Page 55 of Cold-Blooded Creatures
Deep in the maze their compound was, people clad in colorful shorts, loose skirts, and billowing-in-the-breeze dresses filled the streets. Jealousy got the better of me as my ass began sweating in yet another pair of gray sweatpants. Someone had sneaked into my bedroom again last night and left a fresh set of men’s clothing.
I dabbed my forehead with my equally sticky forearm. As if triggered by the movement, a yawn broke out of me.
“You okay?” Jayla asked, rummaging in her backpack, the leather so worn, patches of discoloration covered it from the straps to the bottom. Each spot bore a resemblance to withering autumn leaves—exactly how I felt. Shriveling. Parched. Dehydrated.
“I’m fine,” I said. But concern didn’t ease from her scrunched-up nose and eyebrows, and I conceded, “I had a nightmare.” And spent half the night hugging the toilet.
It wasn’t like I could tell her what haunted me.
She fished around in her bottomless backpack and pushed a large lunch box into my hands. “Eat this. Sugar always helps. I packed it for later, but you won’t survive the day with me if you keep dragging your feet like that.”
I pried the lid of the battered box off, and a mass of squashed peach-and-cream eclairs greeted me.
“Does everyone eat this every day or what?” I asked, and gulped the saliva gathering in my mouth as the rich and sweet aroma of sugar powder, butter, and vanilla filled my nostrils with the next inhale.
Jayla seized the flaky goodness from the box, biting into what I bet tasted as sweet as it smelled, and spoke with her mouth full. “I wish. Gedeon forced Ryder to bake all day after he, uhm,returnedfrom the city with you. Ryder had to threaten to move to another compound for him to back off. Now we have to eat them all before they spoil. We don’t have the luxury of throwing food out.”
“Why would Gedeon do that? Doesn’t Ryder have a job?” I took a tiny bite out of a golden eclair, closing my eyes as cream and pieces of peach melted on my tongue. Godsdamnit, Ryder could bake. Like my life depended on it, I finished the rest of the pastry and licked my fingertips clean of the evidence.
“He does. But Gedeon said you liked pastries.” She said it like it served as a sufficient explanation and pointed to a one-story red brick building squeezed between its two twins. “Come on, this is our next stop.” She stepped through an open doorway covered by a feather-light curtain floating in the breeze.
I froze on the spot, ignorant of how the translucent fabric caressed my face. Gedeon had asked Ryder to bake. Because I liked pastries. No one had ever done anything remotely like this for me before.
“You coming?” Jayla drew the curtain aside and looked me up and down. “We’re getting you some clothes. You can’t walk around all the time wearing… I have my suspicions, but come on, we’ll get you into something more comfortable. No, fitting. And weather appropriate. You’ve got to be melting in those pants.”
“I don’t have any money, Jayla. Gedeon, or Zion too, didn’t exactly give me a chance to pack a bag.” Not like my finances had been great in Ilasall. Enough to survive and not starve, but that was it. Why would a person with a black band need more?
A fresh scent of citrus and damp soil rolled over me as I entered the store. Wooden, plastic, and metal shelves fixed haphazardly on the walls overflowed with folded clothing the colors of silvery stars, the early morning sky, the ripe peaches so hard to get on the black market in Ilasall, and the grass blades of the forest.
Everything I desired.
Pots and pots of varying shades of cream filled the center of the space with herbs I recognized and plants I hadn’t seen before. I crouched down to a palm-sized pot hosting a minuscule plant with seven tiny leaves. Basil. One breath, and the soothing fragrance coursed through my veins.
“What do you think of this?” Jayla held up a short black leather skirt with a slit on one side.
“I don’t think that’s very practical.” Where would I wear something like that? You wouldn’t be able to move comfortably in it. And I bet my ass would sweat even more.
“That’s not the point.” She scoffed and passed the skirt to the owner. “We’ll try it on.”
“You are coming to my show at Vice, right? It’s the first that I’ve organized by myself,” Jayla babbled, making a mess of the tidy space. She kept piling the clothes onto a polished wooden counter, where a gray-haired woman and her helper, a curvy teenager—I’d guess a worker, but they’d explained to meat dinner that a concept of a family and parents existed here, so maybe she was her daughter, whatever that actually meant—sorted them out and folded the fabrics into a neat pile. The pink-cheeked girl smiled shyly at me as I hovered in the middle of the store, wringing my hands together.
“Jayla, I’m not trying them on. I can’t buy anything,” I pressed. Even if I did, I’d have to leave everything here before I went back to Ilasall. A yellow oleander awaited me, hidden in an old shoe box my sneakers had been sold in, tucked away in the corner of my closet.
Holding up a pristine purple t-shirt, Jayla grinned. “We’re putting everything on Gedeon’s tab. He’ll have no choice but to pay.”
“In such a case, we can deliver everything to the central building, and you can try out whatever you pick there,” the elderly woman—the owner?—piped up, folding a pair of black cotton shorts Jayla had dropped onto the counter. “Keep what you like and send back what you don’t.”
“Jayla—”
“Na-ah.” Jayla interrupted what was supposed to be my plea for her to cease torturing me. “Don’t you dare say anything.”
She shook hands with the woman carrying smile wrinkles around her mouth and eyes, whispered something that made her daughter giggle, and shoved me out of their store. Noticing my discomfort, she explained, “Everyone knows Gedeon. He has a tab in every shop here. Probably in the other compounds too. And we’re using it today. Now let’s go get youeverything.”
We strolled through shop after shop, clothing, underwear, boots, lotions, and soaps, and Jayla chatted with the owners, as if she knew them personally. After the seventh store, I’d given up on keeping track of what she’d picked out to be delivered.
Each time she told them to put everything on his tab, she flashed me a devious smile. I had no idea what he’d done todeserve her ire, but I was beginning to like her. Her revenge methods were mischievous and a little wicked. She used me for her gains, but in such a method that instead of hurting me, it benefited me by creating a way to use Gedeon myself. That, I could appreciate.
“You said something about a show at Vice. What is it?” I asked Jayla as we exited yet another store. This time, thankfully, we’d hopped inside only to pick up her order and not another string of things she believed I needed.
