Page 62 of 12 Months of Mayhem

Chapter One

Maddie

“I’m tired.”

I rolled my eyes and grabbed an orange energy drink from the cooler by the register. “Drink this and wake up. You just clocked in, Diamond.”

It was half past midnight, and we still had seven and a half hours of work in front of us at Gas Mart. The buzzing fluorescent lights overhead did nothing to brighten our moods, and the dull hum of the coolers mingled with the radio playing through the store.

Diamond took the drink and popped the top. “You’re paying for this, right?”

I scoffed and crossed my arms over my chest. “You own the store, Diamond. I think you can cover it.”

“We own the store,” she corrected, and her eyes narrowed as she took a long sip. Her face scrunched up when she swallowed. “Tastes like a melted orange popsicle. Good, but the aftertaste makes me pucker up a bit.”

“You’re a nut, Di.”

She leaned against the counter and still looked half-asleep. “You know, it still blows my mind. Who would have thought that when my grandpa died, he would leave his gas station to you and me?”

“It wasn’t shocking that he left it to you,” I corrected and fiddled with the edge of the laminated counter mat that advertised discounted cigarettes. “It was shocking that he left half of it to me.”

Diamond shrugged, and her curly hair bounced around her shoulders. “He loved you. I mean, hell, I don’t think there was a time in my twenty-five years that you weren’t with me when I saw Grandpa.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Diamond and I had been attached at the hip since birth. Literally. Our mothers were best friends who got pregnant at the same time, and we were born five days apart. Diamond and I didn’t have any siblings, but we were sisters, even if it wasn’t by blood.

Gas Mart was more than just a gas station; it was a relic. It sat on the edge of town and was a somewhat large building with six gas pumps out front that looked like they’d been installed sometime in the nineties and never touched since. Two of them were always on the fritz, which usually meant running out every half hour to reset them.

Inside, the store was a maze of narrow aisles lined with metal shelves that rattled when you walked by too fast. Bags of chips in every shade of neon yellow and orange were available, along with any other snack you would want. We had an aisle with Arizona souvenirs, stuffed animals, and shot glasses. We were like a big gas station but crammed into a smaller building, and it was like stepping into the nineties.

We had a roller grill by the coffee machines that held hot dogs that had been turning for hours. They glistened under the heat lamps and had a slightly unsettling shade of reddish-brown. They were a favorite among the late-night truckers.

During the day, the small deli counter on the other side of the store sold sandwiches and pizza by the slice. But at night, the metal shutter came down and locked the area off until morning. The smell of pepperoni and stale bread still lingered in the air and mixed with the scent of lemon cleaner that never quite masked the faint hint of gasoline.

Diamond and I had worked here since the day we turned sixteen. It started as a summer job, then after-school hours, and eventually, as soon as we turned eighteen, we took over the overnight shift. That wasn’t so much a choice as it was the fact that no one else wanted it.

Five months ago, Diamond’s grandpa passed away, and in a twist no one saw coming, he left Gas Mart to both of us. Diamond got half because she was his granddaughter. I got half because, well, I’d been here just as long as she had.

“Are you sure you checked the pumps before we clocked in?” I asked and pushed myself off the counter.

Diamond made a face. “Yes, Maddie. Twice.”

I shot her a skeptical look and glanced at the monitors above the register. Pump three was blinking red. I sighed. “You better go reset it. I’ll watch the register.”

Diamond groaned and dragged her feet toward the door. “I hate pump three. It’s possessed.”

“Don’t talk about your inheritance like that,” I called after her.

I watched through the glass as she trudged out to the pumps and pulled her sweatshirt tight against the chill of the night air. The town was quiet for the most part. We were on a main road that people took to skirt around the highway, so we did have a good amount of people passing through.

I glanced at the clock. Twelve forty-five. Six hours and forty-five minutes to go.

The bell above the door jingled as Diamond came back in and rubbed her arms against the chill of the May night. “Remind me why we’re still working the night shift when we own the place?”

“Because no one else wants it, and I like to be able to feed Tucker.”

She scowled, then broke into a laugh. “Fair enough.”

The next hour dragged by in slow motion. Diamond and I moved through our routine like robots. Scrubbed down the coffee machines until they gleamed, restocked the chip aisle, and wiped down the counters at least three times just to kill time. It was one of those shifts where the clock seemed to mock us as each minute ticked by slower than the last.

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