Free Midnight by Ellen Connor Page A

drugstore?”
    “Near enough. I met a guy who did. He was a walking pharmacy.”
    “Did you kill him?” Wicker asked.
    “Didn’t need to. He could hardly breathe when I found him under a tree. In exchange for his stash, I let him use my Beretta.”
    Wicker shrugged as if he’d seen or done worse. Chris wouldn’t be surprised. He had too. But Rosa was wearing that peculiar look again, the one that said he was the one to be feared.
    Mason had been a scary character. Jenna too. And even the teenage delinquent, Tru, when he manned up. Somewhere in the last few years, Chris must have crossed over to where he deserved suspicious scowls and a wide berth. Funny. It took being around relatively normal folk to hold up that mirror. Out there, he hadn’t noticed it happening.
    “Well, with that stockpile you can have your run of the place.” Wicker stepped behind a counter and spread his hands. “The best mankind has left to offer.”
    Chris parsed out a few of his less vital medicines and traded for a pile of small luxuries: a bar of homemade soap, two pairs of socks and plain cotton boxer shorts, a handmade toothbrush and a few sachets of powder, a face towel, and a mini sewing kit with safety pins—the stuff of royalty. Negotiating for a pair of homemade jeans, a new shirt, and a pair of sturdy cowboy boots took longer. That cost Chris his stockpile of six hairbrushes and a working pocket watch he’d found outside of the parched, tumbledown remains of Las Vegas.
    “No razors?” he asked.
    “Nope. Those go quick. Gonna have to ask among the bravos.”
    Damn. He wanted a shave. Walking around like a mountain man hadn’t bothered him when he lived alone. But back in the company of people, he felt the need to clean up properly.
    “And ammo?”
    “None to spare,” Wicker said, wearing an expression made for gambling. “Sorry.”
    Chris noticed how quiet Rosa remained during the whole exchange. Her interest in his choices was obvious. Would he hand over lifesaving antibiotics in exchange for two liters of premium vodka? Not likely. Chris had become a different man since the Change, but he had yet to consider himself reckless or self-indulgent.
    “What do you have by way of real luxuries?” he asked.
    Wicker cocked his head. “Like what?”
    “More than basic hygiene and vice. What about books?”
    A look as quick as a lizard over noontime rocks passed between Wicker and Rosa. “No books,” the man said curtly.
    Whatever.
    He’d forgotten how opaque human politics could become. If they wanted to keep their secrets, fine. But that didn’t mean he had to like being shut out.
    “And what about women?” he asked.
    Standing to his full height, Wicker was almost as tall as Chris. Nearly. His age should’ve rendered him low on the potential threat scale, but arms crossed, scowl in place, he conveyed deadly intent in a damn convincing way.
    “How do you mean?”
    “I mean sex,” Chris said. “Surely the women here have a price.”
    “No.” Rosa’s lips hardly moved as she spoke, and her hands curled into telltale fists where those cargo pants hugged muscled thighs. “Sex is a consensual exchange here. None of our women can be bought.”
    Chris grinned. “We’ll see.”
    “Push me on this and you’re gone, Welsh.”
    “I’m gone anyway, remember? No books, no sex—a guy has to find entertainment where he can.” He stared her down for a long moment, waiting for her to back off.
    She didn’t. And her quick, angry breaths lifted her breasts for his perusal.
    “That’s more like it. Damn entertaining.” He took a long, slow, thorough trip down her body—and found eyes throwing flame when he returned to her face. “Seems you’re all out of what might interest me, Wicker. I think I’ll keep the rest of my stash.”
    Cool metal pressed flat behind his right ear.
    The raspy voice of a young man was deadly quiet. “You’ll hand over those meds.”
    “Like hell.”
    “Jameson, put the knife down.”