“Come back in, Amy. You’re out of bullets.” To Eunjoo, “Stay down this time, please chica.” She understood now how Chance felt when Calliope had habitually ignored his instructions. She hunched low in the seat and Mara resumed her prone position in the back seat.

The arrow in the snow was gone—as was Chance.

Calliope scanned the rock face from her low vantage point of the passenger window.

He was nowhere.

The Suuke had jumped down to a lower rock, was stringing another arrow in its bow.

Chance emerged in Calliope’s peripheral vision, crawling up the rock wall to the right of the Suuke, who didn’t seem to notice, its gaze directed on the truck’s passengers.

Amy nodded, abandoned the gun on the hood, and shuffled toward the road ahead, running twenty feet away from the truck. She waved her arms and screamed, “Bring it, monster.”

The Suuke turned swiftly and shot.

Amy fell flat on her belly, the arrow whirring past her into the ravine.

She stood again, flailing her arms, mocking the monster.

The Suuke seemed unaware Amy was a ruse, and continued shooting at her, while Chance inched closer, hauling himself down from the precipice, onto a crag above the Suuke, its feathered arrow projecting from his back pocket.

Calliope’s pulse jangling like keys in her throat, she watched the plan unfolding before her as though they were not cursed, as though they had luck on their side, for once, Amy playing well her part of distraction while Chance crept toward his target, pulling the arrow from his pocket and pointing its sharp tip toward the Suuke’s neck as he readied to jump. Calliope could see the determination that furrowed Chance’s face—demon or consequences be damned.

He lunged.

His flannel blended with the patterns made by the swirling feathers around the Suuke’s neck, Chance’s arrow and the Suuke arrows becoming one, fuzzy in the gray-black snow on rock. But the Suuke knew Chance was coming, or its reflexes were quicker than its partner’s. It spun at Chance, knocked him to the ground before he could latch onto its back, before the arrow could break Suuke skin. Its foot stamped into Chance’s torso, pinning him to the ground; the Suuke strung its arrow to its bow. Calliope unlatched her door, ignoring the jolts of pain shockwaving her own torso, and screamed “No!” It couldn’t kill Chance. She couldn’t let it.

Still lying across the back seat, Mara gurgled, “Under the passenger seat. There’s another gun.” There wasn’t enough time. Why hadn’t the woman said so before? Calliope grabbed the gun and the mason jar rolling beside it. Gun in one hand, glass in the other. She cocked the gun.

From her crouched position under the dashboard, Eunjoo said, “Throw it.”

Amy was climbing the rock wall toward the Suuke, unarmed. What was she thinking?