Page 28 of Along for the Ride

I hand over the cash and she pulls out a money box to make change. She’s short five dollars. She looks around, the cash curling in her hand as my foot taps with growing nerves. “Just keep it, thank you!” I tell her, taking what change she has.

I walk back to the car and hand Gentry the paper for the dashboard. Karson loads the wood into the back as I walk by him. “Useful for something, at least,” he mumbles as I pass.

I get in the back seat, and Karson slams the back hatch and gets in the passenger seat. We pull onto maintained dirt roads that loop around lines of campsites. Gentry pulls to a stop in section D at pole thirty-four, and I glance around at the campers and tents surrounding our spot.

“We don’t have camping gear,” I say.

“It’s just a place to chill until late tonight,” Gentry gets out, grabs the wood from the back, and lights his cigarette before stacking the wood in the firepit.

As I sit against the rock on the outskirts of the site and watch them work, a heavy tunnel of dread surrounds me. Mickey’s words echo in my mind. I’ve put a lot of ground between us, but he swore he’d find me. I still feel the heaviness of his anger, even from this far away, the thread tethering me to our history trying to dissolve in front of me. He likely knows I’ve skipped town by now. Waiting for me to come crawling on my hands and knees has backfired, and he’s not one to lick his wounds. If he manages to track me down, he’ll have no chance against Gentry, but Karson would probably hand me over on a silver platter.

Fucking Karson.

“Wanderer!” Gentry raises his voice. “Did you hear anything I said?”

I shake my head.

He steps away from the fire and stands in front of me, dropping his voice. “What’s on your mind?”

My head keeps shaking until my eyes drop to the grass.

“Is it about what you’re running from?”

I scoff. “I’ll tell you what I was thinking about when you tell me what you guys do for work.”

“Fair.”

Karson appears beside me like some psychotically ill ghost. He puffs on a cigarette before drawing it from his lips and offering it to me.

I want to say no because I shouldn’t accept anything he offers me, but the temptation overpowers me. I take the cigarette from his fingers and bring it to my mouth, inhaling a deep cloud of nicotine. My throat tightens, and I cough as I exhale.

“A criminal should be able to handle a cigarette, don’t you think?” he quips, and the way he says it makes me want to stab the lit end into his eye.

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“Enlighten me, thief. You sure love to askusquestions.”

“And you don’t answer them either.”

Karson graces me with a sadistic smile and rubs a hand down his face. “Mouthy. Real mouthy.” He steps in front of me, and my glare rides up to his crazed eyes. His fingers twitch at his side, and I can see what he’s thinking. And I don’t like it.

“Karson!” Gentry shouts, stepping between us.

“He can’t protect you forever, thief,” he says over Gentry’s shoulder before stepping away.

The fire casts an orange glow on Gentry’s face, accentuating each curve of his muscles and dancing in his dark eyes. A cigarette dangles from his lips as he maneuvers the logs, sending sparks and crackles from the wood. He stands upright and wipes his hands on his jeans.

“Come with me,” he says, juggling the cigarette between his lips as he speaks.

“Of course,” Karson clips.

I push off the rock and follow Gentry into the woods. For all I know, he could be leading me to my death, so why am I so unafraid? How have I put so much blind trust into this handsome stranger? Maybe he’s about to tell me to get lost, and that strikes more fear into my heart than the thought of his hands wrapping around my throat. It seems more possible, at least.

Once we’re far enough away from the campsite, Gentry stops and turns to face me. “Be careful with my brother,” he says. I meet his eyes in the darkness. “He’s dangerous. Well, I’m dangerous too, but not like him. Watch your pretty mouth with him before you end up without a tongue.”

“You sound afraid of him.”

Gentry shakes his head and looks back toward our campsite. “I’m not scared of Karson. Being aware doesn’t mean I’m fearful. I’m just being smart. Karson is like a rabid dog. And he’s as predictable as one too. He’s the type of person who can greet you with one hand while stabbing you in the neck with the other.”

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