The Vow (Black Arrowhead #1) - Dannika Dark Page 0,92
down to grab them. What a relief. I knew how silly it was to get attached to a piece of clothing, but when it was something made from the heart, a thread of sentimentality was always woven in.
A burst of pain radiated throughout my skull when something hard struck me in the back of the head. As stars filled my eyes, the last thing I remembered was Crow shoving me into the trunk of his car and closing the lid.
Chapter 19
Lakota raised his chin as he entered the gas station. “Hey, Gus. How’s it going?”
Gus was the guy voted least likely to be selected by a Vampire. He was a lanky young man who barely looked eighteen. His facial hair didn’t grow in very well—just a fuzzy blond mustache and a few sparse whiskers on his chin. Lakota figured it must have been one of those cases in which someone went back and turned their family, even though it was forbidden. His accent was heavier than most of the locals, which made it likely he wasn’t originally from around there. Despite the power a Vampire naturally wielded, Gus had never come across as a confident guy. Easygoing and likeable but not too keen on asserting himself as the powerful creature that a Vampire was.
“Evenin’, Lakota. What can I do you for?”
Lakota smiled when the Vampire pronounced for as fur. “Gas and maybe a little info.” He eased up to the counter. “Have you heard any talk regarding the murders?”
“They’s all blaming the tribe. Some people’s tired of hearing about it, but a few of ’em like to stir things up. You know the ones.”
“They arrested Tak. Do you know who he is?”
Gus sat against the counter behind him. “He’s the one with all the ink on his face. I ain’t never had a problem with him. They say he done it?”
“That’s what they say. I’m not sure if I believe it. Tak isn’t the kind of man to do something like that.”
Gus sniffed. “You know, he came in one time and paid for someone else’s gas. That gal who lives up yonder with Freddy. They’s poor, and I guess he took to feeling kind of sorry for her when she only put a dollar in her tank. Came right in and gave me fifty dollars for her gas and a basket of food. I ain’t never told no one about it. People’d think there’s something going on between ’em, but that’s not how I saw it. When she came in to pay for that gas, her eyes got big like saucers. He didn’t speak to her before leaving, and she didn’t seem all too happy that it was Tak, but she sure as shitfire didn’t turn down free gas and food.”
Lakota sighed and shook his head. Damn Tak. Maybe if he hadn’t been so secretive about his generosity, people would be more apt to believe he couldn’t be capable of such a horrible thing.
His eyes skimmed around at the lottery tickets, lighters, and cigarettes. Tak might like a smoke, given his current predicament, though Lakota didn’t know a good brand. “How much for a pack of Pilgrims?”
Gus chortled. “Pilgrims?” He pointed at the wall of cigarettes. “Nobody carries them fancy brands.”
Lakota furrowed his brow. “Who sells them?”
“Them Pilgrims are new. No one ’round here comes in askin’ for ’em. They’s too high. Like sprinkled with some kind of magic.”
“Magic?”
“Humans don’t sell that brand. I heard you can buy ’em up north or on the internet, but you’s gotta have a lot of money. People ’round here ain’t gonna squander their money on a pack of smokes.”
“How much do they cost?”
Gus drew in a deep breath, and his gaze swung up to the ceiling. “I saw ’em going on a Breed site for about fifty a pack.”
Lakota’s eyebrows reached for his hairline. Could that be right? He’d only thought of them because they were the brand Crow was smoking back at the bar. “And no one around here sells them?”
Gus shook his head. “Most people in these parts don’t know what they are.”
“So no one has ever tried to buy them from you?”
Gus pinched his goatee. “Well, wasn’t too long ago that someone came in askin’, but I can’t recall who. I get so many people passing through day to day, it all just runs together. I been workin’ this gas station for sixty years now. Day and night, night and day. Trust me, it all runs together.”