“Whoa.” Karson held up his hands and backed away. “Clara, it’s me.”
“Oh.” My heart climbed back down my throat and I blinked rapidly, clearing the sleep haze. “Sorry.”
“You sleep with a knife?” His gaze darted between my face and the weapon.
I shrugged as embarrassment crept into my cheeks. God, I’d almost slashed at Karson. Smooth, Clara. “It’s, um, just in case, you know?”
A crease formed between his eyes. “Yeah.”
I shoved the hair off my forehead and slumped against the truck’s wall. It was bright out and the heat was beginning to seep inside like it did every afternoon. My midmorning nap must have lasted longer than I’d planned.
“Are you feeling okay?” Karson asked.
“Yeah.” I yawned. Staying up beside him while he’d sweated through his fever had worn me out. “Just tired.”
“Thanks. For last night.”
“Sure.” I shrugged. “How are you feeling?”
“Better. I was just getting ready to head into work. My shift starts at two.”
“Are you sure you should be working?”
“I’ll be fine. It’s only for a few hours to cover for one of the guys until close.”
He didn’t look fine. His skin was pale, and his hazel eyes were missing their usual mischievous glint. Whatever bug he’d caught had wiped him out.
Karson needed to rest, but instead, he’d walk to town and go to the car wash. There was no such thing as a sick day in our life. We worked rain or shine.
So this afternoon he’d run the sprayer for any of the vehicles that came through, and by the time he was done, his jeans would be nearly soaked. Karson always joked that he didn’t need to do laundry, even though he still took his clothes to the laundromat anyway. In this heat, those jeans would be dry, though stiff, by the time he made it back.
“I’ll come to town with you.” I shifted and picked up my shoes that I’d kicked off earlier.
“You don’t have to.”
I smiled. “I don’t have anything else to do today. Besides, it’ll be unbearable in here soon.”
By early evening, the truck would be sweltering. I tucked my knife into my jeans pocket, then slipped on a shoe. When I looked up, Karson’s eyes were on the pocket.
“You sleep with it.”
I dropped my gaze. “Yeah.”
“How long?”
“Always.” Since we’d run away. Aria had stolen one from our uncle too.
We’d added the knives to our collection of backpacks and flashlights and raincoats. We hadn’t stolen those from our uncle, though we certainly had stolen the money to buy them with. When we’d dragged our haul to the cash register at the sporting goods store and handed over a fistful of cash, the clerk had looked at us funny.
But since Craig had stolen everything from us, everything from our parents, that money had been ours to spend.
“Ready?” I asked Karson when my other shoe was on.
Karson nodded, but he didn’t move from the floor. “Do you, um . . . the knife. Is it because of Lou? Or . . . me?”
“What? No! Of course not.” I hated that he’d think I was scared of him. Or Lou.
“Then why?”
In the years that we’d lived here, I’d never shared the nasty details about why we’d left our uncle’s. Aria and I had skimmed over the real story.
We’d told Karson and the girls that our parents had died in a car accident. We’d told them that we’d been sent to live with our uncle. And we’d told them that he’d been a bastard who’d made living under his roof impossible, so we’d run away.
End of story.
None of them had asked questions because they’d all had their own stories. Their own skeletons and demons.
The only ones who’d realized that Uncle Craig had been a pervert were Londyn and Gemma.
Londyn, because she’d lived two trailers down from ours and had seen Craig around. And Gemma, from her one trip to the trailer park with my sister.
Aria had decided to go back and rescue my bike. She’d wanted to surprise me—or she’d known I would have said hell no—so instead of taking me, she’d taken Gemma.
Uncle Craig had been there, though he hadn’t seen them. But Gemma had spotted Craig. When she’d told me about the bike fiasco, she’d shivered and commented how his beady eyes had freaked her out.
I had nightmares about those beady eyes.
So did Aria.
That was the extent of what we’d shared. After the bike, which was parked beside a pile of junk because it had two flat tires we couldn’t afford to fix, Aria and I hadn’t returned to our former neighborhood.
Our friends here had no idea that Craig used to watch us in our sleep. That three times I’d come out of the shower to find him in the bathroom, waiting with my towel pressed to his nose.
Craig was the reason we carried the knives. Because if he ever found our junkyard home, I’d kill him before living under his roof again.
“Just . . . in case,” I told Karson. Maybe someday I’d tell him more, but today was not that day.
“All right.” He pushed up to his feet and led the way outside.
I closed the sliding door on the truck, bathing my belongings in darkness. With the door closed, it would be stuffy, but I’d take some stale air over a swarm of bugs.
“Short shift today, huh?” I asked as I followed Karson out of the yard for the street.
“Yeah. One of the guys needed to leave early. A doctor’s appointment for his kid or something. So I said I’d come in and take the rest of his shift. It’s money.”
We didn’t turn down money.
After Karson’s eighteenth birthday, he’d gone to his boss at the car wash and told him he was going to find a better-paying job. To Karson’s surprise, his boss had asked him to stay and given him a raise.
He was a real employee now, with a job application and tax withholdings. Karson had even gone to a local bank and opened a checking account, using the junkyard’s address as his own. Whenever Lou got the mail, anything addressed to us kids was left in the shop’s bathroom for us to find.
I hoped that once Karson built up a little in his checking account, he’d stop stealing.
“Have you and Aria decided where you’ll go?” Karson asked as we set out down the road.
I nodded. “We were actually thinking Las Vegas.”
“Sin City. I like it.”
He liked it? Really? Ask. Just ask. I took a deep breath, listening to our footsteps on the pavement. “Would you, um . . . would you want to come with us? Because that would be cool. If you want.”
“Thanks, but actually, I think I’m going to explore for a while.”
No. My heart crashed to the street, splattering blood over my dirty shoes. But I forced a smile. “E-exploring sounds fun. Are you going to Montana?”
Would he go after Londyn? Did he still love her? I couldn’t blame him if he did. Londyn was amazing and smart and funny and sweet. Of course he loved her. We all loved her.
“Nah.” Karson shook his head. “I think I’ll head toward the coast. I’d like to hit the ocean, breathe some clean air for a while. Learn to surf.”