Page 27 of Anathema Codex

“Leave you behind? What the fuck would I do without you, Wills?” he shouts after me. I glance at him over my shoulder and stick my tongue out to which he laughs and shakes his head.

A bell dings somewhere inside of the mart when I pull the door open. I walk toward the back of the place and grab numerous bags of chips of different varieties. I grab some candy bars and head to the register to dump them on the counter before I go back to the snacks and grab a hand full ofSlim Jims,which just so happen to be Aftyn’s favorite thing to munch on. One more trip to grab a few bottles of water and I think I’m done with the bare necessities.

The guy behind the counter chuckles as he begins to ring everything up. “Anything else?” he asks me kindly as he begins to put my items into a plastic bag.

“Um, yeah,” I say as I get to my tiptoes and crane my neck. “I need a couple of cartons of those.”

I reach into my wallet and toss my ID on the counter because I just know he’s going to ask for it. Once he’s satisfied that I’m of age to buy the cigarettes, we complete the transaction and I head back out into the morning sun.

I wonder where we are,I think as I reach into the bag and pull out a candy bar. I pull the wrapper back and begin to nibble on it when I suddenly realize that I don’t see Aftyn anymore.

“Great,” I mumble to myself as I walk a little faster toward the truck.

When I get close enough, I see that he has the hatch open in the back so I walk around and nudge him to scoot over.

“Here,” I say as I hand him the cartons.

“Thanks, Wills,” he replies quietly.

“Look in the bag,” I tell him with a nod as I place it between us. “I got you something.”

Aftyn raises an eyebrow curiously as he peeks into the bag then looks at me with a grin. “See? You’re not so bad when you wanna be nice.”

“Thanks, Meyer,” I reply with an eye roll. Backhanded compliments are something I’m used to when it comes to Aftyn, but since starting this trip, he’s been a little down, so instead of sniping back at him, I let him win this round.

“What’s got you down?” I ask him, deciding that beating around the bush isn’t going to make him feel any better.

Aftyn shrugs as he opens one of theSlim Jimsand begins to chew on it.

“Is it because we’re getting closer?” I press gently.

He shrugs again and I decide that maybe it’s best to let this conversation go for now. He’ll tell me what he wants me to know when he’s ready and I’ll be the friend to him I was the same day we took care of his mother.

“We should probably keep going,” I say as I get to my feet. “Give me the keys, I’ll drive from here.”

Aftyn doesn’t look up to meet my eyes, instead he just hands over the keys without so much as a word and stands up, closes the hatch behind him, and walks over to the passenger side of the truck.

Once he’s safely tucked inside, I begin to make my way toward the driver’s side door, stopping long enough to peer in at Daphne who’s now wide awake, eyes forward, and in a world of her fucking own again.

Soon.

TWENTY

Pushing Buttons

DAPHNE

I never sleep very deeply. Probably a consequence of my fantastic childhood and all the wonderful things that have happened since I left that shithole, but it has a few benefits. One of them is that I'm pretty damn hard to sneak up on, and the second is that I'm a solid fake sleeper when I need to be.

Of course, I get a lot of practice hitchhiking around.

Decent guys will let you sleep if they think you've passed out in their car, the bad ones will almost always try something. It's a quick and efficient way of figuring out whose car I'm in... usually.

With Aftyn and Willa things are more difficult. These two just don't talk about things with each other. They dance around topics, trying not to step on each other's toes while simultaneously launching snarky comments at random. When he pulled into that rest stop along the highway to lay on a picnic table for a while, Willa pretended to be asleep while she watched him, and continued faking it when he climbed back in and basically called her out by saying he wished she was awake. I was sure she'd sit up, happy to feel needed, but the bitch had just laid there against the window. It's an odd dichotomy, but I think I've figured out what's going on with them. Just friends, nothing more, even if one or both of them are physically attracted enough to fuck around occasionally.

And that's good news for me, because I haven't had a decent fuck in too long, and Aftyn looks like he would be a lot of fun. It will just depend on if he makes a move or not, although he already made the first move by approaching me in the parking lot and defending me against the bitch currently driving the car.

Sitting up straight, I hear the crack of a water bottle from the front seat and realize how dry my mouth feels. "Um, any chance I could have some water?"

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