I offer him a smile in return. Their approval means everything. For me, it feels like proof. That I can do more than just survive. I cancontribute.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ELIAS
“Pleeeaaaasse!” Wren begs again, offering me her puppy dog eyes as she sticks her lower lip out in a pout.
“Why is this so important to you?” I ask in frustration. I’d love to give in to her request and take her to the grocery store, but the others were all fugitives. It wasn’t safe.
“I’ve never gone before. It seems like fun!”
I want to argue that grocery shopping is, in fact, not fun. But she’s been so deprived of everything, and for someone who knows how to cook, it probably would be an interesting place for her to visit. If nothing else, it is something normal she’s been deprived of, and there is no way I can let myself be a hypocrite and refuse her the same things Robert had.
“Fine,” I concede just as Jagger pulls into the parking lot. I guess they didn’t actually care about my permission and planned to take her anyway.
“Wren, you make sure you are always with at least one of us. And no running off. Understand?” Sly asks as he turns to face her.
“Yes, sir!” She salutes him, and from the look he gives her, I have a feeling that’s something he loves to hear her call him.
Feeling like someone has to take control of this group, especially in public, I take a deep breath before trying to rein them all in. “That goes for all of you. No one goes off on their own, in pairs at a minimum.”
“Whatever you say, boss,” Pete says sarcastically before opening the door and jumping out.
He’s quick to grab Wren’s hand, whispering something in her ear that has her laughing before they jog together to the entrance.
The rest of us are a little slower, but when we get inside, they are just standing there, Wren’s eyes wide as saucers as she slowly turns her head, taking everything in.
“This is huge!” she whispers.
“That’s what she said,” Dex says before grabbing her other hand and pulling her further into the store. “And this is just the produce department.”
She glances down the main aisle, and when she sees how far it goes, her eyes widen even further.
I grab a cart and follow behind, with Jagger at my side and Sly between us and the three troublemakers.
Pete is already pointing things out like a tour guide on too much caffeine. “That’s cabbage. Comes in green and red. You can eat it raw, or throw it at Sly when he’s being annoying.”
Dex picks up a head of red cabbage and tosses it up a few inches, as if it were a baseball and he was testing its weight. “Hmm, not sure how far it’ll fly. Sly? Come stand over here, would ya?” he asks, pointing to a spot on the floora few feet from him.
“If you so much as try to throw that at me, I’ll find the longest cucumber they have and shove?—”
“Okay, break it up,” I say, grabbing the head of cabbage and setting it back in the pile. “We haven’t moved past the most boring item in the entire store. At this rate, we’ll be here for a week.”
“Ohhh!” Pete says excitedly. “Sleepover in the grocery store! Wren and I claim the aisle with toilet paper!”
Wren laughs. “What? Why toilet paper?”
“It’ll make the softest bed!”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “We’re going to get kicked out before we even hit the bakery section.”
Wren laughs again softly, and I feel a little of the tension ease from my shoulders. I’ve never seen her this relaxed—no fear, no haunted edges, just curiosity. She touches a pyramid of apples like they might crumble under her fingers.
“Are these real?” she asks.
“They’re not wax fruit,” Pete says, plucking one and tossing it in the air. “Here. Try?—”
“Do not eat that until it’s washed,” Sly cuts in, his voice calm but sharp enough to slice through Pete’s grin.
