About half an hour away from La Sombra was a strip mall. I’d driven past it enough to know it had a grocery store attached to it. I’ve never been to a grocery store. All our food came from restaurant suppliers. Pops always said grocery stores were overpriced especially when they could get high quality goods in bulk. The only problem was, everything we had was presumably reserved for customers. If I wanted something for myself, I had to work for it.

“I wanna go for a ride.” I mumbled to Sylus as he read the newspaper from a different prefecture.

“Where to?”

“Leaping Lion.”

“Leaping- That’s a grocery chain. You want to go for a ride to a grocery store?”

I nodded.

He glanced toward the kitchen doors. “Do we not have enough food here?”

“Probably, but I’ve never been to a grocery store.”

“Never been?”

I shook my head.

“Well you’re not missing much.” He returned his attention to the paper.

I reached across the table. “Come on.”

“I’m information gathering.”

“From a propaganda rag?” I scoffed.

He glared at me over the paper.

“Well, I’m gonna go shopping. You can stay here reading Xanthous propaganda.”

His glare deepened.

I started weave walking when a tendril followed me into the void and pulled me out.

“Rude.” I snapped.

He was standing now. “Is this really that important to you?”

“Yes.” I pulled my arm out of his tentacle. “It is.”

He sighed. “Very well.” He offered me his hand.

“You sure?”

He nodded.

I took his hand and brought us to the strip mall. Specifically the a sidewalk across the street since I’d never actually been in the strip.

We crossed over and made our way over to the grocery store.

Sylus paused outside, clearly distracted by something. I followed his gaze. A frizzy red-haired girl sat at a plastic folding table hawking scout cookies. He made his way over to her.

“Sylus?” I reached after him.

The girl greeted him as he approached the table.

“Well well well, if it isn’t my target audience!”

“Excuse me?” He balked.

I made his way to his side.

“Big boned, mid life crisis. You just check all the boxes.”

“Mid life- what?”

“The purple hair. Clearly the symptom of a greater issue.”

Sylus balked. “I’ll have you know this is my natural hair color!”

“Yeah sure, big guy.” She flicked her wrist at him.

I stifled a highly inappropriate laugh as I took his arm.

“You’re not exactly enticing me to purchase your wares.”

“Oh but you will!” She reached under the table and pulled out two crispy coconut boxes and three minty munchies.

Sylus sighed. “Where’s an adult?”

The girl’s demeanor took a sharp turn. She looked around nervously. “A, uh, I…” She cleared her throat. “They just walked away for a minute.”

“So you’re just here? Unsupervised?” Sylus cocked a brow.

She scoffed. “Cassidy Jones don’t need no adult to run a business. Heck I’m the only one that knows how to use the cube reader.”

“Cube? Reader?” Sylus was clearly confused.

Cassidy reached under the table and put a small box on its surface. “It’s a portable credit card reader.”

“Huh.” He scratched his chin.

“So you buying anything or-?”

He sighed. “How much?”

“$8 per box credit or $5 cash.”

“You’re allowed to manipulate prices like that?” Sylus, once again, cocked a brow.

“I sure can.”

He side eyed her. She grinned almost menacingly at him.

“I’ll be back with cash.” He grumbled. “How long are you here?”

She looked across the parking lot. “Until sundown. So about two hours.”

“Alright, I’ll be back.”

“You better be. These are my most popular flavors.” She patted the boxes.

Sylus shook his head. “Whatever you say, kid.”

He gave her a half hearted wave over his shoulder as we headed inside. She waved back excitedly, but he didn’t see it.