Single Stem Rose: One dollar twenty-nine. The poster is ripped and faded; the cursive letters smudged at the edges. After 200 years of water damage, it's a wonder the words are still legible at all.
There is a drawing underneath the text: a scarlet sketch of what Vulpes can only assume is a rose. This place was a train station before the war: a place where men would buy their wives flowers on their daily commute home.
He thinks of his courier, back in Flagstaff.
He thinks of when he met her that first time. The Strip: under a different name, in a different time; before Nipton, and marks, and flags drenched in blood.
She laughed with her eyes, and tasted of wine as red as her lips.
She doesn't laugh anymore. She is slowly wilting around the edges, and he doesn't know quite what to do about it.
One of the scouts shouts over to him, and Vulpes turns away from the sign.