Free Silence - eARC by Mercedes Lackey, Cody Martin Page A

mean, he kinda stands out like a sore thumb in all the grunge and plaid, right? But I never talked to him.”
    “He’s never been in here before as far as I know,” Seth added, and looked at the now-closed door. “I wonder what he wanted.”
    The group began settling in their usual chairs, Seth pulling out some printed-out character sheets and rulebooks; they were supposed to “roll up” some characters for that anime RPG today.
    Staci tapped Seth on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back, guys. Don’t get too far ahead without me.”
    “Hurry back! I’ll wait on explaining the rules…but it’ll take awhile when we get started.”
    Staci walked up to the front of the store, stopping in front of the cash register. Tim still had the same look on his face from when he was talking to Dylan; it only softened when he looked at her.
    “Who was that guy?” she asked, trying to sound casual. “You looked upset.”
    Tim just shrugged. “Some drifter. Didn’t exactly look as if he was going to be interested in books, and I don’t need money badly enough to encourage him to loiter. Didn’t he know you? He knew your name.”
    She paused before answering. “I literally ran into him my first morning here when I was looking for someplace to eat. Mom isn’t exactly good about keeping food in the house. He showed me where to find the diner, that’s all. But the way you were talking to him, I thought maybe you knew him.”
    “No, and I don’t want to,” Tim said shortly. “I know his type, and that’s all I need to know. Anywhere a guy like that goes, there’s always trouble.” He looked as if he might say more about what kind of “trouble,” but then decided to stop. “Look,” he sighed. “I’m not your dad or your big brother, Staci, so I’m not going to try to tell you what to do. But you seem like a good kid. Be careful around that guy. It’ll keep me from getting any more gray hairs than I already have. Okay?”
    “Sure,” she replied, and went back to the others. It was odd, though. Tim didn’t seem to be the kind of guy who…well… judged people. Practically ordering Dylan out of his store seemed out of character.
    But she put it out of her mind, once Seth started in on his game stuff. She’d never done anything like this before, and it took all of her attention to keep it all straight.

Chapter Five
    It was a Thursday night, the bookstore was closed, and Staci was sitting in the living room with her laptop plugged into the phone line, reading the Facebook pages of the people who used to be her friends. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the back door open, and someone come inside.
    She was looking for something to use for a weapon when her mom peered into the living room. “Oh, hey,” she said, vaguely waving in Staci’s direction. “I guess you’re settling in all right.”
    Staci bit back a million angry things that surged into her mind, and just said, “I guess. You’re home early.”
    “Bar’s pretty much empty so the boss sent me home,” her mom replied, and made a face. “Big baseball game, so the usual crowd all went out to a sports bar to watch it. Then they’ll come back tomorrow night and bitch all night about having to pay six bucks for a beer so they could watch the game. I’ll let you interweb in peace. Night, honey.”
    Meaning, “I’m going to my room to drink myself to sleep,” Staci thought, acidly. What the hell is wrong with this town?
    She could kind of see the kids giving up on trying to get anything to come here, but the adults, who should have been able to change things, seemed stuck in a case of permanent apathy. Even Tim didn’t bother to care much about anything outside of his store. No, that wasn’t quite right; he wasn’t the same as the rest of the adults in town. There was a different reason for him being the way he was; Staci just couldn’t put her finger on it.
    Well, look at tonight. You would think that the owner of a local bar