Praying for Rain (Praying for Rain Trilogy, #1)(10)

Yeah, and then she stormed off and almost got herself gang-raped.

My heart beats like an iron fist against my ribs as I picture her standing there, watching me leave, big blue eyes full of fear, big black hoodie almost down to her knees.

Stop it. You don’t need her anymore. Supplies, shelter, self-defense. That’s it.

My blood pumps harder as I remember the way she tried to fight me off in the parking lot. Bitch actually pulled my hair. Nobody’s ever pulled my fucking hair before.

Supplies, shelter, self-defense.

I picture the little crease in her forehead and the swelling claw marks on her cheek after I yanked her ass out of Burger Palace, standing there, debating whether or not to get on the bike with me. As if she had a choice.

Supplies, shelter, self-defense.

Then, I see her the way I found her—balled up on the floor, so tiny, taking the beating of a lifetime because she refused to hand over her precious painkillers.

Damn it!

I chuck the can back into the bag and grab my shit. My stomach protests as I leap down to the trash-covered woodchips below and begin tying the grocery bags to my handlebars with violent knots. I have to get Rain back, and it has nothing to do with the fact that she smells like sugar cookies or looks like a broken china doll dressed by a blind person or because of the way her tits and thighs felt pressed against me on the back of my bike. I have to get Rain back because I know something she doesn’t.

Rainbow Williams is a fucking survivor.

And I’m not done using her yet.

I follow the trail she took through the woods on my bike, but it only leads as far as a strip shopping center down the road from the park. The place is deserted, hollowed out from a fire. If I had to guess, I’d say the looters probably took whatever drugs they could find in the dentist’s office and left the rest to burn.

That’s the only thing of any real value anymore. Pills. Pussy. The thrill of pyromania. Cash is worthless—unless you want to Apocasize your French fries at Burger Palace. And our government is so full of shit that nobody even listens to those lying assholes anymore. According to them, the US dollar is “stronger than ever,” and we should all just “remain calm” until “the source of the nightmares is identified.”

Of course, that message has been playing on a prerecorded loop for the last few weeks because not even the newscasters are showing up for work anymore. They’re all at home with their families or out getting fucked up and lighting shit on fire like the rest of us.

I drive around the building and pick up the trail again, heading back the way I came. Even though I haven’t been back to Franklin Springs since I was nine, I still know these woods like the back of my hand. I think I spent more time in them, avoiding my cunt of a mother and her parade of drunken boyfriends, than I ever did under her roof.

Or anyone’s roof, for that matter. After I was placed in foster care, I bounced from shitty home to shittier home until I finally aged out of the whole shitty system. Now, I bounce from roommate to roommate instead.

The trail runs parallel to the main highway, stopping and restarting at almost every business along the way. A few forks jut off of it here and there, cutting through the woods to nearby neighborhoods. I’m starting to think I might have waited too long. Rain could be anywhere by now. She’s probably inside some perfect little house somewhere, eating a perfect little meal, telling her perfect little family about the asshole who kidnapped her from Burger Palace.

I pop the clutch and shift into second. Then, third. I don’t know if it’s because I think I can still find her or if it’s because I’m so fucking mad at myself for letting her go, but I tear down the trail so fast that I don’t even realize where I am until the woods clear, and I find myself barreling across a huge parking lot, headed toward one very familiar-looking bread truck.

Fuck!

I hit the brakes and skid to a stop beside the truck. I listen for shots, yelling, barking, anything, but my bike is loud as fuck, so I kill the engine and wait. My gun has been a fucking paperweight ever since I used my last bullet saving Rain’s ass at Burger Palace this morning, but I draw it anyway and walk my bike forward until I have a clean view of the main entrance through the driver’s window.

Huckabee Foods looks exactly the way we left it—bloated corpse facedown on the sidewalk, overturned lawn chair, probably a few mauled gangbangers on the other side of the sliding glass doors. But, most importantly, no imminent threats. I breathe out a sigh of relief and holster my gun, wondering how the fuck I could be stupid enough to end up back here. I was being reckless. I don’t do reckless.

But I know somebody who does.

Before I can crank the throttle and get the fuck out of there, something tells me to give the entrance a second look. I do, and that’s when I notice that the dead guy is no longer lying on his stomach. He’s rolled over onto his side. And there, squatting next to him, is the little black-haired bitch who did the rolling.

Rain’s hoodie-covered body is kneeling in front of the corpse, holding one side of him up with her shoulder while she digs through the pockets of his baggy jeans. The guy’s face is fucking horrifying—eyelids half-open, mouth slack, dried puke covering one side of it—but Rain is going through his shit like she’s hunting through a clearance bin at Walmart.

A little fucking survivor. I knew it.

When she finds what she’s looking for, Rain lets the guy’s body fall back down with an unceremonious plop. She focuses all of her attention on something small and orange in her hands. I want to stand up and give her a slow clap for having bigger balls than I do, but I’m pretty damn sure that whatever gang produced Thug-Life Shrek and the meth-head trio, it has plenty more soldiers to spare inside.