shoulder into the golem’s pelvis, and knocked him off center. He teetered, and I swiped his leg out from under him. When he crashed to the ground, Thorin casually dropped Mjölnir to the golem’s chest, shattering him to bits.

I rolled my eyes. “Showoff.”

Piles of rubble lay around us, and the Valkyries made short work of destroying the few remaining stone men. Naomi shoved her short sword into the juncture of a golem’s neck and shoulder, in a place like soft mortar between bricks. Careful to stay at his side, beyond the stone man’s reach, Naomi separated head from shoulder, using her sword like a pry bar. She grunted and heaved, and his head came loose with a gritty crunch. She shoved him to the ground, and Skyla fired a round into his chest, blowing a crater into his ribcage. If he had a ribcage.

“Okay, Dirty Harry,” I said.

Skyla slipped the pistol into its holster. “This isn’t a Dirty Harry gun. It’s a Desert Eagle. Point five-oh.”

Naomi grinned. “Go on, girl. I like it when you talk dirty to me.”

Voices rose in the distance, loud protests and shouts. We spun around, searching for the source. Siobhan and Keisha approached, dragging a reluctant man between them. A bruise had already started forming around his eye. Blood dribbled from his nose.

“Did we miss all the fun?” Siobhan eyed the rubble.

Keisha shoved her captive forward. He stumbled, caught himself, and stopped, chin raised in a defiant posture. “He’s the only one here,” she said.

Embla stepped to the front of the crowd and appraised the truck driver. Her gaze scraped from his dingy sneakers up to his balding head and back down again. She slipped her knife from a sheath at her waist. “Open his shirt.”

As Siobhan reached for the man, flashbacks of Nate’s horrible interrogation assaulted me. I pushed my way forward and raised my voice. “Wait. Maybe you could just ask him.”

Embla peered down her nose at me. “My way is more efficient.”

“Your way is torture. It’s a last-ditch effort, not the opening bid.” I turned to the driver and met his eyes. Well, his one good eye, anyway. The other had mostly swollen shut. “What’s your name?”

The driver’s good eye blinked, and his eyebrow quivered on his wrinkly forehead. “What’s it matter to you?”

“Better than ‘hey fella,’ right?”

He shrugged. “Kowalski. Andy Kowalski.”

I winked at Skyla. See? Progress already. “Mr. Kowalski, where are the other drivers?”

He sniffed and jerked his chin toward the highway. “Ain’t seen them in days. We stopped for fuel outside of Portland, and curiosity got the best of me. Got one look at the cargo and lit out like my ass was on fire.”

I snorted. “If you were so afraid, what are you still doing here with your truck and a full load?”

Kowalski scratched his chin. “Well, I got to thinking… Someone paid me a ton of money to show up with my truck at a warehouse out in East Jesus, Arizona, in the middle of the night. They put armed guards on all us drivers and wouldn’t let us get out of our rigs. They just loaded us up, gave us a preprogrammed navi-system, and told us to hit the road. I figured whatever was worth all that money and all that secrecy might be worth even more to the right buyer.”

“Mr. Kowalski...” Embla shook her head the same way one shakes her head at a bad car accident in which it was obvious there were no survivors. “You have no idea the trouble you’re facing. As soon as your employer discovers what you’ve done—”

Kowalski cleared his throat in a long, wracking cough and spit a wad of phlegm at Embla’s feet. Dismissing her altogether, he raised his watery blue eye up to meet my gaze. My hackles rose, hairs standing on the nape of my neck. My reluctance for the use of Embla’s knife was quickly waning.

“What are them things, anyway?” He glanced around at the piles of rubble strewn about the motel parking lot. “I thought they might be some kind of antique statues or something, but the way they moved… Was they robots?”

I grimaced at him. “You can believe me when I say you don’t really want to know.”

He hacked and cleared his throat again but refrained from spitting. “The way I see it, you all destroyed the merchandise. If anyone’s got to answer for that, it’s you.”

I laughed, a bitter, wry sound. “Keep telling yourself that, and maybe you’ll be able to sleep tonight. But if I were you, I’d start running, and I’d never stop.”

Thorin stepped up to my side and loomed over our witness. “Where were you headed with that truck?”

Kowalski leaned back, trying to take in Thorin’s remarkable stature. His lips thinned. His good eye narrowed. “Don’t know for sure.”

Thorin stepped closer, jaw clenched, the threat of physical harm obvious. Kowalski flapped a hand at him. “You ain’t got to get all hostile like that. I’m telling you the truth. We were headed north. That’s all I know. Check the navi on my truck, and you’ll see.”

Embla motioned to the Valkyries. “Feryal, go take a look at his navigation system. Siobhan, take Mr. Kowalski to his room, and don’t let him leave.”

A dark-skinned woman wearing an olive-colored hijab separated from the group and headed toward the truck’s cab. Siobhan winked at Kowalski and tugged his arm. “Let’s go, sugar.”

Skyla, Thorin, and I huddled with the rest of the group, waiting for Feryal’s findings. “Port of Portland,” she announced from her seat inside the truck cab a few moments later.