“I know how to—do I look fucking normal or not?” he hisses.
He does.
He looks like any other guy who might be randomly walking through ValuKart.
Except for the part where his whole body is vibrating with an angry energy that I feel in my soul and his jaw is too tight and his eyes are too full of rage and if the wrong person says the wrong thing to him, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t take much for him to snap and murder them.
So basically, he still doesn’t look like he fits in at ValuKart.
Mostly.
The store can be pretty aggravating sometimes, but not usuallyI want to murder peoplelevels of aggravating.
I swallow hard. “Yes. You look like a normal human being.”
He doesn’t answer and instead slams the changing room door.
Ten minutes later, we’re strolling to the checkout with three pairs of jeans and four shirts for him, plus two sets of shorts, a pack of underwear, three bras, a pair of flip-flops, and an extra shirt for me.
Plus a bag of gummy bears and a basic toiletry kit—also for me.
We’ll have to stop somewhere else for more clothes later, but for now, we won’t attract too much attention. Small clothing shopping spree, paying in cash? All good.
Dropping a thousand dollars at ValuKart on complete new wardrobes and full-size toiletries?
Nope.
People talk, and Oliver’s all over the news, and probably not only the news on the Miles2Go pump screens.
I point to the bathroom once he’s paid and dropped the change into the charity bucket at the end of the checkout lane. “Since we paid, we can both change. Plus, I need to go to the bathroom.”
“You just went to the bathroom.”
“This is something else.”
Oliver’s eye twitches, but his sigh tells me that he’s not going to argue more.
I take the bag with my clothes, cringing only a little at the thought of putting them on without washing them first, and dash for the women’s room, hovering long enough to verify that he’s headed to the men’s room.
And then I reach into my cleavage for the secret purchase that I made at the gas station when I went in the first time, power it up, and dial Bea’s number from heart.
Beatrice Best saved my life. She’s been my best friend since a few months before I got disinherited, when we met in class at Austen & Lovelace College in Athena’s Rest, and I won’t be able to live with myself much longer if I don’t call her.
She’s a worrier.
I was supposed to be home by now.
I hope she answers, since she won’t recognize the number on this burner phone, and?—
“Hello?” she says on the other end.
Thank you, baby sea turtles. “Bea. It’s me,” I whisper.
“Oh my god, Daph,where are you?”
Hearing her voice makes me tear up. “I’m okay. I’m safe. I’m voluntarily doing what I’m doing.”
“Why is your phone showing in Pennsylvania?”
