Page 316 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

"Yes. And I need to stretch my legs."

I take the next exit.

The gas station that materializes at the bottom of the ramp looks, frankly, post-apocalyptic. Present-apocalyptic, really. The canopy over the pumps is rusted through, the parking lot is one large pothole overgrown with weeds, and a handwritten sign curling from alternating rain and sun is taped to one of the pumps that reads OUT OF ORDOOR.

Close enough.

I pull up to the side of the building and kill the engine. "Wraith. We're stopped."

Nothing.

His breathing is shallow, which is concerning, and I watch him for a moment. He's alright. It's the deliberate type of shallow breathing. His pain is worsening.

Perhaps it's because the road quality is degrading the closer we get to Cedarbrook. The bumps and potholes have to hurt his face.

"We'll be quick," Ivy says softly, unbuckling her seatbelt. She twists around to reach back and squeezes his knee. "You want anything?"

His hand comes up to sign slowly. Water.

"Done."

She doesn't ask him if he wants to come inside.

Neither do I.

The cowbell above the door jangles as we push through. I try not to breathe through my nose. It reeks in here. Reeks of piss and bleach, specifically, and even with all the bleach smell and a moldy mop propped up in a puddle in the corner, there still manages to be vomit on the peeling linoleum.

"Charming," I mutter.

"You sound like Plague."

"I'm going to pretend that wasn't an insult."

She snorts, looking around with her nose wrinkled. "Still have to piss?"

"Magically, I do not."

Ivy grabs a basket from the stack by the door and immediately veers toward the candy aisle. "Come on, then. Snacks."

I follow, eyes flicking over the shelves. The selection is… grim, at least as far as normal things go. They certainly have a selection of chips. These are flavors that shouldn't exist.

Cajun pineapple shrimp chips?

Kill me.

Ivy ignores the chips entirely and drifts toward the snack sticks, scanning the pegs. Most of them are various types of jerky in aggressive packaging. Beef. Ostrich. Bison. Turkey. Flames, skulls, a buff cartoon bull flexing its biceps that reminds me of Whiskey.

She bypasses all of them and crouches, reaching for the bottom peg.

"For Wraith." She holds up a package of mushroom jerky. "He doesn't eat meat."

I arch an eyebrow. "Some 'monster.'"

Ivy's hand stills halfway to putting the jerky in the basket. "Yeah," she says quietly.

She picks up the remaining two packages of the mushroom jerky, then a bag of dried mango, dropping them into the basket without really looking at them.

"He's getting worse," I say.