Page 11 of Dotted Lines (Runaway 5)

“Brought you a banana,” he said. “I just bought a bunch yesterday. Thought you might want one.”

“Thanks.” I took it as he handed it over.

“You’re welcome.” He sat down across from me on Aria’s bed, his long legs eating up the floor space between us. “How’s studying going?”

“Okay.” I ran my hand over the guidebook’s page.

Karson had gotten me this book. I’d told him that I wanted to get my GED after we left the junkyard and two days later, he’d brought this home. It was new, unlike the used books I could afford. The cover was glossy. The page corners were crisp and square, meaning it hadn’t been cheap.

We spent our money on necessities. Food. Clothing. Blankets. Toiletries. Not GED study guides.

I knew he’d stolen it. He hadn’t admitted it, but there’d been no receipt and it hadn’t come in a plastic sack. It wasn’t the first time he’d stolen, and I doubted it would be the last. I’d never forget the first time I’d watched him palm an apple from the grocery store and start eating it in the aisles. He’d dropped the core into a garbage can before we’d gone through checkout, no one the wiser.

Sure, it bugged me a little. Aria and I didn’t steal. There was a pinprick of guilt when I cracked the book’s pages, but it was also a gift. A gift from Karson for my future. I’d been so touched by his thoughtfulness that I’d cried after he’d dropped it off—that was before I’d realized it had likely been shoplifted.

We all did what we had to do.

I shut the book and ripped open the banana’s peel. I was hungry and wouldn’t

turn down food, but someday, I would never eat a banana again. The same was true for granola bars and canned green beans. Peanut butter and honey sandwiches too.

When Londyn had lived here, she’d worked at a pizza place. It was the only thing we’d eaten a lot of that I hadn’t completely lost the taste for. Though I never craved it.

“What are you doing today?” I asked as I chewed.

“Nothing. I’m bored. Are you working?”

“Nope.” I took another bite and almost gagged. Freaking bananas. I hadn’t liked them before coming here either.

“Want to play cards?” he asked.

I shrugged, trying to hide my excitement at time alone with Karson. “Sure.”

An hour later, we’d moved from my place to his, and I was kicking his ass at gin rummy. “Gin.”

“Gah.” He tossed his cards onto the discard pile. “We need a new game.”

I giggled and collected the deck. The edges were worn and gray. The nine of clubs had a noticeable bend. “Poker?”

“Yeah.” He stood and disappeared into the other section of the tent, returning with a little cup of toothpicks. We didn’t have money to gamble or actual poker chips, but toothpicks worked fine.

After Gemma and Katherine had left, their tent slash fort had been unoccupied. The structure was a collection of metal sheets and tarps that Gemma had engineered into a shelter.

For a guy who stood over six feet tall, it made sense for Karson to get out of the cramped backseat of the Cadillac. He’d moved in here, taking up Gemma’s old room. The common area had lost some of its life without the girls here. Katherine’s tiny paintings on the wall weren’t as bright as they used to be.

“What do you think will happen to this place when we all leave?” I asked Karson, shuffling the cards.

He resumed his seat across from me, leaning against one of the makeshift walls. “I don’t know. Probably nothing, knowing Lou.”

Lou had sectioned off the junkyard. His house, the shop and the area where we lived was off-limits to customers. Whether it had always been like that I wasn’t sure, but from the time Karson had come here, Lou had all but given us free rein of our small portion of the yard.

Beyond his shack swam a sea of rusted cars and old parts. People would come in during the day and rummage through the piles. Lou would emerge to show them around, always careful to keep them away from our area.

“What do you think will happen to Lou?”

Karson lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know that either.”

“Will you come back here? After you leave?”