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backwards as Demos presses a hand to his head and winces.
    ‘Amber,’ he says in a low voice edged with rage, ‘don’t do that again.’
    ‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ I hiss, as I back away towards Ryder who’s still standing motionless. ‘You can’t make me.’ My eyes dart to the door. How are we going to get out of here? But even as I measure the distance and try to imagine a way we could make it, a rail of clothing goes hurtling through the air and crashes to the ground just in front of the door, blocking our way out.
    It takes me more than a few seconds to process what I just saw. I turn my head slowly back to face Demos, terror gripping my insides, and see that the other guy, the silent bald-headed one, is now grinning at me. He shifts his gaze to my right, to the stand of sunglasses and hats and then, right in front of my eyes, it lifts off the ground and ploughs into the barricade he’s already made.
    ‘OK, that’ll do, Bill,’ Demos says out the side of his mouth. ‘We don’t want to scare her.’
    No. Obviously.
    Demos cocks his head to one side and suddenly my gut tightens as though he’s thrown an invisible lasso around my waist. And I’m being pulled towards him once again. I struggle, digging in my heels but it’s useless. He drags me across the store until I’m a standing right in front of him, staring at the muscles across his chest.
    ‘That’s where you’ll find you’re wrong,’ he says. ‘I can make anyone do anything. But if it makes you feel better, Ryder’s coming along for the ride too. I’m sure you two can keep each other company.’
    Darkness thick as grief billows around him in thundering waves, drenching me. A sob rises in my chest. And it’s then, only then, that I fully understand that I can’t fight him.
    ‘Where are we going?’ I ask, my voice strangled.
    He draws in a deep breath. Exhales. ‘We’ll start with Bank of America.’ A twitch of a smile. ‘I need to make a withdrawal. Then we’ll hit up the Gun and Knife Show at the Fairground, and then, one final stop . . . San Quentin Prison.’
    My mind slams to a halt. A prison?
    ‘A friend of mine needs a little rescuing,’ he says with a grin.

Chapter Nine
    LA Times
    VENTURA – Police responded to a bank robbery at Bank of America on Main Street yesterday afternoon after four masked robbers made off with close to three million dollars in bills and bonds, as well as the contents of dozens of security deposit boxes.
    Mystery surrounds the robbery, which took place in broad daylight. None of the fifteen bank employees and customers present can recall any details about the crime, leading to mounting speculation about how the robbers managed to pull off the heist.
    A source close to the investigation, who asked not to be named, said: ‘No one can remember anything about the robbery. If we didn’t have the CCTV footage you’d think the place was robbed by ghosts.’
    The security guard on duty at the time said in a statement that he experienced a sense of overwhelming euphoria just prior to the incident. When police arrived on the scene they found him in a state of hysteria. He was admitted to the local hospital for psych evaluation and drug testing but has since been released.
    Police are refusing to comment on the link between this robbery and the raid on the Ventura Fairgrounds Gun and Knife Show the same day, which saw several high-powered rifles, semi-automatic handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition stolen. Once again, despite the number of people in the vicinity there were no eyewitnesses.

CONSPIRACYNATION.NET
    ALIEN ROBBERY!
    Weird things are afoot in Southern Cal. We’re hearing all sorts of crazy talk about what went down at The Gun & Knife Show in Ventura a few days ago, and it’s got X-Files written all over it.
    Over fifty guns were stolen, along with enough ammo to blow up the White House. The police are claiming an inside job (a local biker crew with a reputation for gun