American Vampire by Jennifer Armintrout Page B

piss out of a jug of spoiled milk.
    He trudged up the bank of the ditch and back to the road. His car waited patiently, like a horse in a cowboy movie. He patted the hood and got back inside. He should have just leaned out the door and punched the accelerator, running over his own head. He would rather do that than go back to that harpy and her house of decorating horrors.
    “Hey!” someone called, and he looked up to see a rail-thin woman in a pair of denim cutoffs and a too-tight shirt that read C LASSY in pink cursive across the chest.
    Does it rain white trash in this town? He motionedto her, and she strolled boldly to the passenger side and got in. She took one look at his bloodied shirt and paled. “What happened to you?”
    “I hit a deer.” It was kind of true.
    “Your car doesn’t look like you hit a deer,” she said doubtfully. “There’s not a scratch on it.”
    “Well, there’s a lot of lead on this car. Real durable,” he lied.
    She bought it, but didn’t bother to ask if the blood was his or not. “You’re the new guy, huh?”
    “Word travels fast.” He frowned as she pulled a joint from her pocket and lit it. “You mind not smoking in here? Pot, I mean?”
    “I don’t have anything else to smoke,” she said, slipping her lighter into the V-neck of her shirt. If she’d had much cleavage there, it might have been a sexy move. “Do you?”
    He nodded toward his jacket. “In the pocket.”
    She kept her eyes on him as she pulled the garment up from the floor. “Leather. Nice.”
    “Well, that’s why I bought it.” God, could she be any more obvious? If he weren’t trapped in this town, and if she wouldn’t be missed, he would have opened her up two minutes ago.
    On second thought, maybe she wouldn’t be missed. “What’s your name?”
    “Becky.” She closed her eyes as she sniffed the open cigarette box.
    “Becky?” He chuckled. This was his lucky night.If he got any luckier, he’d trip down some stairs and break his neck. “Derek’s Becky?”
    She nodded. “Oh, yeah, I bet you’ve heard all about me. Staying out there with the wicked witch.”
    “No love lost there, huh?” No wonder. Not many women would be thrilled if their husbands were still sniffing around old girlfriends. But something about Becky didn’t exactly inspire his sympathy. Maybe it was the fact that she was sending out “I’m easy” signals like Morse code. Jessa couldn’t be the only one with a bad reputation in town.
    “What, she didn’t tell you all the stuff she’s said about me over the years?” She slowly pulled one cigarette from the pack. “You know what? I don’t even want to talk about it. I haven’t had a real cigarette in five years, and I’m going to enjoy this one.”
    As much as he would have loved to sit in his car all night while this gem of a woman talked shit about her enemies and smoked all of his cigarettes, Graf cleared his throat and asked, “So, is there somewhere I can drop you off, Becky?”
    She moaned as she exhaled, a look of pure rapture on her face as the smoke drifted in perfect rings from her mouth. “Yeah,” she answered, coming to her senses. “You can drop me at June’s Place.”
    “June’s Place is in the opposite direction,” he pointed out. “What were you doing way over here?”
    She shrugged, taking another long draw off the cigarette. “I wanted to see the service station.”
    “At the risk of getting killed by It?” He pulled cautiously away, a sick feeling in his stomach. He’d thought he’d been so close. He’d thought he’d been free. Now, he headed straight back into the very hell he’d sought to escape.
    “I had to see if she was lying,” Becky said with a snort. “She says all kinds of crazy shit for Derek’s attention. She’s the only person in town who’s been attacked by It more than once. It leaves everyone else alone, if they survive getting attacked.”
    He nodded, pretending to be sympathetic. As annoying as Jessa