Flares - Book 1

0.8 - shopping Center

The store was chaos, to say the least. People were down every aisle, using the largest shopping carts they could to fill it with mass quantities of random items they passed. Klara starred with her jaw dropped as people ran frantically, trying to find the foods they wanted before the next person. Hoarding was an understatement as Alex grabbed a medium sized cart, pushing forward and leaving the group, Ivy held Klara tightly, wrapping her hand around her forearm, so she wouldn't get bumped to the side. Tom stood on the other side, noticing who scared Ivy was walking down the aisle. People pushed past him as he moved to pull cans off a shelf, a large man ran beside him, pushing him out of the way and collecting the cans first before running off.

"Tommy!" Klara yelled, her grip on Ivy tightening, "Are you okay?"

"Son of a bitch, I just wanted to grab soup." He grumbled, slowly standing to his feet, he looked to the shelf, there was no more chicken noodle, only tomato. Tom and Klara hated tomatoes. But it was Evan's favourite, so he threw a few cans in the cart.

"You gotta look around man, people are frantic and scared." Alex scolded.

"Yeah, my bad." Tom sighed.

"No, his bad, he's a paranoid asshole. Come on my, I need you to be confident here."

"Right, yeah." Tom moved back to his place beside Ivy, making sure she didn't get hit by those passing by in a hurry. The shelves were bare in most places, large quantities of products were missing, leaving the less appealing options for the group, that didn't stop them, however. Alex and Tom were raised if you didn't like what was made then you didn't get the meal, they knew how to cope with foods they didn't like, Tom on the other hand had spent so many years eating the bare minimum that in his young adult age he was just grateful to eat.

Slowly they filled their cart with string beans, potatoes, bread, peas, corn, sop, noodles, and spaghetti sauce. They put items in a corner, making sure Ivy got what she could off her crumpled list, with the addition of other items they'd need. Klara reached over to a shelf, grabbing a box of salted crackers as another hand reached out to it. She cocked her head to the side, her eyes locking with Emberley's.

"I had it first, find something else." Klara. Spoke, trying to be nice, but it was hard when she hated the girl with a burning passion.

"No way, you got everything I wanted, I'm taking the food you want." She smirked as if she'd said something powerful.

"This isn't for me, it's for Evan and Brody, so fuck off." Klara pulled the box but Emberly wouldn't let up.

"You know he hates your relationship, right? That's one of the reasons I'm trying so hard to pursue Tom, because he wants him out of the way."

"I'm right here..." Tom mumbled while Alex stifled a laugh.

"We're broken up, Emberly." Klara rolled her eyes, "Whatever you tell me about him won't make me drop the crackers, seriously, just go away."

"No, no way." Emberly pulled her arm back, causing Klara to stumble forward. "You can't take Brody for granted, then wrap Tom around your little finger, then when the world ends you get both of them, that's not fair."

"Emberly, I can see this is about more than the box of crackers, so I think we should get going because that's just a lot of baggage I don't want to unpack. I'm sorry for what I'm about to do, truly." Klara offered a fake smile before grabbing Emberly's forearm and slamming her wrist against the shelf. Emberly cried out in pain, releasing the box as she clutched her wrist. "Seriously though, come near me again and I'll break your arm." She yelled as she threw the box in the kart, walking away.

"Where did you learn that?" Ivy asked excitedly.
"Alex taught me, he's taught me a bunch of cool self defence moves since we were little."

"I wish I knew some cool moves like that! There are these girls in my middle school, they like to pick on everyone, and I would love to teach them a lesson!" Ivy punched the air with her fists as Alex laughed deeply.