“Probably. They might want to give her some shots. Have you had all your shots?”
“I don’t know.”
“They’re going to want to check you over too.” He poked at my stomach. “Make sure you’ve got all your ribs,” he said, tickling me. I tried squirming away but he held me fast. My laughter helped ease my nervousness at the many unknowns awaiting us.
“Will they let you bring your weapons?” I asked.
“My knives, yes, but not my gun.”
Cipher loved his gun, almost as much as his machete.
“What will you do with it?”
“We’ll have to smuggle it in. You’ll have to hide it up your asshole, I guess.”
“What?” I shouted.
“Yeah, that’s the new guy’s job. Didn’t anyone tell you?”
His mischievous smile gave him away. “Don’t tease me like that. It’s not nice.”
He laughed, eyes crinkling at the edges like folded paper. I liked it when he wasn’t trying to be a lethal badass, but he was pretty hot when he was doing that too.
“Seriously, what are you going to do with it?” I asked.
“I’ll dig a little unmarked grave and bury it for now. Good thing you got me those Ziplocs, huh?”
I returned his smile, happy to have been helpful. I let him in on my own mission. “Before he left, my brother said he was headed to Atlanta. That’s why I came with you guys, to try and find him, so that’s what I’m going to do.” His eyebrows quirked and he frowned a little at my admission. “What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said and smoothed one thumb over my cheek. “You have a bit of ash here.”
I leaned into his touch. “I like that,” I told him.
“Yeah, I know.”
“I think I have some on my weiner too.”
“Your what?”
“My weiner,” I said and Cipher laughed. “My dick? What should I call it?”
“Weiner is fine. It’s just not a word I hear very often. Not since I was, like, five.”
“You’ll have to teach me how to be a cool city kid like you.”
“I don’t know if it can be taught, cutie.”
“So, will you touch my weiner?”
“Oh my God, get a room,” Macon brayed from a few feet away where he was tending the fire.
I smiled temptingly at my boyfriend. If that was what we had in store for us, then I couldn’t wait.
* * *
Arrivingin Atlanta was like entering the land of Oz. The buildings were huge with so many windows, reflecting sunlight and stretching toward the sky like Jacob’s ladder. I imagined having to climb all those stairs to reach the top, such dizzying heights. What must it look like from up there, gazing down on the people below as if you were king of the world?
The streets were enormous too, intersecting and overlapping like one of Gizmo’s circuit boards. And the cars–so many cars, trucks, and vans, all lined up like ants on the march, but none of them moving.
