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“Seriously? It’s perfect!”

“I am not going to take the name of a puppet.” Then he gives me some side-eye before pausing a beat to ask, “Which of us is Bert and which is Ernie?”

If I rolled my eyes any harder, they’d fall out of my head. “I can’t believe you even have to ask me that.”

“I refuse to answer to the name Bert.” He nods toward a sign on the side of the road, one of many advertising various stores and restaurants around a rest stop a few miles up. “This is us.”

At first I can’t believe it. The store is more like a warehouse, so big and so full my jaw drops when we enter. “So many guns,” I whisper in awe, blinking hard at displays mounted on the walls and in glass-fronted cases.

Adrian takes my hand and pulls me along. “Try not to look so much like a total amateur,” he whispers fiercely as we make our way to a long counter with even more shining, dangerous-looking merchandise locked inside.

A man who could be anywhere between forty and a hundred joins us on the other side of the counter. The lines already etched into his weathered face deepen when he offers a brief smile. “What can I do for you folks?” he asks, stroking a white goatee before resting his hands on the glass.

Adrian calmly and smoothly rattles off a list of names so foreign to me, they might as well be in Greek. The man of ambiguous age whistles through his teeth. “You sure know what you’re looking for.” I can practically see dollar signs dancing in his eyes.

“Sure he does,” I offer as the man places a row of guns and boxes of ammunition on the counter. “He knows his stuff. He does this for a—”

“Hey, Bonnie,” Adrian grunts before driving an elbow into my ribs. “Don’t distract the man.”

Whoops. Well, at least my nickname came in handy. Instead of talking, I settle for eyeing the merchandise, even touching a few of the guns while the men talk.

“Hang on there, missy.” The man places a hand on the fierce-looking rifle I’ve chosen, pinning it to the counter. “All due respect, we don’t let customers handle the merchandise unless they can prove they know what they’re doing. That’s how accidents happen.”

“Of course.” I pull my hand back like a kid who got caught doing something naughty. The feeling only gets worse when Adrian’s gaze bores holes into me. Forget using guns. He could just stare his enemies to death.

By the time we leave, we have an arsenal on our hands. “You think we’re going to need all of this?” I whisper. The bag of shells and bullets and whatever is heavy enough. It’s also all he would trust me to carry. And I’m supposed to help him when the time comes?

“I’d rather be prepared.” He loads everything into the back of the SUV, and I do the same before climbing in again.

“Don’t get comfortable.” He wastes no time pulling out of the parking lot, then heading a few miles down the road to the rest stop.

“Oh, good. I was hoping I could get a slushy or something,” I confess. “Do you think they have slushies somewhere around here?”

“I’m looking for something a little more important than a slushy.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

“How would I know?” He won’t look at me, scanning the rows of cars, trucks, every make and model imaginable. There’s a faraway sound to him, like he’s focused on something that has nothing to do with me.

He doesn’t keep me waiting long either. “When I park, I want you to get your things out of the back along with the ammo. Take everything you don’t want to leave behind.”

“Wait. What?” And he thinks I change the subject quickly? I wonder if he’s ever had anybody in his life who could call him out on his hypocritical ways, besides Theo.

“Because we need to switch cars.” He pulls into an empty spot, parking before checking the glove box and center console for anything he needs to take.

“Switch cars? You don’t just switch cars with people.”

“Yet that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Consider it research for your next book,” he suggests before opening his door. “We need to make this fast.”

Just like that, he’s on the move, pulling out the long bags containing his new arsenal before I have the chance to take a breath. Something tells me it’s either do as he says or risk being left behind, so I hop out and scramble to grab everything from the back seat.

“Now, stay close to me. Stare at my back,” he orders in a low voice while his head moves slowly from side to side, like an animal scanning the area, looking for prey. “Don’t make eye contact with anybody else. Don’t look around. And for God’s sake, don’t say anything,” he concludes before setting off.

Adrenaline begins coursing through my veins with every rapid beat of my heart. Just like he told me, I stare at his broad back, acting like I don’t notice the way he tries the handles on every car we pass, searching for one that’s been left unlocked.

Somebody’s going to see us, aren’t they? They’re bound to. It’s the middle of the day, with people walking in and out of the large brick building up ahead. There are others pulling in at the long lines of gas pumps, filling the air with the odor of gasoline and diesel, thanks to the big trucks at the pumps on the other side of the building.

“All I want is a slushy,” I whisper.