Shadowed

XXIX. Favors

MAYA

If I could write worth a damn, I'd use lists to remember everything. All the supplies I need to grab. All the favors I owe. Everyone who still owes me something.

I can read fine, but my hands shake whenever I hold a pencil or pen. All of that deftness and control that I put to good use during a fight just slips away.

So I keep it all in my head. 

Aaron needs weed. I once saw a girl, barely older than me, getting beat up outside a vape shop. Once I had the guy out cold with a trickle of blood running down his face, she told me through tears that he was her ex and he'd been stalking her at work for weeks. 

When I heard that, my switchblade was out in an instant. He was dead even faster.

That was nearly four months ago and no one's found his body yet. Sasha, the vape shop girl, says it's a miracle, a stroke of luck, but I think it's just that no one that cared whether he lived or died.

She owes me now, and she'll always pull strings to get me whatever I want. I steal through a cramped alley, keeping my back pressed against the rough brick wall, inhaling the sharp scent of cigarette smoke mixed with car exhaust. The back of the shop comes into view, and I pull aside the loose brick next to the back door, revealing the package Sasha left for me tucked away.

Brynn and Eliza need cash. The sisters are planning to catch a train out of the city at dawn tomorrow. Their brother Jacob died fighting the Hunters and they can't stand to be here anymore, the place they lived with him and the place they grieved for him.

I suppose that's one way to do it. Sever yourself from everything that ever reminded you of the person you lost. Run away from your grief instead of learning to live with it.

I'm not one to judge, though. It sounds like something I would do.

I can't afford to waste time grieving the dead. There are too many living people depending on me.

I bury my hand deep in the pocket of my jacket and pull out my last wad of cash. The money's from Donovan, who always pays me in twenties, and I quickly count out five bills and set them aside for the sisters. 

The rest, I use in a corner store, buying up food and blankets and an extra pack of cigarettes for me. Sasha's shop never carries the kind I like.

It's not the usual cashier, the one who never cards me. It's a new guy I've never seen before. He squints when I toss him my ID.

"You don't look twenty-one," he says skeptically, taking a closer look at the date on the card and then back at me.

I laugh, pretending to flush. 

"I know," I say sheepishly. "My mom always says I'm, like, incapable of aging. I've looked this way since I was sixteen, and I'm in college now, and everyone still thinks I'm, like, someone's little sister coming to visit."

He still looks doubtful. "What's a nice girl like you doing buying cigarettes, anyway?"

I almost laugh. I know for a fact there's dirt on my clothes, a bloodstained tear in the fabric of my leggings, and a rather obvious bulge under my waistband where my pistol is hidden.

Which, by the looks of this, I might have to take out if this guy doesn't let me leave soon. I'm running late.

"You work here," I say, keeping my voice soft and polite. "I don't think it's your place to judge customers based on what they're buying."

Now it's his turn to look sheepish. 

"You're right," he concedes, tossing me the package of cigs.