Corey turns around, saying something to an older man behind him. The second guy isn’t wearing a uniform, but since he’s a more weathered, stouter version of Corey, I’m guessing he’s related. Maybe the owner. He’s slouched in a folding chair watching a small television set on a shelf under the counter.

“Dad,” Corey says. “Dad.”

The man doesn’t look up, but reaches to take the carton of cigarettes from Corey. He pushes it into a row of them under the back shelf without ever taking his eyes from the screen he’s watching.

I set down my items and swallow my sudden uneasiness. “Hi.”

Corey doesn’t return my greeting. He looks at me with vacant eyes, ringing up my purchases. He stops now and then to rub the sparse, overgrown stubble on his chin. His nails are ragged and dirty, and I don’t want to look closer. I tap a chip in the counter with my finger and wait for him to give me a total.

“Station closes in twenty minutes.” It’s the older guy. The dad.

Corey reads me the total and I hand over a ten-dollar bill. I don’t want to look at Corey, but looking at his father isn’t much better. He’s got a wad of something dark in his mouth and a cup next to him I don’t want to investigate.

“Your friends better hurry up,” he says, nodding indistinctly.

“My friends?”

“That one,” he says, shooting a gaze at Kayla, who’s come back inside while I’ve been at the counter, and is wandering the aisles. She looks like she’s on another planet. “And the one who can’t find her wallet.”

I turn around in time to see Harper fly out of the bathroom and directly out the door, panic evident on her face. At the counter, Corey is watching me, his lips chapped and eyes heavy-lidded. I force a smile. Everything about these men unsettles me, but it could be me. I’m beyond on edge.

“How about I pay?” I ask, because I’m more afraid of not paying than I am about explaining all of this to Mom. If anything, I’m suddenly eager to have someone know exactly where I am. “I have my credit card with me.”

“Credit card machine is down,” the father says. “I told your pretty little friend and she was all fine with it. Said she had plenty of cash.”

“Until she didn’t have her wallet,” Corey says. His snicker is broken by the chime of the doorbell and the shuffle of someone else walking in.

“How much is the gas?” I ask, flipping through the not-substantial stack of bills left in my wallet. Six dollars and some change. Plus whatever he gives me back when he finishes the slowest transaction in history.

“Forty-eight twenty.”