Praying for Rain (Praying for Rain Trilogy, #1)(24)

Oh, right.

I hop over to the wall beside Wes, and that’s when I hear faint, deep voices inside the building.

Wes turns toward me so that our faces are inches apart, and I hold my breath. I know he’s not going to kiss me—that wouldn’t even make sense—but my body doesn’t seem to know that. It tenses all over and buzzes and hums as Wes’s lips graze the edge of my ear.

“I’m gonna give you the backpack so that I can move around more easily in there. You stay out here and watch the bike.”

I shake my head violently. “No. I’m coming too.”

“No, you’re not,” Wes hisses between his clenched teeth.

He drops his eyes, and I feel his hand wrap around mine. I look down with my heart in my throat as Wes wraps my fingers around the handle of his gun.

“I won’t be able to focus with you in there, and trust me, those guys won’t be able to either.” Wes’s eyes slide up my body to my face, and they take what little power I have along with them. “Stay out here. Please.”

I swallow and nod, feeling the weight of his trust fall on my shoulders along with the backpack. Then, he turns and opens the door.

I don’t know how he does it, but the glass beneath his feet doesn’t even crunch as he tiptoes in and silently closes the door behind him. I watch through the broken glass as he disappears from view.

This is bad.

My painkillers are in full effect, and I can’t tell if he’s been gone five seconds or five minutes. One of my arms feels heavier than the other.

That’s weird. I bend my right elbow and notice a small black handgun in my fist. I blink at it. How did that get there?

Thunder booms in the distance even though the sun is shining. Nothing makes sense anymore. I should be in college right now. I should be working part-time at some shitty diner and getting an apartment with Carter and adopting a cat and naming it Blurryface. But, instead, I’m standing outside of Buck’s Hardware, holding a gun and guarding a stranger’s dirt bike while he sneaks inside to steal a metal detector so that we can find a hidden bomb shelter to live in because the four horsemen of the apocalypse are coming in two days, according to an unexplained dream we’ve all been having.

I hear the thunder again, only this time, it’s coming from inside the building.

Crash!

My heart lurches into my throat as the sounds of struggle—muffled grunts, skin hitting skin, skin hitting the floor, merchandise hitting the floor—come pouring out through the hole in the door. I don’t think; I just react. I yank on the handle with my free hand and charge inside, my giant backpack jostling with every step. This place hasn’t been ransacked like Huckabee Foods, but on the left side of the store an endcap shelf of fertilizer has been knocked over, and there are plastic containers and little round granules everywhere.

I run in that direction. I don’t see anyone yet, but I hear Wes’s voice coming from the back of the store.

“Rain, get the fuck out!”

“Rain?” another masculine voice says.

I recognize it immediately.

“Quint?” I almost slip in the spilled fertilizer as I turn the corner and find Quinton Jones, my buddy since kindergarten, standing at the end of the aisle with his daddy’s hunting rifle trained on Wes.

Wes has his back to me and appears to be holding Lamar Jones, Quint’s little brother, like a human shield. I can’t tell from here, but the way his arm is poised, my guess is that he has a certain pocketknife pressed to Lamar’s throat as well.

“Quint!” I squeal. “I didn’t know you guys were still in town!”

My classmate keeps his gun trained on Wes, but his dark features pull up into a big grin when he sees me. “Rainbow Williams! Got-damn! Where you been, fam?”

I make a beeline for my buddy, but the second I get within arm’s reach of Wes, he grabs me, shoving Lamar toward his brother and using me as a human shield instead. I don’t even realize he’s taken the gun back until I see it stretched out in front of us, aimed at Quint.

Wes’s breath is warm against my cheek when he says, “You can tell him hi from here.”

I laugh in surprise and wave at the kid I used to play Power Rangers with on the playground. “Hi, Quint.” I giggle. “This is my new friend, Wes. Wes, this is Quint and Lamar. Quint was in my grade at school.” I turn my head toward Wes and whisper loud enough for everyone to hear, “He’s a lifer.”

Quint rolls his black-brown eyes at me and elbows his brother. “Here we go with this shit again.”

Lamar works his jaw back and forth, which I can now see looks a little swollen, and glares at Wes. He’s grown his hair out since the last time I saw it. The top is in short dreadlocks now. I like it.

Wes holsters his gun but keeps his left arm wrapped tightly around my shoulders. I like that, too.

“So, you don’t believe in the nightmares?” he asks Quint. His tone is lighter, friendlier.

I know what he’s doing. And it seems to be working.

Quint lowers the rifle, stabbing it into the ground like a cane, and launches into one of his numerous conspiracy theories. “All you have to do is look at who’s dyin’ and who’s gettin’ rich to know that there’s some fucked up shit goin’ on. If you ask me, I think this whole thing, the nightmares and all of it, was planned by the government to get all the poor folks and the brown folks to kill each other off. Let the trash take itself out, you know?”