Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(31)

Benny shrugged, absorbed in his memories of the Ruin. So far he’d only told Nix, and he hadn’t seen her since she’d left the garden the day before. Her absence was like an empty hole in

his gut, but he refused to think about it.

Chong had the largest collection of Zombie Cards, mostly because he had two cousins who collected them, and they traded doubles. Morgie and Benny had a good-size set. Nix only had a few. She

was poor and wouldn’t take handouts, although if Benny gave her his doubles, she always accepted.

“Are you going to save any for Nix?” Chong asked as Morgie tore open his second pack.

“Why?” Morgie asked absently as he peered at the writing on the back of a card that showed a police officer in San Antonio, firing at zoms as he crashed his patrol car through a knot of

them. The figures were tiny on the card, but the action was explosive, and Morgie was totally absorbed by it.

Chong and Benny exchanged a look over his bowed head, then shrugged. Morgie could be as dense as a mud wall sometimes.

They opened all of their packs of cards and sat in the shade of the porch, organizing them and reading the backs, swapping doubles with one another, bragging about cards they had and that

the others didn’t. Benny smiled and joked and chatted with the others, but as he sorted through the cards, he could feel how false and fragile his smile was. He wanted to feel the way he

used to feel, and hated that he had to fake it.

“Hey, you even listening?” Morgie asked, and Benny turned to him, hearing the question as if it were an echo but not remembering what he was asked.

“What?”

“Joe Attentive,” murmured Chong.

“I asked, what’s with you and Nix?”

“Nix?” Benny tensed. “What about me and Nix?”

“She was over your house every day this week, and now she’s not hanging around with us. She hasn’t missed a card day all summer. What’s up?” Morgie wore a smile, but it went about a

millimeter deep.

Benny forced his shoulders to give a nonchalant shrug. “No, it’s cool. She was just being a friend.”

“What kind of friend?”

“Just a friend, Morgie.” But Benny could see that answer wasn’t going to cut it. He sighed. “Look, we all know Nix has a thing for me and you have a thing for Nix. Big news flash. I don

’t have a thing for Nix, and the reason you haven’t seen her around the last two days is that I think she knows it, and her feelings are hurt. I’m sorry, but there it is. So, if you want

to make your move, now would be a pretty good time.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” said Chong without looking up from a card he was reading. The others looked at him. “Nix is probably feeling like total crap right about now. She could use a friend,

but what she doesn’t need is someone breathing down her neck or following her like a horny dog.”

“What are you saying?” said Morgie, eyes narrowed.

Chong turned to him. “What part of that was unclear?”


“I don’t just horndog after her. I like Nix. A lot.”

Chong merely grunted and continued to read his card.

Morgie punched Benny’s shoulder.

“Ow! What the hell was that for?” Benny demanded.

“For screwing with Nix’s head!” Morgie shouted. “Now she’s going to be all moody and girly, crying in her room and writing in that stupid diary of hers.”

“Good God,” said Benny, appealing to Chong, and the universe, for help. Chong tried to hide a smile as he pretended to read the Zombie Cards.

They sat in silence for five minutes, each of them absorbed with the cards to varying degrees, each thinking about Nix but pretending not to.

Chong tapped him with an elbow, and when he turned, his friend held out a card, so he could see the picture. “You’re almost famous,” he said.

The picture was that of a young man, standing with his back to a bullet-scarred wall, but instead of a gun, he held a katana in his hands.

Tom.

“Oh, man, don’t do this to me,” Benny said.

Chong smiled. “I thought you and Tom kissed and made up. I thought you were best buds now.”

“Yeah, and pigs can tap dance,” muttered Benny, taking the card. He flipped it over and read the back aloud. “‘Card number 113: Tom Imura. Tom, a resident of Mountainside, is a first-

class bounty hunter who prefers to be called a “closure specialist.” He’s known throughout the Rot and Ruin for his quiet manner and lightning fast sword.’”

Benny handed the card back. “I think I’m going to throw up,” he said.

Chong pretended to read off the back of the card. “‘Tom’s brother, Benny, is known throughout the world for his noxious farts and lack of personality.’ Man, they got your number.”

“Get stuffed,” Benny suggested.

Morgie took the card and tried to riff off Chong’s remark, but beyond a few disjointed vulgarities, could come up with nothing biting.

“I am so going to bust Tom on this,” said Benny. “On a Zombie Card for God’s sake. Who does he think he is?”

Chong slid the card into his thick pack. “What’s with you? You’re supposed to be working with him. Didn’t you guys go on some kind of vision-quest thing out into the Ruin? You came back