Page 31 of Slots & Sticks
The wheel jerks away from him. I shriek and stick my arms out like a starfish. The car swerves into the opposite, empty lane, then back. My nails dig into my palms. I taste metal in my throat.
Camden was driving carefully. There’s nothing to either side of us: no ditches, no guardrails, nothing that we could hit or fall into. That doesn’t stop me from grabbing the door of the car and holding on for dear life, even as we coast to a stop.
“Dammit,” Camden mutters. He’s barely shaken. Why should he be? He’d already slowed down. There was no other traffic. We’re fine.
My anxiety, on the other hand, is going a mile a minute.What if he’d been going faster? What if we’d hit something? What if there was oncoming traffic? What if, what if, what if…
I wrap my arms around myself and count down from ten.
“Dot?” Mira asks. “Are you alright? Your heart rate is elevated.”
“I’m good.” It’s a lie. Maybe when we get home, I should schedule an appointment with a grief counselor or a therapist or something. Managing my current anxiety spike is outside the paygrade of a robot.
“I’m gonna go see what that was.” Camden turns on the blinkers and opens the car door. “Be right back.”
My throat tightens.
“Cam—wait.”
But he’s already out. The door slams.
I press my forehead against the glass, watching his silhouette step into the glare.
Alone.
I take a few deep breaths. I know that I’m overreacting, but my stomach is in my throat. “We’re okay,” I whisper. “Nothing happened.”
I repeat these words to myself over and over until my racing heart settles.
Chapter Seven
Camden
The shimmer catches my eye first—a scatter of glass across the asphalt, glinting like a spilled constellation. I crouch beside it, squinting against the glare. There’s too much for a beer bottle. The chunks are thicker, heavier, and some are bent at ninety degrees. A smashed headlight? Or a busted magnum wine bottle from someone’s tailgate party gone wrong. Vegas, where even your road hazards come drunk.
When I straighten, my stomach sinks. The back tire sags flat as a pancake. I give it a halfhearted kick. Nothing. It wheezes at me, insulted.
“Great,” I mutter, surveying the scene. Desert heat rising in waves. The road empty except for our dust trail. “Guess this is where my luck taps out.”
I know how to change a tire. In theory. Haven’t done it on this vehicle before, but there’s a spare in the hatchback and my pride refuses to call roadside assistance when Dot’s watching. I’m supposed to be competent. Useful. The kind of guy who can keep things rolling when life throws a pothole.
I tiptoe through the glass, collecting the bigger shards into an old fast-food bag. They clink together, glittering meanly in the sun. “Somebody was celebrating big,” I call, glancing toward the car. “Probably dropped a whole magnum right in the middle of the road.”
Dot sits rigid in the passenger seat, one hand cupped around Mira’s puck like she’s shielding it from the light. “Or maybe it’s a trap,” she says.
“A trap?”
“Yeah. People throw stuff in the road, wait for someone to pull over, and then—bam.” She mimes being ambushed. “Vegas desert murder podcast material.”
I can’t help laughing. “If someone tries to kill us out here, they’re gonna be disappointed. My wallet’s all Apple Pay, and your AI is smarter than most people.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“It wasn’t supposed to.”
Her mouth twitches. Victory enough.
I pop the hatch and start pulling out the jack, the tire iron, the emergency triangle that’s still shrink-wrapped. The sun beats down so hard I swear it’s trying to melt me into the pavement. I set the jack under the frame, crank a few turns, and the car groans like it’s complaining about leg day.
