Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)(5)
The bell on the door announces my arrival. This is the moment when everything can fall apart and it’s best to abandon the plan and look for another store. The jingle distracts the cashier, and he tears his eyes away from Bex and sends them my way. It is now that he will decide whether I’m suspicious or merely disappointing to look at. This part of the plan is hard on my ego. I don’t get to be the hot one when we shoplift. I have to be the Plain Jane, only this Plain Jane looks like she sleeps beneath an underpass—no makeup, ratty hair, and a pimple on the end of my chin that could take out Pompeii. I tell myself that I am unattractive on purpose. If I strutted into this store looking all kinds of yummy, the plan would not work. Secretly, I hope that he can see past the grime. It hurts when they don’t, but it means we’ll eat.
He gives me the once-over. Blinks. Sniffs. Then turns back to Bex. Sigh.
“I am so lost,” she coos.
“Well, maybe I can help,” he says.
The Piggly Wiggly has four aisles and refrigerator cases on three walls. There’s a soda machine and a microwave and a hot dog carousel. In my experience, the necessities are in the farthest aisle and the stuff that gives you diabetes is front and center, stocked on low shelves so little kids can grab it before their parents can say no. I hurry to the far back corner, where I find the first thing on my list—soap. You don’t know how important soap is until you don’t have it. Two bars of Ivory go into my pack, then a tube of Crest, a small bottle of green mouthwash, and—oh!—I can’t believe they have dental floss! That’s been on the list since I started making a list. A couple rolls of toilet paper are making things crowded, but after weeks of using gas-station t.p. . . . well, that’s TMI.
You’re stealing again, Lyric? I taught you better.
Oh, hey, Dad! I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show up to make me feel guilty. Yeah, I’m shoplifting again, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and these are the desperate-est of the desperate times. I’m living in a car. I’m dead broke. I’m on the FBI’s most-wanted list.
The second aisle is where the term food is thrown about with loose abandon. Here I find peanuts coated in honey, peanuts coated in peanut butter, peanut-butter-flavored protein bars, yogurt-covered raisins, “diet” desserts. This is the stuff that’s killing me, but it’s easy to carry and never goes bad. I stuff as many as I can into the pack.
There’s not much happening in the next aisle. This is the Death Valley of all convenience stores: cans of motor oil, NASCAR T-shirts, dusty country and western CDs, and tattooed-girlie magazines. One shelf has a stack of those little tree-shaped car fresheners that smell like pine or green apples. I grab a couple and put them in the pack. The Caravan is getting pretty rank.
One more aisle and I’m out of here. I turn the corner and nearly fall over in shock. Food! Real food: apples, bananas, oranges, whole-wheat bread, cans of soup! In the refrigerator case nearby is milk, string cheese, bologna, pre-made tuna fish sandwiches, and a package of bacon. I have no idea how I’m going to cook it, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve got bacon! Getting it into the pack is a bigger problem. It’s almost full. Screw the toilet paper! I’ll suffer. Once the t.p. rolls are out, I surrender a bar of soap and the mouthwash. Sacrifices have to be made, but now I’ve got room for a half gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. The pack is now officially overflowing. I fight the zipper, then heft the whole thing onto my back.
It’s time to go. As I pass down the aisle, I notice a newspaper rack. USA Today has a picture of my hometown on its front page. Coney Island is a battlefield. Soldiers charge toward the sea, firing rifles at dark-skinned Rusalka leaping out of a massive wave. There are two figures rising above the whitecaps who don’t fit in with the monsters. I peer closer until I finally recognize them. The first is the prime, Fathom’s insane father and king of the Alpha. He was bent on an invasion of the mainland even when his people were at their most vulnerable, and now he’s got it. The second is his wife, Minerva, a cackling partner to his madness. More shocking to me is that it appears as if the prime is leading the Rusalka. How did the bitterest of enemies join forces?
Other papers and magazines give me more glimpses into the world I left behind. One reports on states rising up against one another, sending in their own militias to defend their borders. There are stories of lynchings and soldiers shooting people for trying to cross state lines. Food shortages are rampant, mobs, looting, and fires are a daily event. One paper speculates the tensions will lead to secession and to a second civil war.
But no matter what these papers are reporting, there is one thing they share: a hatred of Lyric Walker, teen terrorist-at-large. They use photos of me at my worst. Facebook shots when I was a little buzzed or a sweaty mess in the humid Coney Island heat. I look unhinged, a bad seed who’s been on the wrong path since she was born. I guess they can’t exactly use the picture of me in my tenth grade homecoming dress. I wore a vintage lace shift with rose appliqués that night. I rocked that dress. Nope, I’m public-enemy number one, and I have to look the part.
I tell myself that it doesn’t matter. I did what I could to stop everything that happened. They turned on me! They kidnapped my family and now I’m the villain? It’s more of the same old racism now that they know I’m only half human. I guess it makes me all monster in their eyes. Well, let the world burn. It looks to me like it’s getting exactly what it deserves.