Strike Read Online Free PDF Page A

He’s in the middle of the room, between us and Gabriela. In sleep, his smirk has stretched into a grim frown. His gun feels wrong, but why should any gun ever feel right?
    I breathe out and settle back, ever the little spoon curled against Wyatt, both of us facing them as if for battle. This truce—it was the only choice that didn’t end in somebody dying. But Wyatt’s not happy. I can feel the tension in his chest, the gruffness of each exhalation. I keep trying to match my breathing to his so that I can get some sleep, but the air is full of unwelcome, unfriendly scents. Gabriela wears a patchouli perfume that mixes with the scent of old weed and the crust of black mildew and the hard tang of a kid who’s soaked in piss and blood because of me.
    So many people have bled because of me.
    But I can’t fall asleep like Chance, still and hard and unmoving.
    All I can do is cry as quietly as possible, when everyone else is asleep.

3.
    We sleep in—all of us. No one’s anxious to be awake, I guess. The first thing I hear is the kid groaning and whimpering. He sounds like a baby trying to get attention, but then again, I guess he did get shot yesterday. Because I shot him.
    Repress, repress  . . . God, it’s hard to repress shit when it’s whining across the room.
    I peek from under Wyatt’s arm as Chance yawns, stretches, tucks the gun in his waistband, and rummages in his bag to get the kid some more pills. He looks concerned and worn down, not at all the cool-guy drug dealer I saw last night. The weak daylight filtering in through the dirty windows reveals the purple circles under his red eyes. He’s wearing a shirt with the Joker on it. After glancing aroundto make sure no one is looking, he spreads a sweatshirt more carefully over Gabriela.
    My got-to-pee squirming is probably what wakes Wyatt up, and then we’re all up and moving around the room as if there were something to do. But there’s not. Matty runs from person to person, sniffing hands hopefully for food that isn’t there. I really do need to pee, but I’m not chancing whatever’s left of the bathroom, and I forgot to bring any toilet paper while I was fleeing for my life. With a heavy sigh, I head for the door. Gabriela joins me, and Matty pushes past us into the kind of crappy day that has a white sky, an unfriendly chill, and the promise of a cold butt after peeing in the forest.
    â€œBushes?” She points at a patch of laurels, and I shake my head.
    â€œCar graveyard. You can’t see through a car, plus no surprise raccoons.”
    â€œGood point. Car graveyard it is.”
    There are at least twenty cars, a camper, and a few small boats out here, all rusted through on flat tires. I head between two tall trucks and hate every moment of it. Finding new undies and toilet paper is now a top priority. Poor as my mom and I were, I never considered the frustrations of being homeless. I own literally nothing, outside of the clothes on my back and a couple of guns. Even my knitting bag got left behind in my old Valor truck. If I had it, I would be wiping with a ball of yarn, because that’s where I am in life.
    â€œSo that sucked,” Gabriela says with a friendly smile as she emerges from beside an old camper.
    I nod. “All hail Valor.”
    â€œY’all got anything to eat?”
    I shake my head. “We’ve been living on fast food, but we’re almost out of cash.”
    â€œUs too. You got a car?”
    â€œYeah, that we’ve got.” She perks up, so I add, “But you’ll have a snake in your lap.”

    We use the last of our cash to buy crap off the discount bread shelf at Shop N Save. Turns out that eight dollars can buy a lot of messed-up cake. As Wyatt checks out, we fill our water bottles at the fountain and use the bathroom. I shove two rolls of toilet paper in the waistband of my jeans, under one of Wyatt’s hoodies.