§𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 | 𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐬

03.

§tain | chapter three ~ "look what the cat dragged in"

     Jade despised everything about shopping. If there was a decision between that and plunging into a pool of cool vomit, she would take the vomit. She'd tie her hair back, slap on a swimsuit and dive right among the thick bits. She hated the crowds, the long lines, and her aching feet after. She took no exception of the excessively mindful shopping assistants, the lively seasonal music playing through the uproarious P.A. system. All the special yet limited deals enticing her to spend the cash she didn't have.

     She even loathed the free food samples, considering them to be ideal flu spreading agents. Yet, one thing she could say was the least enjoyable was that she never needed to buy food for anybody either than herself. She could base decisions on not only the things she required and what she wanted. They stacked the ice cream freezer with every bit of her top picks, mint chocolate chip, cookie dough, snickers, twix, m&m, butter pecan, double chocolate chip, rocky road... but there was more, so much more.

     As her breath fogged the glass another customer cut before her, their cart essentially a hindrance among her and the frozen containers loaded with heaven, reaching in decisively. She stepped back, waiting until they finished, this wasn't something Jade rushed. Ice cream shopping was a perk she found pleasant. Following an hour or two of enduring other impolite shoppers navigating their way through the consumer trap, by restraining herself from slitting their throats using the heel of her shoe. She treated herself which was fine and cheap. Also, it helped her remember when she and her younger sister did it together. With the little pay she got in those days Jade figured out how to spare enough to get them their favorite ice cream.

      With a hand in one pocket of her leather coat, she strolled here and there looking at the prices just as the flavors. At long last she decided nothing beats good old chocolate chip and snickers. While the store played some sick pop tune softly behind the commotion of the customers and tills, Jade laughed internally at the silly covers of the magazines, tabloids, securely roosted on racks as she made her way to the self check out area. But she stopped short seeing a man donning black clothes with a ski mask covering his face, pointing what had all the earmarks of being a Glock 29 at a clerk. "Give me everything you have in the register and no funny business, pretty boy."

     Standing from a distance, she could tell that the person under the threat and crapping his pants was no one other than Romeo Vasquez. She usually came every other day of the week to buy her groceries, and the twenty something male implied he ought to be the one ringing her up. And having taking a liking towards her, he was always certain to ask whether she'd like to meet for coffee or try the new pizza place downtown. Since he caught wind that that was her favorite thing to eat. 

     Jade turned him down each time other than her not returning his feelings, he never abandoned his mission to make her his. Observing him now, utterly pathetic and incapable to take action against an impending threat, made her pity the poor human. Notwithstanding her irritation towards him and his dismal endeavors to get with her, she recalled when she also was helpless. The scene unfurling before her eyes constrained the last bits of humankind still holed up inside her to help, yet the viciousness, the darkness, ruled against the general thought, trusting blood will before long spill. And, finally, her yearnings for human flesh will become satiate. Jade battled the most noticeably terrible half of herself viewing the looter's unfaltering hand point the weapon at his unfortunate victim's head. "Faster." he roared as Romero revived his slow movements.

    "Yes, sir." his trembling voice as clear as the shaking of his hands dumping the hard-earned money into a grimy potato stack. Not too far from them a kid's trembling figure held by their mom's defensive arms, tore their eyes from the site, quietly wailing into her chest. Deep down, jade realized she needed to do something. Another kid wouldn't suffer at the hands of a gutless coward. Not when she had the power to fight. Setting her groceries aside, she slowly approached the robber. "Hey, you." she called to him. He didn't spare her so much as a side wise glance. Whereas Romero ignored her presence.