The Slut's Guide to Chess

chapter 23

There was a sweet smell that enveloped me upon entering Sonny's Pharmacy. The shop was lined with shelves of colourful medicines and it seemed as though the place had no employees. I assumed there were rarely robberies in a place like this to leave it so empty.

Arwyn was jittery beside me as he clicked his fingers into place one by one, the noise leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. His eyes met mine and he illuminated with nerves.

My footsteps echoed against the linoleum floor and I moved along the shop to the counter at the back. There was a door to the left that probably led to a supply cupboard. I threw my hands onto the table and the sound was harsh against the silence.

The door opened and an older lady hobbled out with a wide grin and crimson blush on her cheeks, so bright and pigmented that it was distracting.

"Well, hello," she greeted in a thick accent.

"Hi!" I smiled. "Are you Sonny?"

She laughed loudly, taking deep breaths so that the sound was like a 'ha! ha! ha!' that went on for too long.

"No, no. I'm Carol. Are you youngsters passing through? I haven't seen you before?"

I pulled my hands away from the counter. Her blue eyes were wide and eyebrows raised to her hairline looking almost hysterical.

"Yeah, we just got off the bus," I replied.

"What are your names then, honeys? Come from far?"

My smile was beginning to fall but I kept up the plastered excitement.

"I'm Nora, that's Nick. We're tourists from Germany," I lied and Arwyn made a strangled sound behind me.

"Oh, gosh. Germany, you say? That is brilliant!" She exclaimed. "Say, you don't sound German."

"Oh yeah, we listened to a lot of Elton John whilst growing up. Sound just like him, right?"

Carol laughed, again.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

The ghost of her chuckles still remained in the air causing the tension to blanket thickly.

"Yeah, funny stuff," Arwyn choked out. The look in his brown eyes was a warning directed towards me to stop talking. "I've actually got a really horrible migraine from all the travel and was wondering if you could recommend medicine for that. Maybe capsules or something."

Carol smiled widely and picked up the glasses that strung around her neck before placing them onto the bridge of her nose. "Of course, chicken. Come with me, I know exactly what you need for your little head." She walked out from behind the counter and took Arwyn's arm in her own. He was stiff with awkwardness. "Migraines are terrible, you poor thing. My daughter used to get them all the time."

As she pulled him away and into the depths of her shop, his eyes stared at me pointedly.

Nice one, Nick.

When I crept behind the counter, my heart was in my throat. It was lucky that Arwyn jumped in when he did because otherwise, I had no plan.

I heard Carol's high pitched voice across the shop as she talked about the different medicines and remedies for migraines. I moved to the door behind the counter and opened it slowly to reveal a cupboard full of shelves of more medicines. It was dark, lit only by a single lamp that sat on the small table amidst the shelves.

On the table, was a laptop that was opened to the pharmacy's account, clear from the desktop picturing 'Sonny's Pharmacy' in a block font. I clicked on the excel document and instantly, name upon name piled one after the other. Name, prescription, address.