Page 19 of Kings & Carnage

Fucker.

He’d also grabbed me a pair of red sunglasses with heart-shaped frames just because they were cute. I was wearing them into the truck stop even though it was after midnight because he was right — they were cute.

We'd been hoping to fly under the radar now that we were wearing clothes, but that's… not what happened.

Oscar reached for the door and held it open. Neo swaggered in first, his trademark cockiness on full display despite his less than fashionable attire. I was right behind him, the florescent lights of the truck stop mini-mart dimmed by my new sunglasses.

Which didn't stop me from seeing the people who turned to stare.

I couldn't really blame them, especially when Rock stepped through the door in his caftan. I looked back to make sure he and Oscar were with us and had to hand it to Rock. He held his head high despite the fact that only one arm was protruding from the caftan, the other one still strapped to his side under the fabric the way Oscar had planned it.

I could only imagine what everyone thought as we sailed past them and made our way deeper into the mini-mart.

Fresh from a costume party?

Rave refugees?

Or just a ragtag bunch of twenty-somethings with the late-night munchies?

Oscar had found flip-flops for him and Neo, so at least they weren't barefoot on top of everything else. I was sure their feet were freezing in the late-December cold, but flip-flops were better than nothing.

"Meet back at the cash register in twenty minutes," Neo said.

”Twenty minutes?" I asked. It wasn't much time to think about the supplies we would need for the next few days.

He turned to look at me. “In case you haven't noticed, Jezebel, we’re the star attraction in this place right now. We still need to get out of here ASAP.”

He and Oscar headed toward the nonfood items.

"Come on, kitten," Rock said. "Let's see what kind of sustenance we can find in this place.”

We passed the racks of candy bars and other snacks near the front of the register and headed toward what looked like a small grocery section in the middle of the store.

Rock stopped in front of a shelf stacked with canned goods, reached for a can of black beans, and looked down at the caftan where his missing arm was nestled inside. "I think we’re going to need a cart or something.”

I looked around. "I don't think they have grocery carts in places like this.” I wasn't exactly an expert in the mini-mart department. "Let me go see if they have baskets or something.”

I hurried toward the front of the store and scanned the area around the cash register and main entrance but I didn't see anything resembling a basket.

This was a problem I hadn't even considered. Most people didn’t do major grocery shopping at a truck stop.

My gaze landed on a small section of clothing — probably the same section where Oscar had found our clothes — and a row of tote bags emblazoned with pithy tourist sayings.

I grabbed six of them and hurried back to Rock, glaring at an older man with a weathered face who was staring at Rock with narrowed eyes.

Great. Just what we needed. Some bigoted boomer looking to start trouble because of the way Rock was dressed.

I slid my hand into his. "This was the best I could do," I said, holding up the tote bags.

"Good thinking.” Rock glanced nervously down at me. "Let's hurry and get out of here. I'm in no condition for a fight and I have a feeling that asshole over there might be looking for one.”

"I'll hold the bags,” I said. “You tell me what to get.”

The next twenty minutes passed in a blur of instructions from Rock as he scanned the shelves and told me what to put in the bags. I could almost hear his mind working, trying to conjure meals out of the sparse selection in the mini-mart and without any information about where we would be next.

We grabbed canned beans and canned tomatoes, tuna and soup, crackers and wheat bread, plus a plethora of snacks even though Rock protested that they were nutritionally bankrupt. Then we went to the refrigerator case for milk, eggs, cold cuts, cheese, and butter.

"We need a cooler," Rock said. "And some ice.”

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