“I’d rather use these. Easier to cart everything back and forth with.”
She gives me a shrug and lets me take them from her to fill them back up with everything Fort Caroline doesn’t want.
“Do you want to trade the coupons for your food or swap?”
Swap? I look at the cans of food. It’s nothing special but... maybe it can be. No. Jamie and I don’t need to get greedy. Except... I reach up and spin the mushrooms around to face her.
“Any chance we can swap these bad boys?”
You’re welcome, Jamie.
I refill our packs and head toward our rendezvous point—“rendezvous point”? I’ve been in Fort Caroline too long. It’s the park on the corner of Morgan and Glower that Cara said was a cut through to the sheriff’s station. I’m turning onto Glower when someone calls out.
“Hey!”
I turn to see Harvey Rosewood marching toward me and my stomach drops. For some reason he’s got his hand on the holster at his hip.
My stomach lurches and I immediately think of Jamie. Something happened. Something went wrong at the sheriff’s station and they locked him up. And Harvey came looking for me.
He reaches me and smiles, his gums protruding like a great white’s. That smile does nothing to calm my nerves.
“Andrew, right? How are you finding Fort Caroline?” His accent isn’t as thick as his father’s. Maybe a northern mother?
When I speak, I lower my voice a bit, slowing down. Butching it up, if you will. “Finding it all right.”
“Good. Good. Where you boys from originally?”
“I’m from Connecticut.”
“Connecticut. I’ve never been to Connecticut.”
“I wouldn’t go now.” I give him a fake laugh and his shark smile grows wider.
“How ’bout your... friend. Jamison?”
I swallow hard. I don’t like the way he saysfriend. Like he means theotherf-word. “He’s from Philadelphia.”
Harvey Rosewood nods, still goddamned smiling. “I see you stopped by the supply warehouse. Get your rations all together?”
“I did. Jamie was supposed to register our weapons, too. I think he’s at the sheriff’s station.”
Harvey doesn’t confirm or deny this.
“I should probably get going. That questionnaire of your dad’s is pretty extensive.” I turn but he follows so I stop. I want to end this conversation. It feels like he’s trying to trap me in some way. Like if he keeps asking innocuous questions he’ll paint me into a corner of whatever he thinks we’re doing. I know Jamie didn’t say anything but... oh, shit.
Cara. Maybe I was wrong about her. Maybe she told Danny Rosewood everything. Maybe she’s even Cara Rosewood. But she doesn’t have an accent like them.
“You all right with the food there?” he asks. He knows we were taking it. I don’t say anything. “You don’t have any special dietary needs, do you?”
Dietary needs?
“No. I’m good.”
“You sure? Nothing you’d rather... have more of. Or less of. Or not at all.”
I roll my eyes. “I find the lack of caviar simply appalling. Is that what this is, dude? Making fun of the stuck-up Yankees? ’Cause postapocalypse, it’s a little gauche.”
His smile drops at that. “How ’bout yourfriend?” There’s that hidden f-word again. It’s not Yankees he’s making fun of. And he’s not talking about food. That look that he gave Jamie and me earlier. He knows. Or at least he’s suspicious. And using the wordgaucheprobably didn’t help.
