Page 18 of Kings & Carnage

“It’s not up for negotiation,” Neo said. “Willa stays with you.”

“Fine,” I muttered. I didn't feel like myself and I wasn't up for trying.

I watched people come and go from the truck stop, envying their freedom. The complex was a hub of activity with cars pulling up to the gas pumps and leaving only to be replaced by other cars and a steady stream of customers heading into the truck stop and emerging a few minutes later with bags in their hands. Illuminated by the artificial lights that surrounded the place, it was an eerie oasis, a beacon in the darkness of wherever the hell we were.

Finally Drago emerged along with several other people. He was carrying two plastic bags in one hand, limping past people laughing and talking, carefree in their knowledge that no one was hunting them and willing to gun them down in public.

He looked so out of place, so obviouslywrong, that I half expected someone to stop him during his journey across the long stretch of pavement between the truck stop and where we were parked, but a minute later he was there, opening the driver's side door and sliding into the car with a loud exhale.

"Fuck," he said.

“What?" Willa asked.

“I tried not to draw attention but— ” he said.

“You drew attention?” I asked.

“More or less," he said.

"Did you find us all some clothes?" Neo asked.

"More or less," Drago said.

Neo glared at him. "Give me those bags."

Chapter8

Willa

"Ican't fucking believe this," Rock grumbled on our way across the parking lot.

"I don't want to hear it," Oscar said. "You were all in on me doing the shopping.”

"Yeah, because I didn't know you were going to get me a dress," Rock said.

"It's not a dress, it's a caftan,” Oscar and I said in unison.

We’d already had this conversation in the car. Oscar had been torn about what to get Rock because of his arm, so he’d chosen a flowy caftan with a tropical print, thinking that Rock could keep his arm on the inside.

Rock hadn't argued the logic, but that didn't mean he was happy to be entering a truck stop in the middle of nowhere wearing a caftan.

"Well, whatever it is, it sucks,” Rock said. “My balls are going to chafe. Besides, you said we were trying not to draw attention to ourselves. Somehow I don't think any of this is going to help in that department.”

He had a point. Oscar was the least obtrusive of us in black sweats and a black T-shirt with an image of a semitruck and the wordsSit Down and Let Daddy Drive, but Neo had ended up with plaid Bermuda shorts and a flowery oversized Hawaiian-print shirt.

Add that to Rock’s caftan and they were definitely a motley crew.

Neo shifted inside the boxy Hawaiian shirt. “This thing looks like a kindergartner cut it out with safety scissors.”

“Stop complaining," Oscar said. “You had to make a big deal about wearing an extra-large. This is what they had in the extra-large section.”

"I think you all look amazing," I tried to say with a straight face. I took Rock's hand. "And dresses are very fashionable for men now.”

He looked down at me. ”One, it's not a dress, it's a caftan. Two, you're just trying to make me feel better. Three, that's easy for you to say. You look cute as fuck.”

He was probably just being nice, but I hadn't made out too badly. Oscar had chosen a pair of pink track pants and a too-small pink T-shirt with a picture of a bulldog inexplicably wearing a sparkly beret.

I’d given him shit about the size of the shirt, reminding him that he’d claimed to know my size, at which point he’d glanced suggestively at my tits, on full display in the tiny T-shirt, and said, “I do.”

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