The Toll

by Cherie Priest

He tried to laugh about it, but he couldn’t even scare up a smile. “Everybody’s been raptured but me.” Nope. Still not funny.

“Then you’d be drowning or bleeding out in the middle of nowhere, and there are only so many police to go around.

If you’re going from west to east … once in a while, you might cross seven. But you better hope not.”

But their trickery was the good-hearted kind. His was the selfish kind, and he knew it.

Claire strutted like a queen, toting the garden hoe like a scepter. Daisy stalked like a soldier, the shotgun over her shoulder.

Cam had spent too much time in this bar, even at his tender age. He knew the stories it told, truth and lie alike.

“I never deserved those ladies. They never deserved a jerk like me.”

“Lord Almighty, listen to you. You’ve always talked like an old man.” Cameron finally found his smile. “I was raised by old women.”